Through Mom's Eyes: Simple Wisdom From Mothers Who Raised Extraordinary Humans by Sheinelle Jones - 14

The Best Gift You Can Give Your Child Is to Nurture Their Interest, Love Hard, Pray Hard, and Let Them Live Out Their Dream

Pam Woolley, Brandon Maxwell’s mom

Pam Woolley has Norwegian goats that she swears “can give you a back massage” and hens that she promises lay “the best” eggs, daily. She also has a son who went from draping his little sister in bedsheets as if they were haute couture to dressing some of the most famous and fashionably dressed women in the world. Think Michelle Obama, Blake Lively, Meghan Markle, Jane Fonda, Queen Rania of Jordan, Viola Davis, Nicole Kidman, and Kerry Washington. Oh, and his mom, Pam.

The daughter of a fancy Texas dress shop manager, Pam has enjoyed her share of exclusive designer dresses but, to be clear, her favorite designer of all time is Brandon Maxwell, her firstborn child.

Pam raised Brandon in a close, blended family in Longview, Texas, which, according to its website, is a hub for fun. “We are blue skies and fish fries,” the site boasts, highlighting a string of attractions like ArtWalks and Wine Swirls, just in case fish fries aren’t your thing. Brandon is one of Longview’s most famous native sons. All beautiful trees and serene country landscapes, the pictures of the place would make a great screen saver. But, as every parent knows, pictures rarely tell the whole story. (If the outtakes from your family’s holiday photos look anything like mine, you know what I’m talking about.)

Pam and Brandon’s dad, Mike, divorced ten years into their marriage, when Brandon was seven and his little sister, Kady, was three. Pam remarried and had two more children, Ben and Bianca.

“I will not lie to you, it was really hard,” Pam says, with warmth and Texas flowing through her accent like melted butter. “It was really hard because I had Brandon here at his age, doing his thing, and then his sister, and then I’ve got babies at home that need to sleep—it [was] hard to balance it all. But we made it through.”

As so many moms, including my own, acknowledge, Pam’s not sure they would have made it if she didn’t have her own family to lean on for support. “Brandon had both his grandparents here [and] aunts, uncles—so there was always somebody at every event. There was a lot of help. You’ve heard it takes a village, and we had that here in this town.”

Day to day, Pam may not have said it out loud, but she took the Serenity Prayer approach to life—controlling what she could, accepting what she couldn’t, and trying to understand the difference, which, for moms, is almost never as easy as we wish it was.

“I was pretty orderly,” Pam says. “I did not let them go to school without a hot breakfast. That was important to me.” The rest, she admits, was sort of up for grabs.

With a handful of children of multiple ages to juggle, Brandon, her oldest, had to learn to adapt to change early. Luckily, Pam’s parents were always willing to pick up the slack. Whenever she couldn’t pick Brandon up from school, he’d just walk right around the corner to his grandmother’s upscale clothing boutique. It was the type of place where clients would call needing an outfit for an event, and Pam’s mother would set out a rack full of clothes with matching accessories—shoes, earrings, purses, the works—while little Brandon watched his grandmother do her thing. It wasn’t called this back then, but his grandma was a killer stylist.

“I’m gonna get emotional for just a second,” Pam says, tearing up. “I was very particular about who my son was around, who was taking care of him and watching him. He would hang out there, and he got so much attention, so much love. I was very blessed. I think a lot of that love of what he does designing clothes came from that, watching my mom.”

Brandon has talked a lot about how he knew from a young age that he was “different” and how he would go to the library in middle and high school and look up the word gay , hoping to get information. “There were a lot of things that I went through at that age when I felt unsafe,” he explained in a 2022 article in Vogue . “It was like, if I walk into this room, is someone going to say something to humiliate me? Are they going to do something where I’ll be physically unsafe?” So, Pam’s particular attention to his comfort and safety when she wasn’t around, was intentional.

“I did see his insecurities,” says Pam. “He questioned himself a lot. But I think deep down inside, it’s almost like—Brandon has said this several times—‘lean into what the hell you are.’ And he was always leaning. He was always moving in that direction. He was true to himself.” Brandon has often said that despite his early insecurities, his dreams to create something big were stronger than his self-doubt.

Brandon didn’t officially come out to his mother as gay until he was home after his first semester at Manhattanville College in New York. Brandon’s version of the story, in that same Vogue article, goes like this: “I told my mom in the Starbucks drive-thru…. While we were ordering, I was like, ‘Mom, I’m gay.’ And she’s like, ‘I know,’ and we kept ordering, and that was pretty much it.” His grandparents had a similar reaction.

“As a parent, the best gift you can give your child is to nurture their interest, love hard, pray hard,” Pam says, “and let them live out their dream.” His family had always done this, taking notice of his interests and creative gifts and wholly supporting them.

It started very young, with cameras and photo shoots. He would position Pam in a certain way and take her picture. “He was, like, a creative director already at the age of four,” she says. “I kid you not.” He loved drama and singing and writing his own plays to perform in with his cousins and friends. “At the age of six, we had a stage made for him,” says Pam. “We all lined up our chairs and we watched…He was just that creative kid.”

She doesn’t come right out and say it, but she’s offering up a dose of “mom wisdom” about the power of bearing witness to a kid’s efforts and dreams. When I was young, my sister and I “performed” for countless hours by ourselves. There was no one to watch us and we didn’t care. I would also make up dance routines in the basement, blasting music on my favorite hot pink and turquoise Casio tape recorder with no one else around. But occasionally, it was pretty cool when I had a “showcase” and an adult would sit and watch what I created, even if it was my babysitter. There’s something uniquely affirming about, literally, being seen (says the little girl who grew up to be on TV every day). I think we all need a little dose of that on a regular basis, especially as kids.

Pam says Brandon was just ten years old when he started requesting that everything—his bedroom, clothes, and shoes—were all Ralph Lauren. In middle school, he would scour beauty supply and thrift stores to design outfits to make his girlfriends look like the fashion models in their teen magazines, then he would take their pictures with disposable cameras. They trusted his eye for what worked in person, and on film.

“I’m telling you, he was always critiquing what I was wearing. And believe me, I was asking, ‘Do these earrings look okay? Do these shoes match?’ ” Pam laughs. “He had it.”

Listening to Pam reflect, it’s clear that she didn’t just patronize her little boy’s interests, she genuinely encouraged and enjoyed them. She didn’t try to change her son or steer him in another direction, even when his passion for fashion led him to literally tear her clothes apart so he could reconstruct them—never mind that the original designer was Oscar de la Renta.

You read that right: he once cut up her Oscar de la Renta dress and “redesigned” it. (Imagine my screaming-face emoji right here.)

“I will tell you,” Pam says, smirking, “I made the mistake of storing my nice dresses in a closet next to his bedroom. I guess he thought, because they were upstairs, that he could just take those dresses and just make them whatever he wanted to make ’em.” There are lots of reactions one would or could have to finding an Oscar de la Renta dress cut into pieces and “redesigned.” Pam, it seems, didn’t lose her cool. At least, not all of it. “That was my mistake, putting them up there next to his bedroom,” she says.

Despite that bit of handiwork and Brandon’s obsession with Ralph Lauren, Pam says he was good at so many things, she didn’t think her son would become a fashion designer. She just knew he would ultimately find his ideal creative outlet—and he did.

He became a photographer, then interned with some legends in the business before becoming a top stylist (including for Lady Gaga), and today, Brandon’s eponymous collections are sold in high-end stores around the world, including Saks, Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, and Harrods. He also serves as creative director for Walmart’s Free Assembly and Scoop brands, proof of his ability to please a broad cross section of customers at different ends of the price-point spectrum.

For more than a decade, Brandon has defied the odds in a fickle industry where even talented designers can quickly come and go. For a time, his father, Mike, was his business partner. Today, he has a stack of prestigious fashion awards and Pam could not be prouder. Of course, wins rarely come without losses. In 2024, the family endured the devastating death of Pam’s husband, Gordon, after a long illness. He passed away two months shy of their thirty-first wedding anniversary and his obituary refers to Pam as “the love of his life.”

Brandon spent all the time he could with Pam and Gordon during the last year of his stepdad’s life, grateful for the chance to lean into Pam’s strength and say goodbye to Gordon, whom he describes as “the best man ever.” Brandon says Pam has been “leading the charge” in their journey through grief with grace, just as she did when her first marriage ended. My family, like Brandon’s, is a blended one. It’s never easy, but most children of divorce learn that when a marriage falls apart, not everything else has to. Pam was very intentional in setting a course to help her children navigate the transition from her first marriage to her life with Gordon.

After remarrying, Pam was determined to fully reset her family’s closeness. She admits there were tears, sleepless nights, and pangs of guilt when her first marriage didn’t work out. She prayed and leaned on her faith to get herself and her kids through it.

I can only speak from the perspective of a child on this one; my own mother was going through a second divorce when I was in eighth grade and I definitely noticed her initial stress, but what I remember most is her resolve. She told me we would get through it, and we did. I watched her grow stronger and happier and I learned that beautiful things can bloom in the most unexpected ways from what may feel like a tough situation. Yet even a mother’s love isn’t a cure-all and Pam acknowledges that each of her children faced their own unique challenges and dark times over the years.

Very soon after I became a mom, I was sharing my general anxiety with a friend who told me, “Every kid has something.” She said it with a shrug, but it struck me, like a warning. Watching other families, and my own as it has grown, I’ve come to see that it’s true. Especially when you have multiple children, it seems like there’s never a time when your concerns for at least one of them aren’t keeping you up at night. When that happens for Pam, she seeks support from friends and, rather than pace all night, she says she gets on her knees and prays.

“I mean, that’s just life,” Pam tells me, giving off the kind of blanket acceptance vibes that usually don’t come until a crisis has passed—and your kids are grown. Not that a mother’s fretting over her kids is ever done. I have more than a few older mentor-moms who I turn to for advice. With kids out of college, the house, and their pocketbooks, there’s not a lot they haven’t been through. Now that I’m in the teen-zone, they coach me to hang in there, console me with hugs, and counsel me with this-too-shall-pass wisdom. But when I say things like, “It must be nice to be where you are—your kids made it to the other side,” they roll their eyes. “Grown kids, grown problems,” one seasoned mom tells me. Motherhood can be bumpy, they say, and can test you in ways where all you can do is trust that, while it may take some time, everything really will work out.

“I didn’t quite know that back then,” Pam says, smiling. “My dad would say, ‘This too shall pass,’ and I remember saying, ‘I want this to pass, like, right now!’ ” She cracks herself up laughing, and continues, “It is the truth. This too shall pass. And you know, I think too [kids are] better off for going through some struggles, you know? Some hard times. It was not always easy, but we’re good now. I’m blessed with four great children, all of them living out their dreams, their true self. How great is that for me, to witness it?”

The witnessing is sweeter because Pam has reached the other side of her own trial, with cancer. She was diagnosed in November 2018, just three years after Brandon made the leap from successful Hollywood stylist to becoming one of Hollywood’s “it” designers.

Super busy renovating and moving into a new house, Pam canceled her mammogram appointment. “I thought, ‘My mom’s never had it, I can skip a year.’ ” Not long after, she noticed something odd about the shape of one of her breasts. Her daughter Kady urged her to get it checked out, and the diagnosis was a shock.

“So, don’t skip your mammograms,” Pam warns. “My doctor told me if I had waited just a couple more months, we would’ve been talking a different story.”

After giving Brandon the news, he wrote in a post: “The woman that gave me life calmly and bravely explained that we would be embarking on a new journey with her. As only the most selfless and strong mother could, she used that moment to assure me that WE WILL be ok.” I thought of how many times my mom said that to me. I have said that to my children. It is probably the most universal Determined-Mama Mantra in the world.

Brandon juggled his New York filming schedule as a judge on the hit TV show Project Runway with frequent flights to Texas where Pam endured countless doctor visits and months of treatment. Recalling how all of her kids adjusted their busy lives to be there for her, just to make her life and the new house move as stress-free as possible, she says proudly, “I was surrounded by the best.”

The following year, Brandon dedicated one of his 2019 fashion collections to Pam, referring to it as the “physical manifestation of the strength my mom and so many women in my life have shown.” He went on to say, “If you have followed my journey from the beginning then you are probably aware that my relationship with my mom is not only the reason I do what I do in this life and career, but it is the reason why I have kept going so many times when I did not have the strength.”

One of the things I admire about Brandon is his humility, and I’m betting he gets that from Pam. She sees his path as being about more than just cutting fabric or designing clothes; he’s using his natural gifts to help women feel beautiful, sophisticated, and powerful. And she says that, even now, walking into a store and seeing his name on his beautiful garments still feels like a “pinch me” moment for both of them.

In 2016, about a year after debuting his women’s ready-to-wear line, I remember seeing a picture of Brandon Maxwell with supermodel Naomi Campbell on the red carpet after receiving an award from The Council of Fashion Designers. It was a big deal to be named among past winners including Vera Wang, Tom Ford, and, yes, Oscar de la Renta. There he was, with the stunning Naomi Campbell on his arm, saying to a reporter, “Imagine being a slightly overweight kid from East Texas, being nominated for womenswear designer of the year, and you have Naomi Campbell as your date. You would almost fall over from a stroke. In that moment when I was up there looking at everyone, I thought, If nothing else ever happens in my life, this happened to me .”

Brandon just couldn’t believe it was happening. But you know who believed all along? His mom. The same woman who thrills at going into a department store (with her Spanx!) to try on Brandon Maxwell designs. The proud mom who could barely contain herself when on one shopping trip she found that his clothes were sold out. The vivacious survivor who loves telling the story about the first time her son gifted her a gown from his collection (“It was absolutely gorgeous,” she gushes. “It hit all the right places, and I couldn’t believe I was actually wearing my own son!”), but who almost lost it the first time he created a dress for her idol.

“We used to come home every day and watch Oprah ,” Pam says, remembering a really painful stretch in her life while Brandon was still a child. “When I was going through those struggles of a divorce and everything…my therapy was to write. When the kids were in bed at night, I used to write on a cheap yellow tablet, you know, just write letters. I had to address it to someone, and I used to address ’em to Oprah. I never mailed them, but it was my therapy, you know? It was my thing.”

So, when years later, that same little boy who cut up his mom’s fancy dresses designed a gown for none other than Lady O herself? Well, that just about took Pam’s breath away. He has now dressed Oprah several times along with other A-listers like Issa Rae, Octavia Spencer, Jennifer Lawrence.

Oh, and his mom.

My mother raised ten children. I was the seventh child and first girl and she taught us all the power of praise. I inherited a practice of praise from her. As we praise, God becomes bigger and our problems become smaller. When I’ve walked through hard times in my life, praise has been a proven path to victory.

—CeCe Winans, Grammy Award–winning gospel singer