Ask most people about Michael Jackson’s parents, and they will tell you about his father. About the rehearsals, the belt, the fear. That story has been told a thousand times. The other half rarely gets told. Because there was a second parent in that little house in Gary, Indiana — and Michael Jackson described her, for his entire life, as the one flawless thing he had.
Her name was Katherine Jackson. And she is the reason anybody ever found out he could perform at all.
Her own account of the moment she noticed is the loveliest thing in the whole Jackson story, and she has told it herself. The family had an old Maytag washing machine that had gone wonky. When the agitator turned, it made a lurching, rhythmic clunk — not a smooth noise, a broken one, with a beat to it. And one day she looked down and saw her youngest son on the kitchen floor, wearing a nappy and holding his bottle, dancing to the rhythm the broken washing machine was making.
A Mother’s Regret: Katherine Jackson on Michael’s Childhood & Death (Full Documentary) | The Detail.
Katherine was a musician in her own right — she played piano and sang — and she was the first person in that house to spot what her children could do. It was also Katherine who talked Joe into letting Michael join the group at all, initially just as a backing singer and bongo player. Without that argument, there is no Jackson 5 with Michael out front.
Michael wrote about her in his 1988 autobiography, and it is the warmest thing he ever put on paper: “Every child thinks their mother is the greatest mother in the world, but we Jacksons never lost that feeling. Because of Katherine’s gentleness, warmth and attention, I can’t imagine what it’s like to grow up without a mother’s love.” Then he listed what she actually taught them: “Kindness, love, and consideration for other people headed her list.”
And there is a second story of hers that shows exactly how well those lessons took hold. Katherine has described being with Michael when he was still a small boy, and he saw people who did not have enough. He looked up at her and said: “Mother, one day I’m going to do something about this.”
He was a child. He meant it. Katherine watched him spend the rest of his life keeping that promise — sending boxes of food to people who needed them, paying tuition fees for children who could not afford school. Her verdict on it is a mother’s, and it is simple: “I was very proud of him because he remembered, and he gave, up until his last day.”
The bitterness he carried about his childhood — and he carried plenty — never once extended to her. Friends who knew him for decades describe her as the one constant he never fell out with. As his biographer put it: “They just loved each other unconditionally. Even when he was illogical in some of his decisions, she didn’t care — she just defended him and supported him without reservation his entire life.”
He also protected her in a small, funny way that says it all. When a television network wanted to make a series about the family in 1992, Michael had one condition before he would agree. Somebody beautiful had to be cast as his mother.
His will named her guardian of his three children. She has raised them since 2009. Her line about him and them is the one that finishes it: “Out of all the people in Michael’s life, I think Michael adored his children more than anything else. And they adored him.”