Something about Motherhood

Thursday, May 12 is the last meeting for the Home School Co-op that I help direct.  In arranging the agenda for the meeting, I was looking for something to read to the other women who will be in attendance.  I was unlucky and decided to write something myself.

Here is that something...not yet edited.  I need to let it sit a day before reading it again.
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When looking for something inspirational to share at tonight’s meeting --- because that is what it is all about to me; leaving inspired, leaving energized, leaving with unmitigated contentment that I am right where I should be; I began to look around my bookcase for something to stick out, I began to Google, “Inspirational Words About Mom” and after so many poems about mothers and blue birds singing, I decided to write something myself. Thank you for indulging.


Mothers:

We all know how we want to be, how we want to be perceived, how we want to be like the others who keep their cool in the worst of times. But, little do we know that others are looking at us, having the exact same thought.

How can we even begin to try to capture what it means to be a mother, both in the most daily mundane and ordinary ways, and in the deepest parts of ourselves? How can we present some sort of truth about bearing and caring for children, when that takes place wordlessly inside the center of our soul?

When I gave birth to my now almost 14 year old, who stands a good inch taller than me and wears size 11 shoe; I declared to the world that my son would never know anger. Motherhood is one of those things that is totally impossible to visualize until you are in it. Until you have cleaned the spit up off your shirt, while simultaneously putting your daughter’s hair in a pony, while telling the person on the phone that you WILL be bringing the treats to the T-Ball game, while staring down your oldest, showing great disdain for his most recent and inappropriate behavior.

Yes, you think it will be a certain way – you will have infinite patience, you won’t yell, you’ll sit on the floor for hours, reading to your quiet lovelies, and you will buy organic spaghettios, but motherhood is all about turning your world upside down. Who coined the phrase, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water?” Was it a frazzled mother?

In this room, there is only us. Mothers to God’s incredible handpicked gifts. We are so lucky! We are mother’s who feel and love and who do the best we can, struggling and laughing more than we thought we would, and yelling and learning and regressing and pleading, sometimes crying out in frustration and then, a little later, in gratitude for the blessing of being mothers.

I want to thank you for being here tonight. Thank you for carving out the time that is knowingly so hard to come by. Thank you for sharing your story of being a mom. Thank you for continuing to be a fervent supporter for the woman to your left, the woman to your right and the woman who isn’t able to be here this evening.

I close with a quote that does not necessarily tie this essay into a neat little package – like I was hoping for, but this quote struck me and I was moved to share it.

“Having a child is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”