Motherhood
Mothers day is Sunday, it’s not an easy day for me, but i’m working on it.
I never wanted to be a mother, my whole life it wasn’t even a thought in my head. I’d hear other women talk about having kids and everything they dreamed of in that area, and I couldn’t ever picture myself in that place. I wasn’t just terrified of it, I felt nothing. That place in me that might naturally long for it, was just empty.
Let me say that I don’t believe that being a woman means that you want kids, or will wants kids, or should want kids. There is no should or shouldn’t here, this is simply what I’ve experienced in my walk into womanhood. And womanhood is much more than motherhood.
I never wanted kids, I never wanted to be a mother…And then I turned 30.
Suddenly that shifted, call it biology, call it healing, call it maturity, call it whatever you want. But there was a longing that lived in the depths of me that I couldn’t understand, but it showed up.
Without going into deep detail, i’ve been open about my childhood trauma and as you can imagine this longing terrified me. I was full of fear that I could not be a good mother.
I didn’t want it until now.
I didn’t have a stable one myself.
I didn’t know what a healthy childhood looked like.
I was sick to my stomach thinking I would give whatever children I would have the same upbringing as my own.
I could not accept that motherhood would mean giving what I had. I couldn’t do that to my non-existent, just a thought, just a longing, children.
Amongst many, this is one of my driving forces to go to therapy and heal my wounds — the possibility of having children and giving them the best mom they could have.
So for the last few years I’ve been trying to honor motherhood on mothers day so I can change the narrative I have in my head about it. So I can learn from others. So I can grieve and stop hiding from the pain.
This year is no different, and my outlet to do so is to give space for two mothers that I know and HIGHLY respect to share their thoughts on motherhood.
Reading what they’ve shared with me, it is clear that motherhood is not something that most feel qualified for. It is clear there is a heavy weight, and cost, that comes with it. The vulnerability to share that side of the motherhood experience is beautiful to me.
These two women, are people that I look up to greatly. I glean from them, I pay attention to the way they walk through this life, the way they own themselves, and without them knowing, they are crucial women in my story who have given me strength to become the woman I am today. I am thankful for them, I am thankful for their honesty and vulnerability, and please enjoy what they have to say about motherhood. I hope it blesses you the way it has blessed me.
With Love,
Sarah
Motherhood.
By Amanda Hudson
Just the word itself gives me an “imposter syndrome” complex. I think that probably has something to do with all the things that “shouldn't have happened” become a reality from conception to birth, to first milestones, to our actual parenting style. When I hear the word “motherhood” I don't even think of myself sometimes. Not because I don't love and cherish my son, quite the opposite really. But because it's so easy to go down the rabbit trail of all the things I’m not and all the characteristics of a motherly/nurturing woman and how I don’t feel those characteristics attach themselves to me let alone come “natural.”
Something motherhood IS to me is strength. Having a hard day is more than just a hard day for a mom. It’s like you yourself are having a rough time, and also feel 110% responsible if your child is having a rough time too. On days when I truly do not know how I even made it to 9 pm without catching something on fire are the days that I can lay down in my son’s twin bed with his paper star light dangling above me and be thankful he still wants ME close to him when he closes his eyes.
There have been times when I’ve had tear-filled eyes because of the utter weight of responsibility of raising up a respectable human. If I’m not careful, it could crush me. But instead of allowing that to happen, I do my best to channel that determination and make sure he at the very least knows he is loved and accepted and that he can always come home and release the tension of his day and be vulnerable with me as his support.
My goal has never been to raise the next president, or lawyer, or astronaut, etc. It's been to raise an honest, empathetic, kind boy and let him have the space to discover who he is and to know he has the space for it with me. I just want to be present for that. Everything else, I pray will fall into place if THAT part of the equation is nurtured.
On Motherhood and other things……
By Anonymous
I have to confess I don’t feel as qualified to write on this topic and I’ll be honest, that going into writing this turned more into a personal journal entry than an actual blog post. Like the kind of journal entry that reveals way more things to process than I was aware of. So, enter at your own risk. I am currently 30 weeks pregnant with my first and the last 30 weeks have tossed and tumbled me in ways I wasn’t expecting or anticipating. I also would not consider myself the poster child for pregnancy or motherhood. I was never the person who dreamt of being married or having kids. Definitely not me. Yet here I am. Life has a funny way of opening doors and slamming doors in your face in some of the best ways possible.
The more and more I’ve stepped into understanding this path to motherhood the more and more I realize I have none of my shit together (let’s be real, who actually has their shit together?). There are so many resources out there for child-rearing, birthing, and breastfeeding, but where on earth are the resources for the shift that happens within the momma? The shift of metamorphism that begins the moment you see those two lines that read positive on the pregnancy test.
The struggle for me, stepping into motherhood, is to either fight this looming thing that I cannot fully grasp or comprehend or to surrender to it. Surrender to the process that is taking place within me. I’m not just talking about the life that’s being formed, I’m talking about the stretching, growth, and fight that is happening within my own soul, within my own identity. It’s the shift and process that happens to many of us who step into a new space that confronts what we’ve known and who we’ve known in ourselves. Within this process of fight and surrender, I’ve realized that there’s a lot of grief that surrounds motherhood. Don’t get me wrong there are many joys to motherhood but there’s also loss within it. Not many like to talk about it because of how nuanced it is, but it’s there. Whether it’s an estranged relationship with your own mom, saying goodbye to the independence you once knew pre-pregnancy, failed pregnancies, infant loss….motherhood can and often does contain grief.
I see you.
For the ones who have experienced this side, I acknowledge that this grief exists. It deserves a name, it deserves a space, it deserves to be felt….
For the ones that feel the sting this May 9th…..
I see you.
Holding space for the dichotomous relationship between the grief within motherhood as well as the joy of motherhood is something I am still grappling with. Surrendering to who I am becoming and grieving the loss of pieces of who I have been is something I’m still in the middle of trying to figure out, and you know what, that’s okay. I hope that if you don’t take anything away from this you take away that space can be made for both processes. Both surrender and fight can exist in and within one another, they are not mutually exclusive. Grief and fight can co-exist, grief and surrender can coexist. Wherever you are, in your process, may you give yourself the permission and compassion to hold and be with both.