Thoughts on motherhood

Mother’s Day can be a complicated day for many, and I have always had mixed feelings about the day. Often the stage of life I find myself in, also dictates the scale and intensity of those mixed feelings.

As a young child it was mostly about finding the gift that would please my mother and always falling short. Over time that turned into feelings of both resentment and shame; feeling like I should be more grateful and appreciative and at the same time, feeling so conflicted on the inside, because it felt inauthentic to pretend that I had a good relationship with my mother when at times that was truly not the case.

Then, there were the years that I yearned for and tried hopelessly to conceive where I truly hated and resented the day. I hated being badgered by family members about when we were planning to start a family. I felt deeply hurt by some of the assumptions people were making about my capacity to even be a mother. It’s funny how misguided people’s assumptions can sometimes be. And how often we can get stuck in our own worldview and don’t appreciate what someone else might be experiencing. I know we have all been guilty of this at times.

After years of struggle and a difficult and painful pregnancy, I was given the most precious gift – a daughter, and suddenly everything changed. My experiences with infertility allowed me to appreciate what a truly precious gift motherhood is. I realised once again that I was able to carry two deeply contradicting emotions at the same time. I could feel deep joy and gratitude for the gift I had received and at the same time feel shame and guilt about having finally brought a healthy baby into this world when so many women around me were still struggling with fertility and loss, and longing to have a child of their own.

I have been truly blessed in the arena of motherhood. After being told I would never have children and enduring painful and lifechanging surgery, I carried and birthed two beautiful children. And they are the best things I have ever done in my life. My children have helped me grown in ways I never thought would be possible. And in so many ways they have been instrumental in the healing of my own childhood trauma and in finding my way back to my own mother.

I have also been fortunate enough to know so many mothers in my life – women who loved and supported me, who saw the best in me, who encouraged me, and who loved me at times when I was unable to love myself.

My final conflicting emotion around Mother’s Day is that I don’t consider it a day where I need to be celebrated in any specific way. Rather, I consider the day a reminder of the gift, the honour, the privilege of being a caretaker in this world. No matter how you became a caretaker – some of us bear our own children, some of us adopt our children, some of us simply care for those around us because it brings us joy – it is a privilege to serve in this way, and to witness the transformation of little people.

Nothing reminds us so powerfully of the passing of time as watching our children grow up in front of our eyes. There is this saying that the days are long, but the years are short, and I have found that to be so true. Some days sleep and patience is in short supply, and it feels like you are going around in circles. Motherhood can be isolating and lonely at times.

Even though they say it takes a village to raise a child, some mothers don’t have the support of a village. They go it alone, and so few people truly know what these mothers endure, what they sacrifice, how much they love, how much they cry, how much they pray, how much they lose themselves sometimes. And yet, if asked to do it all over again, they would do it in a heartbeat.

I recall a client recently sharing her struggle with motherhood with me. Her partner walked out on her shortly after the birth of her son and she raised her son by herself. Her son was her inspiration to keep going through many hardships, and she raised an impressive young man who is a testament to the good she has done in the world by being a mother.

Despite all this, she also shared that if she was told she could not have her son unless she was willing to go through all she had gone through, she would go through it all again in a heartbeat, because having her son was the best thing she ever did.

On the days when we can lift our heads for a second and slow down to notice, we also appreciate how short the years can be and how fleeting time can be. One moment they are small and helpless squishy little things that snuggle against your chest, and the next moment they are off to school, then college, and before you know it, you are looking at a fully grown adult and it feels like seconds ago they were just a baby.

There is nothing more joyful and painful at the same time to witness a piece of your heart walk around outside your body. There is nothing that can truly prepare us for motherhood, because for each person, it’s their own journey.

Last year I read Lisa Marchiano’s beautiful book, Motherhood, and one phrase stuck with me. She said that if you never have kids then you might be able to get through your entire life believing you are a nice person, but having kids makes you question yourself on that, because sometimes motherhood also brings out the worst in us and takes us to the deepest, darkest parts of our soul.

Marchiano equates the journey of motherhood to the ultimate hero’s journey. She explains that typically on the hero’s journey, the hero ventures out into the world to face certain challenges and through their experiences they gain new insights and transform, before returning to share their wisdom with those in their world.

When it comes to motherhood, the journey is not outward, but inward. You visit the deepest, darkest crevices of your heart and soul, you confront your own demons, and if you are lucky, you reach the other side having healed some of your original childhood wounds, and having healed that, you can then share your wisdom with your own children and guide them on their journeys.

However, ultimately, we must never forget that our children do not belong to us. They are merely lent to us for a brief moment in time. This poem by Kahlil Gibran captures it best: