Over the last three years, I have alternately struggled with or accepted my new role of Mother. It’s not so new anymore, although in a few decades (God willing) I am sure I will look back and think three years isn’t so many…
It seems to come in waves, my bouts of existential dread, and the feeling isn’t that different from how I would often feel in my mid-twenties as I searched for a foothold in this vast experience called life. As a young woman, I sneered at being “defined” even as I searched so longingly for definition.
I can’t escape it any longer. I have labels despite my wishy washiness. I am Mother, and I am Wife. Even though that’s not all I am, those are in fact my most important jobs.
I write this post immediately after settling my little ones into their naps, whipping up a batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and popping them into the oven, and shoving yet another load of laundry into the washer on a Thursday afternoon. It struck me, as I mashed the butter into the egg substitute, that this is my life. And it isn’t so bad.
Sure, I have bad moments, bad days (I had to have a beer last night, totally breaking my no-alcohol-during-the-week rule) and bad weeks and bad seasons!, but all in all, I couldn’t be luckier. I told a friend yesterday that I wish sometimes that all I wanted to be was a mom, that I didn’t long for something else, something more validating, something that made me feel like a person in the world. And then last night I read something that made me feel better:
“Just bear in mind that, whatever your other gifts or callings may be, you are the only mother your children will ever have. And you are your husband’s only wife.”
This is from “Mom to Mom, Day to Day: Advice & Support for Catholic Living” by Danielle Bean. I’m reading it for Jesus Moms’ Club. Any book with the word “Catholic” in the title makes me take it less seriously, but I have found that Bean’s style and her stories make her message relatable to people like me, who still feels like I’m trespassing when I bring my kids to church.
The fact that I have to be the best mom my kids will ever have because I’m the only mom they’ll ever have hit home for me. I might as well embrace the job, because who else is gonna do it?
P.S. Thank you, commenters and people who called me, for your responses to yesterday’s post. I know all of those things in my head, but as I’ve learned, my head and my heart don’t always communicate effectively.
Great post, and great post yesterday. Sometimes you just need to vent, and I am glad I am not the only one who loses it over somewhat trival things – but they are not trival – they are the spark that finally ignites the fire that has been smoldering all day, or all week, or all month.
p.s. the blog is live
http://unpredictably-jaxmom.blogspot.com/
I so agree. I forget the exact words, but I think Jackie Kennedy once said something about all the things you do in life, if you screw up the job of being a Mother, then nothing else really matters much. And, back to yesterday’s post, of course we all have our moments or days or whatever of screw-ups but as long as the screw-up is not the usual norm of the job we do!
This is weird.
I was at the same point with you and Kevin that you are with Kyle and Brady. It was the mid 70’s when all kinds of things were happening in young women’s lives that were so different from where I was in my life. I felt inadequate as a woman and it took me a while to realize exactly what you have expressed here. And I had no Mommy friends because all my friends had graduated from college and were beginning their careers.
Like mother, like daughter !
On another note – you should use this picture for your profile!
And people please note the Red Sox outfits!
First things first, MomHOP I definitely noted the SOX outfits with glee.
KTP, this was an awesome post – in fact you’ve been banging out awesome writing left and right these days.
While I can’t relate to Mom world (yet) I totally get your lines about life in your twenties…and imagine someday, in the midst of being a mom myself (hopefully) will remember your words in this very post.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120951025037054311.html?mod=fpa_mostpop
I thought of you when I read this. Somthing to consider when you’re ready.