Motherhood

"Motherhood brings as much joy as ever, but it still brings boredom, exhaustion, and sorrow too. Nothing else ever will make you as happy or as sad, as proud or as tired, for nothing is quite as hard as helping a person develop his own individuality especially while you struggle to keep your own." -- Marguerite Kelly and Elia Parsons



I am a mother. With all that entails. All of the sticky fingers. All of the untied shoes. All of the slamming doors. All of the dates. All of the broken curfews. They are all mine.

And each child that presents me with these things, these dilemmas, every day presents me with another way to think about how I respond to them and mold their lives with some input...but eventually, they become who they are going to be. I find I delight in the discovery.


It causes me to think back on what it must have been like for my own mother. The potential I had! The possibilities! What a landscape that lay before me..so much different than the days when women were expected to find a man and get married, I grew up in a time where college was an open door to me. I could choose from so much.

Yet, the decision I made was to marry and to have children. To be the housewife. And I do not regret it. I loved every minute of being a homemaker, raising children and being a wife. But I look back, with a bit more wisdom now and think, "Oh, now I see all the possibilities I had...and what I could have done and the things I could have had. And I still could have been a homemaker...." I understand now, perhaps some of the regrets and disappointments my own mother might have felt in me. I could have had so much more.

But living in the past has never given anyone more today. And so, a couple of years ago I took advantage of those possibilities and graduated with my degree. I am working at a very satisfying job now with great opportunity for advancement. I like where I am at in life. I like who I am in my life now.

And this makes me a good mother. In so many ways. It draws on the values and good that my mother was able to instill in me...and there was so much. There are still so many days I think, "I wish I was more like my mom."

And it trickles down to my kids. They see me in a different light. I am more confident. I am self assured. And in this, they get a better me. They take away a better them. We are open with each other and respect each other more.

In life my goal is not to create little people who are just like me...God forbid. My goal is to create individuals, who can think, create and be themselves, without fear of what that means. I am proud of who they are so far. I only see good things for them right now...my worries are small. Sure they have bumps in their roads...some of them are going to be hard, but I have confidence that they will be able to handle them all with the personalities they have. They are strong, stronger than I was.

And isn't what this is all about...motherhood? Building a better mousetrap?

Happy Mother's Day Mom....I miss you and think of you every single day. From one mouse to another.