I wrote this as a contest entry and it did not win. That's ok. I wrote it for me anyways. So onto the blog it goes.
There is an Indian proverb “The moment the child is born, the mother is also born.” That phrase resonated with me more than any of the others I've heard on the subject. How are we supposed to take these helpless, precious little creatures and weave them into happy, independent, and complete beings when we've just had to become a whole new person ourselves? And there’s no growth curve, it’s just BANG! Someone hands you this new life, fresh from your body or adopted from someone else’s and says “Congratulations Mommy.” For me, it was the happiest and scariest day of my whole life.
There is an Indian proverb “The moment the child is born, the mother is also born.” That phrase resonated with me more than any of the others I've heard on the subject. How are we supposed to take these helpless, precious little creatures and weave them into happy, independent, and complete beings when we've just had to become a whole new person ourselves? And there’s no growth curve, it’s just BANG! Someone hands you this new life, fresh from your body or adopted from someone else’s and says “Congratulations Mommy.” For me, it was the happiest and scariest day of my whole life.
Thinking back, I was deliriously happy but very confused
about the kind of Mother I would be, could be, or should be. That’s when I felt
the first tug on that invisible thread pulling me back to my own childhood. I
have always been close to my mother and am so very lucky to have her in my
life. I had never felt more connected to her before, nor more in awe. It was as
if I had suddenly stepped through the looking glass and could now see a glimpse of the
world through her eyes. All those little wisdoms she had tried to pass on
before were suddenly translated into ‘Aha!’ This new, deconstructed woman I had
just become was so unexpectedly open to hearing it all. I became aware of all
the other threads connecting me to other Mother figures, and Mothering Mentors
in my life (some here, some gone, some only part of an oral history from my
family’s past) grounding me in this work of motherhood too. In those first days
of Motherhood all this happened intangibly, yet I began to stitch together myself
into a Mother while weaving a bond with my son at the same time. I have
anchored him to me through a sort of invisible umbilical because I am, simply,
his Mother. I can feel that bond as physically as I feel my smile or heart, and although creating the bond with my second son was
different it is just as strong.
The years while they were young felt very hard at times, and
I made so many mistakes but my Mother, and all those Mothering threads I am
tethered to, kept reassuring me and filling me with innate truths. “Let them
see you angry. People get angry.” “Your children shouldn’t think you’re
perfect.” “It’s supposed to be that colour.” “He didn’t invent that, you know.”
“No one even notices the mess.” “Don’t worry, he won’t go to college in
diapers.” “No, he’s not going to die.” “Don’t wish your time away.” So I tried
to remember to stop waiting for the ‘hard part’ to be over and take enjoyment
as it came, because something in those Mothering threads told me that there was
no ‘easy part’ coming.
Now my boys are 12 and 9 years old respectively. I am
learning, slowly, that I now have to start cutting the threads of their
umbilicals. Knowing which strands to cut, and when, is difficult and fraught with
misstep and worry; so much worry. Helping them take steps into responsibility,
independence, and self-sufficiency is full of so much drama and plentiful assertions of: “you’re the worst Mom ever!”. I suspect 'giving birth' to kind, peaceful, happy
men will be as painful as delivering them into the world as babies. I feel the ache of every cut thread
and worry the ones I’ll leave intact won’t be strong enough to hold.
My Mother always says “healthy birds leave the nest.” I
don’t know what that means as much as I feel what that means. So I try to weave
that wisdom into every day and into every thread I let loose between my sons
and myself. If I don’t mess it up too badly, I think they will fly.