I don’t think we fully appreciate our mothers until we ourselves have become a mother. Bringing home that incredibly miraculous little baby is often the most joyous moment ever! Then the totality of demands for that tiny new life 24/7, 7 days a week for the next 18 years are fully realized. And that is just the beginning. That brand new life depends on you and your new mothering skills to survive. Keeping house, basic self-hygiene, planning, and cooking dinner become a juggling act. Most women also hold down a job while adjusting to motherhood as well. A mother wears many hats over the course of raising a child to adulthood.
A Baby Changes Everything – The Beginning of Motherhood
A baby changes everything in a woman’s life in a colossal way. Babies do not come with manuals. Even if you did read “What To Expect When You Are Expecting,” chances are that your little darling did not get the memo. Being sleep-deprived and still recovering from childbirth begins the challenge. On the job training will require washing mother loads of laundry, changing tiny little pooped on/puked on outfits, an outrageous number of diapers and crib sheets, burpings, and feedings. Let’s not forget bathing a very slippery sometimes screaming baby. If you are blessed you will be able to discover how to catnap when the baby naps. If not, then you walk around in your zombie state brain fog winging it while your hormones take a nose dive. I cannot even begin to think how mothers do it with twins! One baby changes EVERYTHING!
The Younger Years – Middle Motherhood
Babies grow up quite fast! The pain of childbirth fades. More children may enter the family dynamics but they too move beyond the baby phase into children. Motherhood now resembles something like stepping on lego blocks, repetitive verbal requests, endless hours of unpaid dispute refereeing, and taxi-driving to sports, music, and tutoring classes. Children, not necessarily mothers, are fond of games of repeat. Repeated book reading, repeated favorite movie viewing, repeated questions, repeat, repeat, repeat. Pre-School, Kindergarten, Grade School, Middle School, getting teeth, losing teeth, braces on teeth all become a blur. Teaching them on tricycles, bicycles, skates, and skateboards all rolling by. Swimming lessons, beach days, park days, amusement parks, and zoo experiences fill the calendar as the years pass. Coaching, cheering them forward, endless prayers and best wishes pour forth as the moments zoom by. A mother earns teaching, nursing, and counseling degrees in the younger years.
The Teenage/Young Adult Years – Crazy Motherhood
Just when you think you might have mastered motherhood teenage rebellion enters the scene. Psyche! Mothering feels like a train wreck on any given day of the week as boundaries are challenged and rules are broken. Gone are the lego blocks, trikes, and the games of repeat. Bicycles turn into a car. Heart be still! Teaching a teen to drive requires nerves of steel plus a calm directing tone of voice to hide the internal freak-out. Hormones enter in stereo from both sides in combustible flare-ups and loud discussions. Higher education decisions and career goal choices are being made. First job, first paycheck, first debit card, first car, first date, first prom, and first wreck are the beginnings of adulthood. Doors being slammed shut both physically and symbolically while other doors are being opened. To mother or not to mother, to pull close or let go, God only knows in this stage of crazy motherhood.
The Finale – Empty Nest – Motherhood
And then, almost as abruptly as it began, like a tornado comes and is gone. So are they! The house is so quiet. Mothering is no longer an all-consuming, 24/7, 7 days a week, 18-year contract. The gig is up! The adjustment thrust upon you requires you to rediscover yourself. Time to counsel and cheer yourself on. The boundaries that once held you in place securely have now been removed. Freedom may feel uncomfortable at first. But get ready! This season, like all the seasons and stages preceding it, is only temporary. Soon, they will return, with little ones of their own to be mothered by you GRANDmother. Empty nests do not stay that way forever. Motherhood returns in disguise, in a part-time way, allowing you to take it in slower paces. This time with more wisdom and patience because we know all too well how fast it goes by. Have a Happy Mother’s Day!
Adorable pictures! Happy Mother’s Day!
Thank you!