The other day my six-year-old daughter, with a sympathetic expression, put her arm around me and said, “It must be hard to be a mother. You don’t get to do the all things you want to do.”
My heart lurched. Clearly, in this time of craziness and overwhelm, when I haven’t been at my best, I’ve given her this impression of motherhood – of my life – that it is lacking in some way.
As mothers we can do this without meaning to.
Once, when I was about her age, I was snooping around in a cabinet in our farmhouse. I loved snooping as a child. I would find treasures, clues, letters, artifacts, mysteries–plenty to make my imagination run wild and come up with stories. (We didn’t live near any other kids to play with, so I had to get creative!) Anyway, in this cabinet I happened upon a single piece of notebook paper. On it, written in my mom’s familiar cursive handwriting, was the first page of what looked like a story. I don’t remember exactly what it said. I read it quickly and put it back, decided it had been stashed there because she didn’t want anyone knowing about it. At first I thought How very thrilling! My mom is writing! She had never mentioned wanting to be a writer, and I’d never seen her write anything else. Then I thought, How very sad. She had never mentioned wanting to be a writer, and I’d never seen her write anything else.
I don’t know what happened to my mom’s story. I was afraid to ask, because in my heart I knew didn’t want to hear this answer : That motherhood replaced her passion. That all her energy was spend on us, so she didn’t have time or energy to follow her dreams.
Mothers have martyred themselves in their children’s names since the beginning of time. We have lived as if she who disappears the most, loves the most. We have been conditioned to prove our love by slowly ceasing to exist.
What a terrible burden for children to bear–to know that they are the reason their mother stopped living. What a terrible burden for our daughters to bear–to know that if they choose to become mothers, this will be their fate, too.
Glennon Doyle, Untamed
That day, the finding of that single piece of paper with the start of my mother’s story, is one of my core memories, and it still makes me a bit sad. As sad as my six-year-old pitying me as I complained about not enough time to myself during quarantine.
Does she see me disappearing? Will she find my unfinished novel someday, and think that I gave it up due to motherhood?
I want to use these moments and this memory as fuel, as reminders to myself that I never want to give the impression to my kids (or believe the lie myself) that being a mother means my dreams and desires must disappear – or even wait twenty years while I raise my kids. I would rather show them that my motherhood experience did not delay my dreams. There is no reward for martyrdom in motherhood.
I think, the world says, people tell me : Just enjoy your kids! Pay attention to them. They need you! Yes, this is true. But I need me, too. I want my kids to see me thriving as a mother, not just struggling through it. That is a hard goal, especially during times like this quarantine, when it feels like you are drowning sometime in dishes and noises and distance learning assignments. However, I feel both “needs” can be met without feelings of guilt or stories left unfinished.
coffee, then words 