On Being a Mother

That in which I fail and succeed...like all parents do.

I never realized what being a mother meant until I became one. I had (and have) a mother and my sister is a mother and my husband has a mother and they have mothers (some alive and some not) and on and on. You would think that with all of the mothers in the world there would be some kind of handbook or something that would guide us through and let us know what we need to do to be the best mother for our children.

But then you have to remember that every mother is different because every child is different and every family is different. You can have two families who live in the exact same house and work the exact same jobs and have the exact same children in the exact same order born on the exact same days and you will have two completely different families.

Like I said, you think you know what being a parent means. You observe others and you read books or watch television programs or talk to other mothers but it's still something that is so unique to you that I don't know if it's possible to "get" it before that baby changes your life forever.

I am not going to lie. I complain about the inconvenience of being a mother all the time. If not out loud, then in my head.

I am always tired. And now that Willow is teething (which means no more sleeping through the night) I sometimes feel like the 7th circle of Hell is the one where you never get to sleep. Sometimes I feel like a zombie and I wonder how I get through the day. And I try so hard to put on a non-tired face for Willow. She is only 16 months old, but she can still pick up on my feelings. What I do is I tap into her bubble of wonderfulness. I look at her beautiful face and listen to her contagious laughter and see her insatiable curiosity and it gets me through the day...most of the time.

But, like me, Willow has bad days too. And lately she is cutting the dreaded first molars and my life has a little more Hell in it so I have been a bit frazzled.

Like I have mentioned recently, I am reading Between Parent and Child. And reading the different situations outlined in the book really stir some emotions for me. I think it's because my childhood was so very unlike what Willow's childhood will be. And I think it's my drive to be the best mother I can be for my daughter and the best wife I can be for my husband that makes me ask myself how the parents in the book could possibly talk to their children the way that they do.

Then I remember how my parents talked to me and I wonder why they never thought to read this very same book, which was originally published in 1965. Did they not love me as much as I love Willow? Didn't they want to be the best parents that they could be? I think the answer to both of those questions is yes. Yes they love(d) me and yes they wanted to be good parents. And I really think that, they gave it a go the best that they knew how.

Being a mother is the most challenging thing I have ever done. Being a wife doesn't even come close. Not that sharing your life with another person is easy but it gets easier as the years pass. Being a parent is the single greatest sacrifice anyone can make because when your child is a baby your life and time are not your own. And I am okay with that. Heck, even if I wasn't okay with that I would have to be okay with it since it is my reality.

So, why am I writing here? I am writing here about my life and my situation since I am frazzled and it helps to get it all out. And because I know there are people out there like me who feel what I feel and can by sympathetic to my sleepless plight. And because I will need, in the future, to be reminded of these days gone by when all I had to worry about was getting a good night's sleep.