The Mothering Bridge Across Time

I am a daughter. I am a mother. I am a grandmother. Three of my four daughters are currently immersed in the swirl of active child raising. I, on the other hand, now have a walk-on part instead of a lead role, on the motherhood stage.

My mother is in her late eighties and has retired from actively participating hands-on but loves receiving current photos and glowing revues of the antics of the children and grandchildren of the seven boys and four girls that she birthed and raised.

Mother is a generic name. Yell the word Mom into a crowd and it has the same effect as a hunting dog-whistle. All mothers are naturally attuned to that cry.

Motherhood is a secret society. No matter how much information about the experience of giving birth that you gather, it is an intimately personal experience tailored specifically to you and your baby. Each delivery is different.

Each baby arrives with its own personality fully formed. The task of mothering is to coax your baby and all its innate gifts and unique attributes into participating as fully and happily as your partnership will allow.

Children grow us just as much as we grow them. They are not empty vessels that need to be filled. They are a mass of potentials waiting to be uncovered and discovered. They are a bright light that, hopefully, will be guided and protected, not neglected but encouraged.

No other person will ever be as much a part of you. They start out tucked securely under the canopy of your heartbeat and though they leave the womb, it is always their first home.

One of the most satisfying and soul-calming experiences for me was when I would tiptoe into my children’s rooms at night and see them snuggled under the warm covers, fast asleep. The house would be quiet and still and I could exhale, knowing that they were all safe.

Mothering is all consuming. You carry impossible expectations that you can never actualize. You are the safe harbor that they tentatively leave one minute and then come rushing back to the next.

It is assumed that you are all seeing and all-knowing and always focused on the wants and needs of your family. For years, a trip to the bathroom without a little person banging on the door or yelling your name from another room, takes on the proportions of a luxury vacation.

Mothering is the most important and life-changing commitment you will ever fulfill. It can only be done wholeheartedly and once you enter into this commitment it will take you, lead you, push you, and drag you if necessary, head first into the unknown.

Here is the paradox. The job description will end. The soul connection with your children never ends.

You can quit a job, abandon a career, end a friendship, finish a project but mothering is the never-ending story that is filled to overflowing with what is most precious and perilous about this experience called life.