On Motherhood

What is a mother?

The definitions listed on Dictionary.com range from the succinct (…a female parent) to the technical (…a term of address for a female parent or a woman having or regarded as having the status, function, or authority of a female parent).

Singer/songwriter Kate Bush sings, “Mother…stands for comfort” but Roger Waters of Pink Floyd disagrees by saying, “Mama’s gonna make all of your nightmares come true. Mama’s gonna put all of her fears into you.”

Michael Keaton played “Mr. Mom”, Kathleen Turner racks up a high body count in “Serial Mom” and Danny DeVito wanted to “Throw Mama from the Train”, but Barbara Bel Geddes recalls that “…first and foremost, I Remember Mama.”

Whether you’re Mom, Mommy, Mother, Mama or Ma, this Sunday you will be honored alongside millions of other “female parents” for Mother’s Day.

I have a very vivid memory from my earliest days of motherhood. My husband and I brought our newborn son home from the hospital. Our drive home from Boston took twice as long as usual due to my husband driving 25 mph on the Southeast Expressway. “Slow down!” I hissed from the back seat as I hovered over my baby. Was his head tilted too far to the left? Were the straps too tight? Good God, was he still breathing? Phew.

Entering the house with new baby in tow, I heard a distinct popping sound. What’s that? Oh, right, that’s the sound of my safe haven, baby-hospital bubble popping. Taking in the disarray, clutter, hungry cats and recently delivered flower arrangements, my overworked hormones exploded. “What have we done?” I wailed, “We’ve made a huge mistake. We’ll never watch TV or read a book or eat dinner out or go to a movie ever again.”

Thankfully, twelve years later I’m happy to say that eventually we did do all of those things, and more. Last night I even left that “baby” in charge of his younger brother while my husband and I went to a friend’s party. But in those early days of motherhood, it seemed like someone had stolen my previously carefree life and replaced it with a duffle bag of insecurity, fear, anxiety and exhaustion.
What saved me? My own mother, of course. She timed her arrival from New Jersey to coincide with our arrival home from the hospital. And though she was initially nervous about handling my infant son (after all, more than 30 years had passed since her baby was born), she pitched in with rocking, singing, cooking, cleaning and most importantly, soothing (the soothing was for me, not the baby). When it was time for my mother to return to her own home, my mother-in-law arrived to continue the rocking-singing-soothing process.

With both families living out of state, I quickly realized that friendship with other mothers was the key to keeping my sanity. Over the years, I’ve relied quite heavily on my girlfriends, soliciting advice on every subject from rashes to fevers to the color of poop, on teachers and sports and whether my occasional use of an expletive will scar them for life. When your child is puking and there’s no way you can run to the store for ginger ale, a girlfriend always has your back.

The more I experience as a mother, the more I appreciate my own mother. She too was a stay-at-home mom, and I don’t ever remember her having girlfriends over or going to Gymboree or story time at the library or any of the other activities I did to help fill the hours until my husband arrived home and could give me a break from the kids. When my sons forget to pick up after themselves, or leave dirty dishes on the table, or chase each other around the house screaming, I think about how my mother must have felt dealing with the very same issues, except she had three shrieking girls instead of two loud boys. God bless her.

When do you stop being a mother? Never. You are a mother from the time your child is placed in your arms until long after your body has left this earth. I’m blessed that my mother is still with me (not everyone is as fortunate) but I know that long after she is physically gone, the memory of her love and the lessons I have learned from her will stay with me forever.

To all the moms who might be reading this (especially my own): Happy Mother’s Day!