Sparks and Butterflies...

Dear Michele,

Your prompt for January’s collaboration is “mother.” Please write about your role as a mom and how it’s changed the woman you were, positively and negatively, and how you feel about this role. Has being a mother made you a better person? Did you always know you wanted to be a mom? Explain your relationship with your mother and how it’s affected the mother you are today. What makes a mom a good mom? What kind of mother do you want to be to your children? What would you like them to remember about you?

I look forward to reading your entry.

Cheers,
Rasee

I’ll probably post this at Motherless as well. It’s hit a few buttons for me so I’ve been putting it off.

My role as a mother has changed me, yes. Not so much “me” but more my own perception of myself. When I started out, I wanted many children – always have. I wanted to be a stay at home mother, white picket fence, lots of kids, the works. I’m starting to realize now – now that my reality is so very different from my young dreams, that it was more about what I didn’t have than what I wanted. What did I get? A strong marriage, two special needs kids, no money, and the necessity to work for the health insurance for the kids, living next door to my parents in a craptastic sham of a house. Only two. I can’t handle any more – physically, mentally, fiscally, you name it.

I realized that I don’t think I am a good mother. I realized I have no patience. I realized what my limits were, and that it was important to recognize them. I want to do the things that in my mind make a good mother – but at the end of the day it’s as if I don’ t have any more in me to give. Do I think that motherhood has made me into a better person? Actually, yes. It’s made me, with all our problems, recognize the big picture, and what is and isn’t important in the grand scheme of things. It’s made me more tolerant if some things, but totally less patient with the bullshit – I don’t have time to coddle a grown up.

And of course it all always goes back to the way I grew up. At first I was terrified I’d end up being like Jeannette. Not a maternal bone in her body, and no real need/desire/capability of making real relationships. I thought maybe it was genetic, so I aborted my first pregnancy at 21 years of age. I could have made it work, but pressure from my ex and my fears of being genetically incapable of love both won out. It was later that I realized (when I met my husband) that I really did have the capacity of true love, and there was something in me for someone else to love. Ironically, we lost our first baby too. All my life, I both compared myself to, and fought against the genetic legacy of my biological mother. When our oldest hit 4 years old, I thought, “Okay… Here’s where I find out if I can stay. Here’s where I find out if I’m truly like her.” – but I stayed. I had no thoughts of leaving, of giving up. That’s the age I was when she abandoned me.

As for my mom (great-aunt, the woman who raised me) – She wasn’t your “typical” mother either. Older than the other kids’ moms. Generally sickly. Concerned with her own elderly mother. Absolutely NO interest in the PTA. But she loved me I knew that. She was (and is) neurotic and crazy and exasperating. But has ALWAYS been there for me. In an weird way. I called to tell her I was getting married, and she knew before I told her (she didn’t even know I was dating – it was a difficult time in our lives). Each pregnancy & the miscarriage – told me before I had the chance to tell her. We’re connected. but it can be a strange conflicted adversarial challenge for power. But she’d die for me or her grandkids.

I have no real “quality mother” role models for motherhood, so I struggle. Hoping I’m not visiting the sins of the past onto my children. What do I want them to remember of me? That I loved them. Wholeheartedly, with everything in me, forever, without a doubt – and that I did really try my very very best.