Motherhood: A Hinderance or an Honor?

I can’t believe I’m a mother.

If you’re meeting me for the first time and you’re wondering how many weeks postpartum I am, the answer is 508 weeks. My kids are 8 and 9 years old and I still can’t believe I”m a mother.

My husband just walked down the stairs yelling “Daddy has solved the remote problem (the remote saga is another story for another time).” Hearing the word “daddy” was a brief reminder that me and this guy I fell in love with got married and created humans.

As I write this, I’m sitting in the bathroom after a long day at the apple orchard with my best friends and our kids. Two of us birth mothers, one of us a godmother, the three of us constantly navigating what it means to care for and raise children in this world.

Thirty minutes ago my daughter and I came in from the almost two hour journey home from the orchard. I had all the plans to strip the dirt ridden clothes off of my body and hop in the shower as soon as possible. As I got naked, my daughter came to me crying that she had a really bad headache. I wrapped myself up in my Ankara wrappa and went downstairs to grab medicine for her.

I put her in the bathtub and told her to take her time. As I was about to leave, she yelled “I have a nose bleed!”

I took a deep sigh. Everything in me wanted to yell at her and tell her to leave me alone because I was tired and I just wanted to rest. Instead, I stared at her slightly horrified face and I took another breath. “Ok,” I said, “let’s rinse your face.”

For just a few more minutes, I was putting my needs to the side to make sure my baby girl was cared for.

As I reflect on all of this, I think about Issa Rae. Partly because I’m currently on episode 8 of the new season of Project Greenlight. I thought about Issa’s previous words and fears about how kids slow you down. I didn’t ever want to agree with that sentiment, but after the last six months of me intentionally turning my body, mind, and spirit towards my children, I can’t help but feel like there may be some truth to that.

When my kids were 1 and 2, I decided I was going to start traveling. I needed some me time. I needed to get away, travel, have fun, breathe and come back a better, more whole person. As you can imagine, I was criticized for that. I was called an absentee mom and I was told I was living like a single person.

My husband was on the fence about it. He understood my needs but he was challenged by the way I wanted to fulfill them.

Fast forward a few years, my husband began advocating for me to take trips and eventually family and friends began to congratulate me for taking the time I needed for myself. People hadn’t seen moms do that often. They didn’t understand why I thought I had the permission to just up and leave my kids with their father. Imagine. A whole dad being responsible for his own children for more than an hour.

I’m grateful for a husband who not only is extremely involved with his children but advocates for my freedom as a mother.

About a year ago, (about 4 years after my vacation implementation) I felt like it was time to slow down. I wanted to travel a little less and spend more time with my kids. I wanted to know them deeper and pay attention to their needs. I wanted to look at their school calendars a little closer and sign them up for extracurricular activities. I wanted to be more patient and less chaotic. I wanted to spend more time in my home and less time abroad.

I wanted to be a different kind of mom. I started to think about all the adjectives I wanted to use to describe the mom I wanted to be (thanks to my therapist — the phrases “good mom” and “bad mom” were excavated from my vocabulary). I wanted to be a present mom. A reliable mom. I wanted to be a kind mom and a fun mom. I wanted to be a mom with boundaries for my kids and a mom my kids wanted to be around. I wanted to be a balanced mom. A happy mom. A fulfilled mom.

And I began to shape my life to reflect those things. I took a deep breath before screaming at my kids for things that weren’t actually their fault (7/10 still working on it). I put a calendar together a month ahead so I can get ahead of trips, needs, spirit weeks, and holidays.

I slowed down. Intentionally. Which felt a lot more dignified. I felt more in control. Going back to Issa’s thoughts, I do think kids can slow you down, especially in the beginning. Between people’s perceptions and the needs of the family, you can feel like you have to toss everything aside and tend to them. But you don’t have to. You choose to. And if you know you’re not in the place to sacrifice yourself, health, career, ambition, or dreams just because you’re a mom, you don’t have to.

You may have to sacrifice some things. Maybe sleep. Maybe a few relationships. Maybe a few hours on social media. Maybe lunch dates with that classmate from back in the day that you barely talk to but you’re trying to build relationships with women so you say yes to going out anyway even though you’d rather be home in your bed eating snacks and watching tv.

I think, choosing to slow down feels so much better than being pressured or guilt tripped into slowing down. Doing it at your pace. At your desire. And letting yourself tell you when it’s time for that.

I still can’t believe I’m a mother because I used to think moms looked a certain way. It wasn’t until I learned how to be a mother my own way, that I actually began to honor it in a new way.

I have always been present. Always aware and always loving towards my children. But in life, there are levels to everything, and I’m ASAP Ferg out here.

Motherhood is hard and it comes with so many challenges. Like choosing to wipe my child’s bloody nose even though I really wanted to haul ass into the shower. Or taking time to charge her phone while she’s in the shower so it can be ready for her when she comes out.

I want to be the kind of mother that serves my children. That nurtures them and raises them in the most well rounded way I can. I want to be the mom that they reminisce on and say “she was an amazing mom growing up” I want them to tell good stories of me as well as the bad ones. Because I know there will be bad ones. And funny ones. And I love all that. Because that is the kind of mother I want to be.

What I truly want to highlight, is that mother hood will always have it’s ebbs and flows. You rarely get to decide what those ebbs and flows are but you can have a control over how you show up and move through those moments.So when I think about the question, is motherhood a hinderance or an honor, I will say it’s both, at the same time. But I will also say, you get to choose what that means for you. You get to choose how you navigate those things and be the mom you want to be.