Another blogpost that has gone viral. Nearly everyone in my mother-baby/birth Facebook world is sharing April Perry's post entitled: "Your Children Want You!" I hesitated to read it, thinking it would be another one of those I-won't-judge-you-while-I-silently-judge-you posts about parenting. Like all mothers, I worry because I don't remember if I served a vegetable last night, and if I did, if it was a super green one or an inferior yellow one, or perhaps it was even ketchup...or because my childrens' mismatched bed linens (gasp!) don't have a coordinating valance on the windows...or that they wear mostly hand-me-down clothes instead of those beautiful outfits modeled by children running in a golden wheat field, shot and photographed with a soft lens...and I feel guilty, like I'm not giving my children what they want and what they need. In short, that I am coming up short. And then I read a post like this -- by another mother who is working hard and is tired as she meets the demands of her growing children, just as her own mother gets older and needs more care. I realize that all my children want is me - their mother - to find their jokes funny, to read them stories, to hug them. I feel it in my veins that it's true, because if I could go back to the sweetest memories with my mother, they are not about the clothes she bought me or the way she decorated my room, and they certainly don't include non-processed, organic foods. The memories are vague now because of the years that have passed, but what is clear is that it's just her and me, and it's so visceral that it feels like it's happening today, yet simultaneously I grieve because not only is it not happening today, it was actually over so very, very long ago. But I knew it then, as I know it now - all I wanted and needed was my mother, and I had her. And so as I use the microwave tonight to prepare a monochromatic dinner from a box, I am confident that my children have all they need and want. |
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CategoriesA Baby Storybabies on TV baby blues birth on TV birth stories Boston breastfeeding doula life fatherhood motherhood natural birth natural childbirth new moms New Moms Groups newborns obstetrics postpartum TLC VBAC |
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