I’ve recently been touching a deep grief filled stillness within me that is related to motherhood.
I have been incredibly fortunate in my life. Growing up I never doubted I could be whatever I wanted to be.
I remember in 4th grade we got an assignment to write about what we wanted to be when we grew up. I wrote that I wanted to be the first female president.
I remember my parents chuckling a bit when they saw it, but I also remember distinctly feeling like they were proud of me. Like I had done something right.
“My little girl is going to BE something!”
My mother was the main breadwinner in our household. She has her doctorate. She was a full professor of computer science during the internet and computer explosion of the 90’s and early 2000’s. (She just retired last year). A more prestigious, accolade-worth profession I can’t really imagine.
My mother, a woman in a man’s field, and I, a little girl who thought she could be president, are the traditional feminist’s wet dream.
Growing up I had a picture of who I would be: a woman in a black pantsuit and stilettos, cellphone in one hand and luxury brand purse in the other, walking down the street of some big American city with the world in the palm of her hand.
No where in that picture was there kids or even necessarily a partner.
A woman who could drink, work, and fuck as much as any man, and look damn good doing it.
That was what feminism made possible for us, right?
Growing up it was my grades, my future profession, my ability to “contribute to society” that were always centered.
The possibility of becoming a mother was a side plate.
Becoming a mother was something that may or may not happen. It wasn’t the main course.
In my teens and early 20’s becoming a mother wasn’t something I was remotely interested in.
I wanted to make my mark on the world. I wanted to make something of myself. I wanted to make money. Have lots of fancy stuff. I wanted a life full of adventure. I wanted people to respect me.
At this point of my life, my perspective was: becoming a mother would actually be a hindrance to the things I wanted for myself.
And this is what we are told by society; motherhood robs you, it wrecks your body, it’s hard, exhausting, and painful.
They say things like: “You’ll never sleep again!” “You’ll never travel again!” “Your breasts will be flat and saggy!” “The stretch marks!” “Your dreams and money all down the tubes!”
And for those of us raised by feminist mothers and a feminist culture, we had no other foundation or experience to lean upon.
We believed that motherhood, if we did it at all, was just a little thing we’ll do on the side of the big thing we’ll do in our careers.
At worst we downplayed, rejected, loathed, and shunned the idea of motherhood and the softer feminine aspects of ourselves all together.
At best we feel disconnected from our innate maternal instincts and were confused about how to integrate our softer parts; leaving them to shrivel.
Some of us may feel ashamed by our desire to stay home with our babies. Or we feel so victimized by the financial burdens of our modern lives we tell ourselves it’s not possible to stay home with our babies. We feel torn between our desire for a career and our desire to be a mother. And because of the way our culture operates, we cannot really do both as well as we believe should.
Not having the space or guidance to enter knowingly and gracefully into the invitation of transformation motherhood offers.
If we do have babies we are supposed to act as if it didn’t happen. Our bodies should bounce right back, we should go back to work after 6 (or less) weeks. If we don’t revive our pre-baby selves quickly and painlessly we are told it’s postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety or pathologized in one way or another.
Since becoming a mother, I have wrestled back and forth with my desire to be with my kids and my desire to be “productive.”
In a lot of ways, relative to the main stream, I have followed the deeper truth in me when it comes to my babies.
I birthed both completely outside of the system and naturally. Neither of my babies have ever seen a pediatrician or had any unnecessary poking and probing.
I believed in my body’s ability and innate knowing through the process. That experience gave me so much confidence in myself and my ability, which is what the portal of birth is about, no matter how you actually ended up giving birth.
Birth shows you what you are; a portal between worlds.
I do ecological and extended breastfeeding. I co-slept initially. I trust my Knowing when they are sick or needing something extra. We eat a nutrient dense and whole foods based diet. I use herbal remedies on myself and them. I lead my family’s health care from my womb and my instincts first and foremost.
And yet, there is such a deep, deep programming in me around motherhood not being the central thing that I have put myself in a position where I have had an internal battle raging inside of me.
This battle is around my productivity and being a mother.
Productivity says: clean the house, organize the house, post on social media, respond to texts, make sure you’re making money, ‘contribute’ to the family, build your business, look hot, workout, meditate, make dinner, … and on and on.
Being a mother says, be here now, look into your daughter’s eyes, delight in her presence, include her, lay in bed with her, snuggle with her, play with her, keep her life consistent and predictable.
Productivity says losing sleep at night is painful. Being a mother says, this is a phase, take a nap with them, be still and feel their bodies pressed up against yours.
Productivity says you cannot not work. Being a mother says, these babies need you, not someone else. It is such a short season, you can figure it out.
This battle has been raging in me since getting pregnant.
I read recently that pregnancy is actually a very protective physiological state. We always hear about how stressful pregnancy is on the body, but progesterone is the most dominant hormone during pregnancy. Energetically progesterone increases a woman’s ability to assert boundaries, connect with something bigger than herself, prioritize her own needs, and makes her more resilient to stress.
Pregnancy and birth are natural states for a woman.
Pregnancy, birth and motherhood are not inherently exhaustive states for women. It’s the expectation of how much else we should be doing that is exhausting.
And this is where the grief starts to bubble up.
The grief for myself, my mother, and all the mothers who have felt that the job of motherhood is not innately valuable in itself.
There is something about becoming a mother that makes you see your own mother so differently. Since I became a mother my own mother has shared things with me; like maybe she would have loved to stay home with us; maybe she would have had more babies if she didn’t have to work so much.
I believe there is a soft and tender spot of longing like this in a lot of women going untended or ignored because of this belief that being a mother isn’t enough or isn’t important. That being a mother and doing the basic tasks of mothering isn’t contributing to the family, when, in fact, it is what makes a family.
Imagine, if we saw and heard the stories of natural and empowering births from a young age?
Imagine, if we saw women who valued their own role as mother as much as our culture values the role of a tech CEO?
Imagine, if we shared the feminine arts of nourishment through generations and women of all ages felt their power and influence in the health and well being of the next generation?
I wonder if we would feel that motherhood was so exhausting then?
I feel so much grief for the ways I’ve not allowed the sweetness of being with my daughters to penetrate me because I was lost in thought or frustration about something else I thought I should be doing.
But, I am done with this internal battle.
I will be a mother that puts mothering back at the center for this short period of my life when that is where it should be.
Motherhood is not something that happens to us. It is not something to be hidden and tucked away to the side. Motherhood is the main event of our lives. It happens for us.
It can be the big initiatory event that brings us from maidenhood into adulthood. If we are willing to let it take us all the way down. So that we can rebuild ourselves anew; as the matriarch of our own family. Matriarchs shape our culture.
It can be the thing that reminds women of the power that lives within them and how to allow the healing nourishment of the still and soft mundanity that is holding a family.
Motherhood is the purpose we’ve all been searching for.
It is the thing we were born to do.
Mothers who center motherhood. Families who center the family. This is what the world needs.
Under our stiff, rigid, and productive exteriors we are longing for the permission to melt into the role of mother and matriarch.
I will be that permission.
Feminism and Valuing the Medicine of Motherhood