Motherdom
Mother-hood. Does that come from the collective nuance of neighbor-hood? As in there would be a hood I.e. village in your reinforcements? Or does it just indicate a hood over your eyes throughout the years you’d be expected to raise your offspring with no written manual? I find myself in the second proposition.
The dictionary merely states motherhood as a state of being a mother. For all the shit we navigate in the dark, it should be something more regal don’t you think? Motherdom perhaps?
First order of business is to build lists and plans on how this child-rearing gig is going to go. All the checklists, research, books, internet, everything you can get your hands on to build, cultivate, nurture this helpless being that will come to you soon. You know everything you're going to do right, baths, bedtime, nutrition, classes, developmental activities, smart toys, car seat, anything you have read about that is crucial to keep this being safe and successful in life.
My first was born after a very long wait in laborious labor. She was perfect, I used to whisper in her ear “you are kind, you are smart, you are strong” like a mantra I was hoping would be engraved in her heart and somehow that would come true. Put it to the universe, and it becomes the truth right?
Then I had my second, came very quickly, minimal labor in her arrival into this world. But golly nothing was quick or minimal since then for three fucking years. She didn’t latch, she didn’t sleep, she cried oh saints she cried. Goes without saying, the whispers were replaced with my whimpers “please please please help me”. The universe seemed busy with other more pressing matters. No manual, nothing like expectations falsely promised from the first experience with my first born. All the things I thought I was going to teach her, good food, good rest, enrichment play all replaced with trudging through survival. But this passes as the days do.
Then they get older, my oldest a smart cookie aeons beyond her peers, her firsts vastly varied from her peers, first words at eight months, planets and their compositions by eighteen months, fifth grade math by six. Second child witty as hell, humorous, milestones on track, cuteness beyond words. Some of it I link to my magnificence, most of it I assume the universe reached its back log to find us. But now we watch Thomas and Paw Patrol and Lion Guard on fucking repeat, mostly because I have to work and Thomas, Chase and Kion keep them still and safe for a couple of hours I need to indulge in labors outside motherhood.
Then suddenly with their inches increasing, so does the deep glint in their eyes, the wheels turning manifestly. Asking worldly questions like “what bends light?” or “why aren’t we doing anything to save the oceans” or why are people dying by police force?” Then we realize we’re nearing out of our depths, thank the fucking forces for google. They don’t only have questions, then come the suggested solutions to more problems,”cow farming causes a large portion of the world’s carbon emissions, we should stop eating cows.” Whelp, we’re pescatarians now.
Then my oldest has the audacity at age four to stand up in front of a conference of two hundred members of environmental industry stakeholders to have them jaw dropped. This flawless courage I had never had, how could I have imparted it on her. All this growth is within her soul gem, growing and moulding her into something I couldn’t have ever imagined.
That courage shows through her fiery stance too with her sister on the opposing end screaming all the wrongs committed against her. Screaming of offenses, defenses, slamming of doors, I watch this on the sidelines, most times in amusement but other times in curiosity of the outcome. Eight out of ten times it ends with concession and hugs and wiping of each others tears. Compassion and love for each other I wonder if I have modeled or drilled into their brains or perhaps its the soul gems within them. I decide the reasoning is immaterial to the making up I just witnessed, I’m in awe at the resolution in tenderness, sans my intervention. This holy gospel of love and forgiveness is innate as it presents itself.
How and when do they grow? I can’t keep up with their shoe sizes what more the dalliance in their brains and character. This constant frantic chaos to grip on to something to be the guide, the teacher, the mentor is conflated with the fact that I’m fucking clueless and googling this shit to keep up. Now how do we define motherhood? A state of being a mother? What in the world does that mean? For now it’s a race against time, love fueled, persistence, perseverance and tolerance and acceptance of my inferiority to them on so many counts I secretly admit. But that is exactly what I want in this toil. I want them to be smarter than me, stronger than me, braver than me. I am a mother, that means I will observe them, stand by them and believe them and stand up for them no matter what. This is Motherdom.