mothers

thoughts for mothers

Children are savants when it comes to feeling where we are as mothers. Not just on any particular day, but on the whole on where we are standing within ourselves in our lives. When i look back now, it is clear that the times i was a little lost within who i was or where i was standing, were also the times when my children also struggled within themselves the most. These times on the surface would have seemed to the outsider to be no different, children were well taken care of, there was always love, nourishment, warmth and routine, our faces friendly and smiling. I knew well how to play happy. On the inside though, i was always wondering if i was truly standing where i was supposed to be. I was unsettled, feeling lost in my created world, like something other was always calling me forward. There was a search going on inside, i never really understood or even realised this at the time. Life was not allowing me to really settle anywhere that was not serving my highest self, not even for the sake of the children. The uneasy, unsettledness that was a continuous flow for quite some time within me, was i am certain now, mirrored back through my children in their movements and sense of being. I realise like a ballad, they are fine-tuned to our frequency, and that the music we are playing at any given time is going to be reflected in our children movements no matter how young they are. At times, i have been naive to think that they would be oblivious to the rhythms i was flowing to. That as so long as they were bathed, well fed and taken care of on the outside, that all the rest of what i was feeling would not be effecting them. I was so very wrong. I have come to a place of understanding now of how much it matters. That as mothers we don’t deny ourselves our lives or our truths. The ways in which we strive for ourselves and our worth are the ways in which we teach our children to strive for themselves, to strive for their own worth. My young children are still flowing to my rhythms, my older ones are recognising their own and transitioning from mine towards that of their own. Right now i am living truthfully, not just on a surface level but deeply within the layers of my being. Perhaps my inability to settle for anything that isn’t a true reflection of who i am or my simple unwillingness to sacrifice myself wholly, is what has now brought me to this place of divine contentment. I know that i have arrived within a place of my own being where i will never again ask permission from anyone to be who i instinctively am. I am flowing to a rhythm of truth, following towards my own wild heart. This is having a beautiful ripple-stone effect on the children’s sense of being. They too are content, happy within themselves and for now, riding on the frequency of my authentically living.

We are in a moment of transition. She, moving from the securities of school and routine into a world of unfamiliar patterns with no real defined path to take and i, into that of being a parent of a young adult who i adore and are sincerely troubled by. My troubles come not with so much her misunderstandings of me, my ways, my thinking, but more so of my own lack of understanding in the ways a mother should know her daughter and the way she moves. It has been a tireless rollercoaster of emotions, I am missing the mark more times than not, lately. Too many tears are being shed, too many battles are playing out. There are too many times when i am forgetting that our minds work differently, that she sees and defines her world in her own way, in her own time, my impatience is relentless. Why am i failing to remember her truth when in the midst of the drama and chaos of the moment? And it is only in the quiet moments after all has been said and done, when the fire has reluctantly settled and we are exhausted from trying so hard, to understand each other, to go away not really understanding anything at all; that i find myself asking how much of this really matters anyway? does she really need to know that the world can be cruel and unforgiving and intolerant to differences? I am overwhelmed by how much learning i still have to do and fearful that the only way we are learning our way forward right now is though these unforgiving moments.

I know ill do better, as i know better. I will compassionately forgive myself of my misgivings of her. We will always start again tomorrow, neither of us holding our defeats against the other at the end of the day and life will go on.

gone, for now

spending time with my boy has become a rare occasion now. I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but somewhere in amongst the chaos i lost hold of him. it might have always been going to head down this path no matter what the circumstances were but i can’t help but think that the more recent moments of uncertainty in our lives played an important part in his decision to no longer live with us. Life for our family has been wonderfully hard over the years with so many dynamics to contend with, toddlers and teenagers, autism and more autism. I can imagine for a thirteen year old boy finding your place in amongst all that is almost impossible. He was lost, i could tell that much, surrounded by too many females, who all had something to say about his well-being and the directions he was taking. He didn’t have anyone to follow lead from, to really understand the depths of his own wanting and confusion in all of this. Everyone who he was supposed to matter to, was too caught up in being held captive to their own devastation and we failed him terribly. I failed him terribly. He was suffering and i was spread far too thin to keep grip of him. He wanted out, he needed out, so I surrendered and let him go. He is settled now, living with his father and for now it seems it’s what he wants and needs. For the first time in his life, he’s getting to know his dad, really know him, right down to the finer details of how he fits into life with him now. I understand that this is important for him to do, that to understand and know his father better will in time give him greater understanding for why things played out the way they did. It has been really hard stepping back, to not be the one who is guiding the way and gently maneuvering him back on track when he gets himself a little lost. I am having to detach, not from loving him, but from the responsibly of being the one who is going to show him the way. He, has chosen another for that role, now. As hard as this particular change has been to our tribe, it has unexpectedly brought with it a space for breathing. A space for me to completely let go of one of the heavy challenges i was carrying. It has allowed for things to slow down, for the constant rhapsody that was flowing between my two sons, to settle. It has allowed me the room to be more gentle on myself and more importantly more gentle on him. We are moving to a new dance now and it seems to be working better. Spending time together when it happens, is more earnest now. It takes on a level of importance that it always should have had. It’s possible that this time was always going to present itself at some stage in his life, where he would feel that he needed to go, but it came so much sooner than i was expecting. I am alright with it now, and even at times i am quietly thankful for his decision.

the mother, 1949

“there has been an enormous amount of talk about the sacred rights of women, but being a mother is not how women gained the right to vote; the unwed mother is still scorned; it is only in marriage that the mother is glorified- in other words, as long as she is subordinate to the husband. As long as he is the economic head of the family, even though it is she who cares for the children, they depend far more on him than on her. This is why, as has been seen, the mother’s relationship with her children is deeply influenced by the one she maintains with her husband. So conjugal relations, homemaking and motherhood form a whole in which all the parts are determinant; tenderly united to her husband, the wife (mother) can cheerfully carry out the duties of the home; happy with her children, she will be understanding of her husband. But this harmony is not easy to attain, for the different functions assigned to the wife(mother) conflict with each other. Women magazines amply advise the housewife on the art of maintaining her sexual attraction while doing the dishes, of remaining elegant throughout pregnancy, of reconciling flirtation, motherhood and economy; but if she conscientiously follows their advice, she will soon be overwhelmed and disfigured by care; it is very difficult to remain desirable with chapped hands and a body deformed by pregnancies; this is why women in love often feel resentment of the children who ruin her seduction and deprive her of her husbands caresses; if she is, by contrast, deeply maternal, she is jealous of the man who also claims the children as his. But then, the perfect homemaker, as has been seen, contradicts the movement of life: The child is the enemy of waxed floors. Maternal love is often lost in the reprimands and outbursts that underlie the concern for a well-kept home. It is not surprising that the woman torn between these contradictions often spends her day in a state of nervousness and bitterness; she always loses on some level, and her gains are precarious, they do not count as any sure success. She can never save herself by her work alone; it keeps her occupied, but does not constitute her justification: her justification rests on outside freedoms. The wife (mother) shut up in her home cannot establish her existence on her own; she does not have the means to affirm herself in her singularity: and this singularity is consequently not acknowledged.”

Simone de Beauvoir, the Second Sex 1949

pausing

I have paused. for a moment. Bringing my children in close. Deciding what matters and where to go from here. Nothing seems to be clear. There doesn’t seem to be anything I should be doing differently. My children are all needing me in different ways. It is hard to find the balance and stretch myself enough for them. Trying to protect them from hurts but wary that some pains are what we are here to go through. They are what will essentially move us in the end. I need my children to know that life is hard most of the time. That it needs to flow up and down, that is the balance. We can’t get caught up in an idea that everything can always be perfect or pretty. The truth is, most of the time it’s not. But we keep striving for this idealism even when we know it’s most likely unattainable. The teenage years are hard, trying to find where they fit into the world, into the family, but mostly fitting in with themselves. I think I am a better mother to babies, they make more sence to me. I struggle as a mother to teenagers. It is a time when it feels as though so much is out of control, for us all. We try so hard to connect with each other but end up missing the mark most of the time. It’s a time when, as a mother I am having to take a deep breath and step back, and trust that somehow they will find their way, and their way back.