Musings in May on Motherhood

This week has been filled with memories for me. This is the week before my first child's 14th birthday, and I keep thinking of what it was like 14 years ago when I waited for him to be born. This week is also the week before Mother's Day, and I find my thoughts drawn to what motherhood has come to mean to me since that fateful week in early May 14 years ago.

I had read all the books I could lay my hands on about pregnancy and motherhood, and babies and children and armed with all this knowledge I was prepared to face the happiest moment of my life. It was indeed, till then, the happiest moment of my life... the day my eldest child was born on 10th May 1996, after 17 hours of labour.

He wasn't very keen on being born, as he was due on the 6th but seemed quite content to stay put. I even tried to induce labour by going for a long walk to get a choc fudge sundae from MacDonald's 4 kms away from my home, and as my hubby and I trudged along I really thought I was going to give birth right there on the beach! When we got to Mac's there were no choc fudge sundaes, so we had fries and took a cab home. All that walking for fries! And no baby in sight either!

But soon enough, in a few days, my water bag broke and I rushed off to the hospital at night all excited at the prospect of finally having him come out, and 17 hours later I held him in my arms and he opened his eyes and looked at me, and I knew that he knew me, and I was happy. So, very, happy.

And I have been happy ever since, well largely happy. :) He was such an easy baby I was inspired to have another 3 over time, juggling baby births with my health issues. It hasn't been easy managing 4 kids and chronic illness. It does get a little crazy at times. Some times I wonder if I should have ever had any kids at all, and if my life would have been easier and simpler, less complicated and less stressed without the worries of 4 kids. It isn't quite regret, just a sense of "the grass being greener on the other side". Quite a moot point really, since I do have them :)

I live for the moments when one of them says something hilariously funny or incredibly wise, when one of them goes out of his way to make somebody happy, or when they all get along, and life seems peachy. I live for the happy moments, of which there are many, that more than make up for the tense and sometimes scrappy moments that occur when 4 kids get on each other's nerves, when school breathes down everybody's necks and the daily grind is wearisome. I live for the smiles and the love I receive when I give freely to them, not in expectation of receiving in return, but simply because giving, while being part of my job or duty as a mother, is also my privilege and my honour, having been blessed with these gifts, my children.

Living through Crohn's as my children have grown has been tough. All parents grow up as their own children grow up. To some extent, our children are raising us, at least I think they are teaching me an amazing range of things about myself and the world, about love and hurt, about good and bad, about all the things we think are black and white but are actually shades of gray...my children taught me these things.

Growing up alongside my children as I have struggled with chronic illness has meant that while I have been giving I have also been receiving, sometimes disproportionately, and while I have been needed I have also been needy, and many days, simply too exhausted to do much. I have come to terms with the guilt all mothers face and the constant nagging feeling that they aren't good enough or doing enough for their children. I do what I can, we get through the day, we look forward to tomorrow, and sufficient unto the day is God's grace to get us by.

What a privilege it is to have children, and to be a mother. What a privilege it has been for me to grow alongside my kids, and I believe it is a privilege for them to know, firsthand, what it means to live a life of imperfection as personified by me. I think illness made me more compassionate and forgiving, more accepting of imperfection in myself and in others and just a better person generally. I do hope and believe that my kids can see that.

Many times I look at them and I see some element of myself in them, and then I see so much more that is them, entirely them and no one else, and I rejoice that I am not raising clones of myself, but people who will have their own minds, their own voices, their own thoughts, and who will find their own way in this world.

I love the following by Khalil Gibran (1883-1931) in Chapter 4 of "The Prophet". It beautifully sums up how I feel about children.

CHILDREN

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children."
And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

My musings this May on motherhood are happy ones. I hope they are happy ones for all mothers out there, and for all children too. Happy Mother's Day in advance, and to my dearest son, a very Happy 14th Birthday!

Thanks for reading!

Pav