Be a full person. Motherhood is a glorious gift, but do not define yourself solely by motherhood. Be a full person. Your child will benefit from that.”
chimamanda ngozi adichie, “dear ijeawele, or a feminist manifesto in fifteen suggestions
I am a mother. Motherhood is joyous, painful, busy, entertaining, fun, hard and sometimes all of these things in the same day. There is so much more to life though, that we can’t just live and choose only with regards to the ‘motherhood’ part of our lives.
To be a full, whole person, we have to expand our choices and our experiences and look beyond what are the expected choices. Sometimes the concept of motherhood is a huge barrier to finding what we want to do in life, to being whole and fulfilled.
“Motherhood is hard enough without judgement from others who don’t know the whole story.”
sarah addison allen, “first frost”
If we only look at ourselves through the lens of motherhood, “I am a mother,” we’re losing most of the spectrum of what our lives could be.
It’s time to expand our horizons and look beyond the signpost that says, “You’re a mother. Your choices stop here.” There are still so many glass ceilings to break, to look up at and strive to shatter.
We’ve come a long way and there are many reasons to celebrate motherhood, but being a mother is not everything and it’s certainly not easy or always a natural internal instinct. We should celebrate that we are mothers, celebrate our own mothers, celebrate our ability to mother others, but only if we want to, because let’s be really honest here and say that not all mothers are equal. They fall along the spectrum from zero to 99 – not 100 because no one is perfect – and it’s important to acknowledge this, that mothers are not perfect people. Some people have found a ‘mother’ on their path. Some people have very loving relationships with their mother, while others struggle under the weight of the relationship.
“Real motherhood is different. It’s better and it’s messier and it’s more complicated. It will break your heart and make you laugh harder than you ever imagined.”
melanie shankle, “sparkly green earrings: catching the light at every turn”
Speaking of differences in mothers, and the progress we’ve made in how motherhood and mothers are perceived and judged . . . over the last few days, as Cris and I have prepared this reflection, one topic we’ve talked about is the idealized way that mothers are portrayed in greeting cards and the early sitcoms of the 50s and 60s in contrast with the evolving portrayal of mothers on television, especially sitcoms, over the past 40 years.
I am old enough to remember watching Leave it to Beaver, in reruns, in the later 60s. The show was fun to watch for its humour and innocence, but even though our mother also wore dresses and spent most of her time in the kitchen, she was very different from Mrs. Cleaver. Probably, most mothers were. Our mother was an immigrant, with lots of children, trying to manage her working-class circumstances and hardships as well as she could. She did her best.
From the 70s on, however, mothers on TV have slowly changed; they have become more complex and many of them are far more relatable. Rather than being mostly secondary characters, they are more multi-dimensional with backstories that explain why they think and behave as they do. For example, in Gilmore Girls, the emphasis on family dynamics, especially the prickly relationship between Lorelei and her mother, encourages viewers to understand why Lorelei has made the choices she has. Also, very obviously, to understand why she is raising her daughter differently in order not to repeat what she believes are her mother’s mistakes.
There are also a lot of mothers on sitcoms who are meant to be parodies of a certain type of mother. I think of George’s mother on Seinfeld and Marie on Everybody Loves Raymond. We laugh because the actresses who portray them are hilarious; their timing, their lines and how they say them are amazing. However, maybe we also laugh because in some way they remind us of our own mother or maybe we are relieved that our own mother is not quite that silly, annoying or brashly opinionated.
I think Mother’s Day is about the joy and love we have for the people we care about most, who we have helped, or are helping, in their journey by being there for them and passing on the wisdom and cautions of our own experience. It’s also a day to give and get love, to spend a moment thinking of, or being with, our loved ones and reminding ourselves that we don’t need to be perfect.
I am a mother, but I am so much more.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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