Mothering

Questioned, Redefined...

I am reading Dr. Martha Beck’s book, Expecting Adam. I am a fan of her work as well, and find her story fascinating—a former Mormon, holds three degrees from Harvard, a sociologist, incestuous / sexual abuse survivor, previously traditional and married, but now divorced, remarried to a woman, and now is in a throuple, a relationship with two other women. She is bright and insightful, a greater thinker.

In this book, she is sharing the story of conceiving and carrying her son, Adam, who was born with Downs Syndrome.

She wrote this:

“The word mother is more powerful when it is used as a verb than as a noun. Mothering has little to do with biological reproduction—as another friend once told me, there are women who bear and raise children without ever mothering them, and there are people who mother all their lives without ever giving birth. The bad news is that not all of us have the good fortune to be born to our real mothers, or to stay with them as long as we need them. The good news is that, while mothers are often in short supply, mothering is not. Against all odds, despite everything that works against it on this unpleasant, uncomfortable planet, mothering is here in abundance. You can always find it, if you’re smart and know where to look.”

I dwell with this for a number of reasons.

First, it makes me think of my own mother, who was the most ‘mom’ I knew, to a fault, perhaps or her own detriment. Her whole entire identity was wrapped up in her children, an interesting parallel that was also true for my paternal grandmother.

But my mom, she didn’t have a mother who mothered her. Abandoned by her mom on her 13th birthday, she was bounced from relative to relative, foster home in her teen years, until landing in high school with my Grandma Elaine, who I am named after. Though my mom only lived with her for a short time, a year or so, their relationship created a life long bond. I always knew this woman as Grandma Elaine and we always shared Christmas and Easters with her. Grandma Elaine mothered my mother, even though she did not birth my mother.

I am especially impressed that my mother never had that role model, so many of her years growing up. Yet, she still was deeply caring and nurturing, motherly, maternal, mothering, not just to her own biological kids, obviously, but to her students as well. She often times took the kids who needed great support and TLC under her wing, probably because she identified with them. Before her death and after, I frequently her former students commented on what a tremendous impact she had made in their lives.

I also dwell with this Beck quote as someone who is nearing the end of my child-bearing years, without children of my own. I have complicated feelings about this, for many reasons. Bringing a child into this world in the state that it is and with my family history as it was, and now the only remaining member of the family, thus, with limited extended family and support, all have—in part—contributed to the my decision to not have children. It does not make it without pain.

But I appreciate this quote even more so, because, I like how it extends the verb outwards to all sorts of relationships with people of different genders, of different roles and relationships in your lives.

I am a woman and sensitive and intuitive, a Cancer and outgoing; I need a lot of emotional support though I extend that to others. as well. I especially have needed mothering given the tragedies of my family and the passing of my own mother. We were very close and she was my greatest support. I needed mothering.

I am thankful to have some sources of support in my life, like an incredible best friend, who have mothered me. I have had colleagues and other friend and partner support, where I have been mothered.

I lost two of my own babies and I struggled with that, the grief, and at points, I wanted to try again. But in light of all the other grieving and deaths, like grief expert Marisa Renee Lee, I needed to pause and remember that I needed to mother myself, far more than I needed to try to rush into mothering some other tiny person.

That was hard. Because of my advanced age, because I wasn’t yet a mother, because I had just lost my mother.

But the prayer I had often prayed to God was that I wanted to heal and cause no harm and damage to children, more than and even if that meant that I did not have my own.

Mothering can exist in so many ways. We all need mothering, even when we are adults, even when our mothers have passed. We all need someone who will wear the hat, fit the role, show the love of a mother, through mothering.

Mothers are so very important, the work they do relentless and all-consuming.

Mothering—even more so.