My Sister's Plea

I try not to gab on and on about how you would love being a mom, how filled with joy and purpose and peace you would feel, how your heart would swell every day with love and fear and determination like you’ve never known. Instead, I squeal internally at the thought of a niece or nephew and respond with a sarcastic joke and a photo of Chels and the dog. Because I can’t say this is what it will be like for you - it’s just what has been true for me.

I think about it again in the shower - how I could so easily flood your phone with parenting propaganda, ramblings of all my newfound perspectives, of which you’ve surely already heard enough. On and on I soliloquy about the pregnancy, the birth, the breastfeeding, the sleeping, the marriage, the babbling, the toddling, the attempted purging of stains from the clothes (and car seat and bed and couch and kitchen), the scooping up of toys while simultaneously scooping together pieces of my tender heart that is shattered over and over again by his grin and the passing of time - you’ve endured my numbing telephone monologues for two years. I want to tell you about my surrender to Nature’s biological design, how instinct and vulnerability guide my every decision, how I’ve never been so tired and so energized, so hungry and so satiated, so parched and overflowing, so ignorant and so wise. How I am more incensed and more at peace with the ways of our world, society and culture, our humanity. My appetite has changed; my practices of being look extraordinarily and starkly different than before.

I want to tell you how enlightening it is, like I’ve discovered some secret, something new. But this choice, this calling, this rip-your-body-and-soul-apart, self-sacrificing, self-liberating, all-consuming adventure is quite like a revered hymn, held close to the heart and cherished by mothers throughout history. Mothering is ancestral and sanctifying work that touches all of humanity. This revelation causes me concern when I read the news, when I read the comments from trolls online that tell strangers to leave their children at home while dining out, when I see the childfree wedding invitations, when the airlines inevitably start offering childless flights. My throat tightens and my mouth dries to think of all the humans, so tender and wondrous, who learn to abandon themselves so quickly and without question. How we’ve made women and men to not only fear growing up and having a family, but encourage them to look down upon it, as if they might find purpose and joy in something other than what they are biologically designed to do. And no, before you panic, I don’t think everyone should want/have kids, and I support everyone’s freedom in making that decision for themselves. I just know for those of us who might feel called to parenthood, it is common to feel very dissuaded by culture and peers to have children, and we are acutely aware of how little support our government offers to new families ($5k from Daddy Don does not a maternity leave make, much less cover daycare). I’m very thankful I had the space to find my own path, build my career a bit, and truly commit to motherhood in confidence, desire, and conviction.

Motherhood has softened a lot of my edges. The one-sided screaming matches I used to have with my husband: dissipated. The rage I used to feel for a messy house: vanished. The judgment I used to hold for the general public: lamented. I did not know that I would meet my Little Self every time Chels threw a handful of food, had a tantrum, or “deliberately disobeyed.” I am forced to pause and breathe with Little Me when he pulls every pair of shoes off the rack in my closet. I was not prepared for how much healing and inner work My Motherhood would demand of me, how much I would rely on my breath to regulate. How I would break a cycle. I do not know how Discipline and Obedience will show up in my house. Maybe I’m over-correcting, maybe I’m spoiling him. But I am reparenting myself every time I choose not to blow up. I’m redefining my relationship with control every time I surrender.

To conclude my Mother’s Day reflection saga:

They are so needy. Time moves so slowly. But then, the magic sets in; you settle; you intuitively feel the rhythm. Time moves quickly now. you are so very, very present. All that matters is this very moment - this moment he is hungry, so you feed him. This moment he is falling, so you catch him. This moment he is laughing, so you open your mouth wide and worship with him. To finally answer your plea about an uncertain aching baby fever, it is a wonderful way to live.

XO, Chan