I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Friday Flash, I share an epiphany or aha moment from the past week.
When I was a teenager, I wasn’t maternal. I babysat occasionally, but I wasn’t any good at it. I didn’t enjoy it.
I didn’t think about whether I wanted to have children or not. It just wasn’t a topic in my mind.
Then, when I was in my mid-twenties, a friend of mine who was slightly older got pregnant. I was already married at the time. I thought, “Wow, wouldn’t it be cool to get pregnant!” Not “wouldn’t it be cool to have a child” — I just wanted the maternity clothes, the glowing complexion, and all the attention being pregnant would give me.
Fast forward thirty years to who I am today: a mother of three adult children. I became maternal in the course of raising them. I wasn’t a great mother to babies or toddlers, but as my children gained reason and the power of speech, I was good for them, I think. I learned to hold space for them, to see them as they truly were versus how I wanted them to be, and to encourage them to live their best lives.
Now I have a problem; I easily slip into the maternal role, sometimes with other adults. I do it in romantic relationships, for men who, even in their fifties and sixties, are still searching for a mother figure. And, I continue to do it with my adult children.
I find myself, on Independence Day, craving more autonomy and more sovereignty than being in the maternal role allows me. I don’t always want to be on the sidelines, cheering other people on, seeing their shining light, listening when they are down, holding off on giving advice as they work things out themselves. I want to be at the center of my life.