Becoming More Ourselves

Mothering is so darn humbling.

My family took me for a belated Mother’s Day brunch: my children and their dad. The four of us gather when we can, which is less and less frequently as the kids' lives expand outward.

I am eternally grateful to be co-parenting with their dad. We are a good team in this way.

At brunch, he asked me what I had learned about parenting over the last 25 years, and when I answered, I realized I had a lot to say on the topic and became overwhelmed with emotion.

My heart swelled with memories, regrets, joy, loss, love, pride, wonder, and the profound realization of how my mothering journey has brought me home to myself, to who I am as a human and a woman.

It has everything to do with my kids, and also nothing to do with them.

Parenthood brings life right up to the surface: the fears, the longing, the limitations and insecurities, and also the gifts. Everything!

We are constantly looking in a mirror and searching for ourselves. From that reflection, we have a chance to face our pain and learn to work through it so it doesn’t come between our most treasured relationships.

I often saw what needed tending, fixing, managing, or protecting when my kids were young. I feel a loss now—time spent doing instead of simply being. The unintended pressure it placed on them, the way it distracted me from myself.

I mistook busy and distracted for excellence.

Letting the light in now feels good. I take responsibility for the parts I’m aware of and trust my kids, knowing they are responsible for what comes next.

Motherhood asks us to give so much of ourselves. At some point, it also asks us to return home to ourselves. 

Perhaps the art of motherhood is remembering that we are human beings, too. Women with inner lives, limits, passions, longings, wisdom, grief, joy, and needs of our own.

I want to offer my children the experience of being seen and loved fully by someone who is growing and trying, failing, reflecting, and repairing, and becoming more and more themself every day. 

Imagine our children learning radical self-compassion not from our words, but from the way we treat ourselves.

That sounds pretty good to me!