How Do You...??

I was asked today by fellow mamma-in-the-trenches How far apart are they?  So I responded with their respective gaps:  15 months, 18 months, and 19 months.  Her response was exactly what I expected.  HOW?!?!

I know what she was saying.  I know exactly what she meant.  She's up to her eyeballs in books and milestones and uncertainty about how to not drown in work and gas pains and sleepless nights and the strange but all-too-familiar urge to obsess about poop.  Yep.  I knew what she meant... because I was exactly like her a not too many years back.

So I told her exactly what was on my heart.  You can do this.  You too can choose.  There is no glass ceiling, no shame in wanting only one or wanting half a dozen (or more!).  Motherhood is like shoes, it comes in every shape, size, and color.

I stumbled upon this blog this week.  I loved how she put it:
Every child has the potential to do something great in the world. So please, give the   
mother of these children the support and encouragement she needs whether it is her     first child or her ninth. Because your last child deserves just as much excitement as your first.

I love that.  I was trying to explain all this, in a friendly, non-overwhelming way to this buddy of mine when I saw the deer-in-headlights look getting more and more pronounced.  I stopped.  There is a point at which, with a new babe in arms, you just can't remember what it feels like to have a deep, unencumbered breath of air that fills your lungs, refreshing your very soul.  Everything, everything seems overwhelming.  The next diaper change, the next feed.  The brand of laundry detergent or the cause for a child's incessant screaming.  It's all so much... so much more than what you expected, what you prepared for.  This poor girl was in the throws of it, and I wasn't helping.

At that same moment, another girl came up to ask me a question.  One of the most heartbreaking losses in leaving South Africa was the loss of my credibility.  This may seem frivolous to some but it was extremely important to me.  I had a few mommy groups I was active in and I had slowly but surely been fostered, guided and matured as a mom, enough to feel like I not only had legs to stand on but that those legs could and would help support other moms.  Therein was my credibility.  Here, no one has seen me with only one babe struggling to carry her around a growing belly.  No one has seen me battle thrush for two and half months with a boy who didn't stop screaming until after his first birthday. Here, people only see a mom who can manage four kids in a grocery store, even once or twice without any meltdowns, on her own.  What used to be credibility...relevance really, and give others the option to come and chat about the brutality of kids and trying to drink a cup of hot coffee is now something that makes people feel they have to compare.

It often makes me want to shout from the rooftops:  Be you a mother of one for fifty years or a mother of three or a dozen or a mother for only four minutes, YOU ARE A MOTHER!

Same title.  No pay raises.

The quantity doesn't add up to the mothering equivalent of a promotion, it's just a different department.  Much the same way when a child moves from one stage to the next, the mother's job doesn't get easier, she just moves to a different division within the parenting warehouse:  Out of Destination Diapers and into Trial by Toilet Training.

What if we were all on the same team?  What if we all realized we were connected, integrated, vital in the success of our own families, kids, selves?  What would happen if my parenting success was only graded on how well the next mamma two houses over scores on her parenting exam?

I miss my friends.  I miss having people who know how hard I fought to get my family, my kids, myself to where we are.  I miss being looked at in the eyes, not with judgement OR condolences, but just seen for what I am giving my life to right now- motherhood.  No judgement heaped on top of that title, not degrading what I do below it.  Just me, doing what I do with hundreds of thousands of other women doing what they do.  Maybe someday I'll have my street cred back, maybe I'll be able to help support others, which was such a blessing to me.  Maybe.  Someday.  A mamma can dream, even in the land of "pull yourself up by your boot straps" and fierce independence and mantras that you can "have it all"... even here, I can dream I suppose.