Mothering

My dear, dear, fierce and fearless friend Tara from All Sparkly and Shit recently posted a blog detailing the comments that many childless women have to deal with regarding their lack of offspring. You can check it out here.

Near the end of her post, she brings up a point that just because she doesn't have children, doesn't mean that she doesn't mother. This is something that is so true, and gets overlooked far too frequently.

Tara is a mother in the best sense of the word. Within 30 seconds of meeting me she was already sitting me down to help me with my eyebrows and making sure that my cleavage was properly bronzed. And it wasn't in a "I need to fix you" way, but in a, "I care about you and want you to feel your best" way that hasn't stopped since I met her. The next day she was giving my kiddo her iPad at a wedding to help keep him occupied while I was tending to my responsibilities. Again, I had just met her 24 hours prior! She continually reaches out, listens, motivates, celebrates and encourages all of her friends to be the best them that they can be. She is every bit a mother to all of us. A mother of the heart.

When she made her post, and linked it on Facebook, many people chimed in saying that they too had come under similar criticism as she has, and all the while I was right with them, shouting indignantly at all of those jerks and their insensitive comments.

But wait. I have a kid. I am a mother in the most traditional sense of the word. So why did this resonate so deeply for me?

When you ask me to describe myself, one of the first words that will come to mind is "mother". Usually this is followed up with "How many do you have?" and when I answer with one, inevitably it's followed up with "Do you want more?"

How do I even answer that question? Because it shouldn't even be asked. WANT has nothing to do with it. You don't know my situation. Maybe I can't have more. Maybe I am just happy with one. Maybe that was always the plan. Maybe there wasn't a plan, and I am just trying to do my best with what life has handed me. It shouldn't matter. Because me being a mother has nothing to do with whether or not I have birthed a child.

A couple months ago I was having one of those "Am I doing a good enough job as a parent?" moments. And my dear friend who was listening to me blather on about my feared inadequacies, stopped me and said "I can tell you from experience that you are a good mother, because you have been mothering me for years, and you are great at it." It was one of the best compliments I have ever received.

Mothering is about caring for someone enough to tell them when they are wrong, and still being a soft landing place to fall when they don't listen to you and do the wrong thing anyway. It's about pushing people to be their best selves while still loving their every flaw. It's about asking them to text you when they get home and legit panicking when they forget because all you want to know is that they are safe. It's cooking big family meals from scratch and sometimes just ordering pizza. It's knowing when to let go and when to hold on fiercely. It's loving, always loving, even when it's hard.

I am proud that I am a mother. To my child, to my family, to my friends. I am also proud that I have so many wonderful mothers in my life. Women, men, the ones that have birthed children and the ones whose children are anyone that they have taken into their hearts and their arms. Motherhood is beautiful and should be celebrated no matter what form it takes.

Pop Culture Echoes

I have always been an avid consumer of pop culture. TV, Movies, Music, Books, Sports.

Even as a baby, the only thing that could lull me off to dreamland were the dulcet tones of a nacent MTV. Video Killed the Radio Star become my favorite lullaby.

Which is why the revelation I had recently should not have been a surprise.

I was talking to one of my newer friends, trying to describe the bond that I have with another friend, a half-my-lifetime friend, who I actually rarely, VERY rarely speak to. And I was at a loss for words. All I could come up with were references. "She's part of my YaYa Sisterhood, if I've ever had one. No, that's not quite right. Have you seen Now and Then? It's more like that. She's Sam and I'm Crissy. Oh. You never seen it. Hm." And the entire time Summer Sisters by Judy Blume kept popping up in my brain, but I didn't even bother bringing that one up.

At first I was just frustrated that this new friend and I lacked a shared cultural history. That I didn't have that shorthand to lean on to describe my feelings.

But the more I thought about these friendships, the more I realized that part of the issue is that I do define them in these sorts of terms. And it is true with almost every relationship in my life. I have these literary or cinematic reference points that I have tied people to and it isn't in the normal "when I hear this song it reminds me of them" sense. It is: These people are my Sisterhood. This one is my "bosom friend", the Anne of Green Gables to my Diana (because face it, as much as I like to think I am an Anne, I am SO a Diana). They are the Westley to my Buttercup.

And all of these associations really do a disservice to these dear people in my life. They can't live up to these fictional ideals, and I shouldn't hold them to those standards.  It's not fair to them.

It's not fair to me either. I allow myself to get disappointed that my relationships aren't more like the characters that I relate to, and if I stopped the comparisons I could see the true value that all of these people bring to my life.