With what price we pay for the glory of motherhood.
-Isadora Duncan
It is Mother’s Day, the holiday when social media erupts with photos and heartfelt expressions of love and gratitude for mothers. All day I scrolled through my news feed and saw moms celebrating their special day. Some posed at brunches with their perfectly manicured fingers delicately grasping the stems of champagne glasses. Others balanced in fishing boats as they smiled and held up the first walleyes of the season. There were pictures of first-time moms with small, sweet babies in their arms and pictures of moms with decades of experience. There were memorials and tributes from daughters missing moms who’ve passed away.
So many women. Each one beautiful and unique, celebrated today for who she is, or who she was, to the women I know and love. We do that in real life, too, when we gather. We always end up talking about our moms.
My mother was a teenager when she had me. I was twice her age by the time we adopted our first child. As such, I was fortunate to have had a whole lot of time to grow up and experience life before I became a mom. It didn’t make any difference. I was just as unprepared to be a mother as she was. She would argue this fact with me, but it’s true.
Nothing can prepare you for motherhood. You think you know what becoming a mother means until you actually become one. It’s nobody’s fault that we don’t have a clue what we’re signing up for. How could anyone ever adequately describe such a heart-bursting love sundae topped with worry and sheer dread sprinkles to someone who hasn’t yet experienced the joys and fears of motherhood?
And if they could, would it matter?
Ask any mother if she would do it again. Love this hard, I mean. Ask the one at the table with the linen napkins, or the one in the boat with the stringer of walleyes. Ask your sister or best friend. Ask your Auntie or the lady next door who raised ten to adulthood without losing a single one. Ask your own mom if you still can. Would you do it again?
Of course, she will say.
Of course.
Happy Mother’s Day.
The Loon Whisperer 