Being A Mom

Sunday is Mothers’ Day and I have never had a clearer understanding of the magnitude of what motherhood means until this past week.

I came across this quote the other day:

“A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.” ~Tenneva Jordan

It struck me hard.

I have conversations with Moms who tell me about the different sacrifices they make in order to make life better for their children. They give up weekends to sit in lawn chairs or on bleachers to watch sporting events. They take personal days from work in order to nurse sick children back to health. They spend a king’s ransom to support their daughter’s dancing career. Some moms even confess that they feed the kids first and only eat after they are sure that their children have had their fill.

Becoming a Mom isn’t about getting to wear the fun (and funny) maternity clothes. It isn’t about the baby showers and the Christmas pictures and the God-given right to place the Honor Roll bumper stickers on the back of the family van.

It is sometimes about making the tough choices. It is sometimes about giving up things in life that are important in order to place the happiness and well-being of the children before our own. Careers, relationships, intellectual pursuits, financial independence….even their own physical well being…all lost for the sake of the children.

What it means to be a Mom is to put the children first. Always. No matter how much it hurts.

So why do we do it? Moms give up everything in order to raise their babies to become respectful, healthy, well-adjusted adults who will, one day, love their own children and contribute as leaders within their community. It is all about passing along the love from one generation to the next. It has been a Mom-Tradition dating back to the dawn of time.

Mom Love is bittersweet. We know that no matter how much love we pour into child-rearing, one day those children will leave us. But what we do know is that the degree of love we give is related to how much we will really “lose” those children. The goal is to love them so much that they will never truly leave us – no matter how far away they may live.

We love. We give. We discipline. We nag. We love. Being a Mom means sacrifice…a beautifully painful sacrifice that will both drain us and awe us all at the same time…a little like childbirth, wouldn’t you say?

Happy Mothers’ Day to everyone who “mothers”. Sunday is your day to step back and look at the flowers that are growing in your garden….and I don’t mean the garden in your yard…..I mean the one in your heart.

Until next time, I remain……1SweetMama