quote for the week

One of my favorite motherhood quotes:

"The moment a child is born, the mother is also born.  She never existed before.  The woman existed, but the mother, never.  A mother is something absolutely new."  ~Rajneesh

I'm not quite sure why it's one of my favorite quotes, since I don't know that I believe it to be true. Since I became a mother just weeks after my 18th birthday - it seems that I was a girl, and then a mother. And my womanhood/adulthood has always been intertwined with motherhood.

For a long time I was ambivilant about motherhood. Not about my children, just about being a mother -  it was just what I did. It wasn't hard, it wasn't easy - it wasn't anything but life. In my early 20's that changed - I began thinking a lot about who I was outside of being a daughter and mother. I felt like I was slipping, losing myself. Now, nearing 30, I finally feel secure in motherhood (most of the time). I mean, I have no idea what I'm doing more than half the time, I'm completely winging this whole raising kids thing. But, as far as who I am - as far as being a woman and a mother - as if they are two separate things . . . for me they aren't. I am a mother. I finally really love and embrace being a mother.

I celebrate motherhood, I do think it's something amazing and wonderful. Yes, millions of other woman have done it. There are many women who are better mothers than me, and many women who are worse. I am perfectly average in a world of mothers. There is nothing special or magical about my skills as a mother, but I do see something special - something magical in mothering, in parenting. It's there in every act, in every day. How we parent our children, can ripple down for generations. It's a pretty powerful thing.

I'm not "lost in motherhood" (as, in my early 20's I feared I would be, like one of "those women"). It's taken me a decade to realize that this is who I am, that I haven't lost myself in motherhood - it's where I've found myself.