This morning, after eating breakfast in bed (I'm a bit maladroit with poached eggs served on a tray for the record), I came downstairs to find a card on the dining room table. Hallmark has all kinds of family situations covered: the card started with "there are women who love you as if they brought you here themselves..." and it goes on from there. Each of the kids had written a note inside, in English. Their messages, along with thanking me, all contained an apology for anything they had done to make me mad. Of course my immediate reaction was to worry if they are afraid of me or if I'm not patient enough with them, but I have learned not to take these things at face value. When I asked my husband about it he said that's totally cultural, the most important thing for them is to not make their parents upset. Therefore I took it as a sign that they really do see me as a parent.
So we celebrated Mother's Day by spending the day together, at the house we all share that truly feels like ours now. The kids played in the yard and we made some art and I attempted to learn how to cornrow so that I can braid my stepdaughters' hair like my mother had done mine. I thought about how much my mother had done for me, and how I had not been sure that I would possess the same instincts.
But it's reciprocal. When we have days like this, where our schedule is open and we have time to just be together, the effect on the kids is clear: they are happy, more energetic, more talkative, and so am I.
In the last year I have cultivated a gratitude practice, which has helped me see how much I have to feel grateful for. Now I feel even more grateful, and the voice in my head says, THIS is the return. My fear of being a parent centered around anticipating the sacrifice and loss of freedom, but even then I knew that I'd receive something I couldn't yet imagine.
I remember several years ago telling my therapist that I had adjusted to the idea of parenthood and he turned around and asked me, "what about the idea of being a mother?" That distinction was too much: I broke down in tears, unable to go there. I'm still not totally there, for many reasons: one, the kids have a mother and I accord great importance to that fact. Second, I don't know what the difference is but am sure that it's not a sharp line. It's simply a path that I sense that I'm on.
Thank you to my mother, grandmother, sister, aunts, cousins, and friends...for taking that path too.
So we celebrated Mother's Day by spending the day together, at the house we all share that truly feels like ours now. The kids played in the yard and we made some art and I attempted to learn how to cornrow so that I can braid my stepdaughters' hair like my mother had done mine. I thought about how much my mother had done for me, and how I had not been sure that I would possess the same instincts.
But it's reciprocal. When we have days like this, where our schedule is open and we have time to just be together, the effect on the kids is clear: they are happy, more energetic, more talkative, and so am I.
In the last year I have cultivated a gratitude practice, which has helped me see how much I have to feel grateful for. Now I feel even more grateful, and the voice in my head says, THIS is the return. My fear of being a parent centered around anticipating the sacrifice and loss of freedom, but even then I knew that I'd receive something I couldn't yet imagine.
I remember several years ago telling my therapist that I had adjusted to the idea of parenthood and he turned around and asked me, "what about the idea of being a mother?" That distinction was too much: I broke down in tears, unable to go there. I'm still not totally there, for many reasons: one, the kids have a mother and I accord great importance to that fact. Second, I don't know what the difference is but am sure that it's not a sharp line. It's simply a path that I sense that I'm on.
Thank you to my mother, grandmother, sister, aunts, cousins, and friends...for taking that path too.
