Forty-four years ago yesterday, I became a mother for the first time.
I was 22 then. Because my eldest, Big T, is now 44, you can do the math ... and yes, it is startling, to say the least. Even I can't believe it and I've been here the whole time. Where did the years go? There have been many things said about motherhood, some humorous, some profound and some both at once. No doubt many more things will be said before all is said and done. Motherhood is one of the strangest and most wonderful of circumstances. Motherhood can be, at the same time, one of the most fulfilling as well as the most frustrating of professions. If our own mothers had not had the courage to bear us, none of us would be here now.
One of the most interesting things about motherhood is that one does not actually have to give birth to be a mother. An adoptive mother can be every bit as caring and nurturing as a birth mother. However one achieves motherhood, the job requirements are the same. Among other qualities, one must have lots of love, even more patience, tolerance for routine, boredom, exhaustion and yes, even sorrow. One must show flexibility, adaptability, willingness to re-examine the world from a new perspective, firmness to instill a desire for excellence and full achievement of potential, discipline when it is required, and strength to encourage a young individual to develop his or her own personality at the same time as one struggles to keep one's own. Above all, one must have a sense of humor and an ability to laugh at oneself. Without that last, we are lost.
A wise woman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, once said "Though motherhood is the most important of all the professions -- requiring more knowledge than any other department in human affairs -- there was no attention given to preparation for this office." While this lack of preparation is true for fatherhood as well, I simply cannot speak from the male perspective.
When I became a mother, the role models that I had were my own mother and my aunts. My maternal aunts were numerous because my mother came from a family of seven sisters. For the most part, all lived within a day's drive of our family. In most cases, none worked outside the home while the children were small, although several aunts who were married to farmers also pitched in and did at least as many of the daily chores required for farm labor as did their husbands -- whether the children were small or not. In all cases, each family had more than one child. Most had five, so I had scads of cousins. I was also the oldest of five siblings. It was understood, even expected, that we older children would automatically help care for, instruct and help the younger ones, and so we did. It was also expected that the younger ones would be integrated into the daily family life cycle, sooner rather than later, themselves learning to help with appropriate tasks, including caring for siblings even younger than they.
Not much was available in written form about parenting at the time. When my son, then Little T, born in the United States, was around three months old, we returned to Morocco to be with his father and spent the next four years living there. His brother, then Little S, was born in Morocco, 15 months younger than his brother. It was almost like having twins. I had to raise both boys during those early years without my family support system. Thankfully, I was able to turn to Dr. Benjamin Spock and my trusty, well-worn copy of Baby and Child Care, chock full of practical, common sense advice. What sanity I am blessed with today, I am convinced that I owe to Dr. Spock.
When Little T, at six months old, hit his forehead on the marble floor after falling from a cushion where he had been sitting, I was sure that I had, in effect, either killed or at least permanently maimed him. Because I had no way of getting him to a doctor and no telephone to call one, in near hysterics, I rushed him to the nearest neighbor who was also a practicing nurse. After ascertaining that there appeared to be no major obvious harm other than significant swelling on his forehead and that he was howling lustily, she commented that the forehead, of all parts of the head, was that best equipped to take hard knocks. She then kindly sat this hysterical mother down, gave her a cup of tea and sent her home with instructions to watch the baby carefully and keep him awake until his regular bed time.
Given that he celebrated his 44th birthday yesterday, he appears to have survived that early trauma. We'll never know whether that incident forever destroyed his chances of being the next Einstein. In any event, the feelings of guilt that he had been harmed at all would have paralyzed me from that day forward if Dr. Spock's book hadn't assured me that a few bumps at that age were actually good signs that I was not being an "overprotective" mother. Whew!
As I look back over the years, I see that I made many mistakes in raising my children. I am not perfect -- far from it. There are so many things that I didn't do that I wish that I had done and many others that I wish that I had done differently. But one doesn't generally get do-overs in this life. We have to live with things as they are.
All I know is that since the first time that I saw that little head, I loved that baby, just as I later loved his brother. I still love the men that they have become and I am very proud of them both.
And I always will be.
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