I got the job back in 1999. Before that, it was connections or good timing or experience that always closed the deal. But for this job, I’m crediting the winning combination of perseverance and a proclivity for gymnastics. Being away from home and in that fresh Brevard mountain air didn’t hurt either. I’d been at this job search for six months with no luck, so I figured what could it hurt to throw a little creativity and physics at the situation? After twenty-four plus weeks, this baby making project had lost any spontaneity you’d typically associate with such an endeavor. But with an eye on the prize and my husband in the bathroom, I slipped into a headstand, held up by the wall behind the bed’s headboard in this single room North Carolina cottage.
I wanted to pull off this maneuver without an audience because it would appear odd if I were to suddenly break into a headstand after an enjoyable dinner followed by what we’d hoped were well-timed baby making efforts. Who does this when they’re blissed out and nearly lulled into a delicious sleep? Shall we go ahead and add in a cartwheel or roundoff for good measure while we’re at it? The wall held me up, and with blood rushing to my head, I hoped gravity would work its magic as I listened for the bathroom door handle to turn, at which point I’d roll back out and slide under the covers with no one the wiser.
Fast forward forty or so weeks and as it turns out, I did get that job, and a second similar one a few years later (requiring travel to coastal Alabama, but with no headstands this go round). It’s been 23 years now, and even though they never did write me a job description or discuss compensation, I did score a job title, which is a nifty palindrome too. They call me Mom.
I realize there have been scores of moms doing this job for all of time, but my getting to join this esteemed club still feels new and original and particularly tailored to my strengths, yet it’s humbling too, illuminating my many faults the role willingly dredges up. It’s hard to describe, but you can’t say the days aren’t interesting. Every day you get to improvise or run a 10K or both, and you can’t ever predict how it’ll go. And then there are the two sweet humans in your life you helped make and who the hospital let you take home. You try to hold on to their sweetness, especially when things turn sour which happens way more than you’d like or expect, and remind yourself you’re playing the long game. Other days you lean into it all and feel you are exactly where you belong and marvel at your great luck. You get eighteen years to hold on to them and then you get to let them go, these boys who in a blink have become men. These two are my greatest triumph and treasure.
Never has there been a role with so many others sharing your job description. With no formal training, we are all winging it and failing and succeeding every day. This boatload of parental colleagues you’ve met along the way lets you compare notes and share the ride and, along with your children, you learn and laugh together, and roll along through the days unaware of the lifelong friends you’re making.
Time snails along and then races forward, and these children grow taller than you, take the wheel of your car, eat you out of house and home, and then move out of that home. But the story doesn’t end here. The book continues and you become a little less author and a little more reader, and having set the stage for a fascinating plot, you now reap the rewards of settling into the story in a comfy chair with a cup of tea. You are now a reader in your children’s chapters–probably still financially obligated–but still very much the author of your own. With a quieter house and a little more time, you’re in that sweet spot between diapers and Depends, those middle years where the road has opened back up and new choices appear.
You look down at your hands, now marked by wrinkled knuckles, and you see your life so far, and these hands that have been attached to you this whole time, which have moved you along monkey bars, enabled your headstands, and held your babies, they hold it all–all the stories, all the struggles, all the work, and all the wins. And inside you are the little girl, the mother, and the grown woman, each still with places to go.
This song pretty much sums it up:
“You’d argue with the Lord,” my mother used to tell me. I was just like her and even though her words exclaimed to the contrary, I think she secretly liked my spunk. I was the outside reminder of who she was inside.
They feed us, schedule us, draw us a bath, or a picture when we’re sad, bring us out of our shell if we’re shy or a smile to our face when something is wrong. They’re mind readers, with eyes in the back of their head, and you can’t get away with much if a mom is near. They are a blessing and a curse, for their babies and teens, and you can’t deny their stronghold, nor can you forget it. They won’t let you.
They’re the Energizer bunny, the Easter bunny, Santa and the Tooth Fairy. They sleep with one eye open keeping vigil when there are bad dreams, or earaches, fever, or broken bones. They listen to doctors’ instructions when you’re too sick to, and to teachers’ and coaches’ words you sometimes miss. They’re your number one fan and critic rolled into one, your lifelong advocate whose work is never done. And you never forget their face even long after they’re gone.
This day isn’t about mothers, it’s about mothering. Scores of people who never had children mother every day. They have pets, or plants or nieces or someone in their life who has fallen to pieces, and they show up and speak up. Like most holidays, Mother’s Day dredges up the good, the bad, the sad and everything in between. Hallmark would have you believe that on this day mothers will be wined and dined and showered with love and gratitude. The reality is your dog might pee on the rug again, your kids might argue even before you’ve had your morning coffee, which you likely poured yourself, and you might be missing your own mom terribly. Let’s face it, the Mother’s Day fairy tale might not waft into your house this year.
This fairy tale isn’t a single day sprinkled with gold dust. Far better, it’s all of the days, and they’re solid gold. They’re real and full of work and play, and diaper changes, and sweet glances and missed chances. The chatter you hear as you drive kids to sports practices, the quiet sunburned sandy car ride home after a day at the beach. Being asked if the trees you pass are a forest and how deep it is, and if those bad guys from 9/11 went to time out. Or wondering if the bees sting the flowers and why birds’ poop is white. It’s the constant questions and best answers you can muster. It’s waiting up after curfew wondering and worrying, and when they return, forgetting that they left the seat up or didn’t take out the trash. It’s cheering for them when they get into college and sending them off into the world. It’s everything in between. It’s hugging them tight and kissing them goodbye.