Hey mamas. New mamas, middle year mamas, mamas with babies who are grown-ups, grandmamas. Hello, all of you. We’re a sisterhood, us mamas. You may look at the season I am in as being the baby years, or maybe you’re a first-time mom and you look at me as a seasoned member of the tribe. Each person’s station in this journey is relative. And it doesn’t help anyone to condescend or minimize any single other mother’s reality. I couldn’t stay silent on this point after reading a very valid and founded blog post this week which, while relevant and true, was also alienating and condescending. So I couldn’t stay silent because it doesn’t matter what season you’re in; I want you to know I see you.
There is a constant evolution of stages in the motherhood journey. After all, this journey lasts til death once it begins. My grandmothers are still mothers. They have not left this gang yet. Then there are moms like my younger sister, who has been a mom for just under three months. My sister is no less of a mom than my 80 year old grandmother who raised four children of her own and now has 19 grandchildren and great grandchildren. They are both moms. Both in the sisterhood. Both expected to champion the other.
So why , sisters, why with the Mother Wars? Why do we feel the need to prove ourselves or compete for whose job is harder, more demanding, more… momish?
I am not in the middle years of motherhood yet. My four kids are all under the age of seven, so you could easily lump me into the little years of motherhood. But even though my children with their rosy cheeks and chubby feet are incredibly precious, please don’t call me precious (I can assure you there was nothing precious about the amount of human excrement I had to deal with yesterday, or the long emotional conversations I’m having with my first grader about respect, or the negotiation tactics of my strong willed two year old). Please don’t minimize the hard, exhausting, physical strain of my season of motherhood simply because you’re a graduate of this season. The fact that you’ve made it to the other side makes you a mentor, it does not grant you permission to be disparaging of the moms who are a season behind you (it’s curiously similar to high school when the Seniors look down their noses at the Freshmen and I’m pretty sure we all hope for our kids to behave better than that, right?). Please don’t condescend me and tell me to “get back to my Paw Patrol” simply because I don’t understand the nuances of raising teens or young adults.
Listen; your brand of motherhood, and your season in the journey matters. I need your wisdom. I need to feel like you’re in my corner, just like you need the wisdom and support from the moms that are a season ahead of you. I could sit here and tell you all of the physical demands of my day today, completed on insufficient sleep because my baby’s belly can’t make it through the night yet, but I won’t, because the truth is, we all get it without having to be told. We know. Motherhood is hard. No one said it would be otherwise. But you know what makes it harder? Feeling like other moms are rolling their eyes at you.
So, in response to that blog post I read earlier this week listing the never ending demands of the middle years moms, I simply want to say, I see you. I know your car is racking up the miles; your center console runneth over with receipts, empty coffee cups, permission slips, and whatever else is taking over your life this Maycember, where the only difference between now and December is the lack of tinsel. And while you are running around doing this motherhood thing at a breakneck pace, I want you to know that like your children, the younger moms are watching you. We’re learning from you (both how we will act when we’re in your shoes and also how we’ll treat the moms that come after us). We’re learning how to navigate these waters, and yet, our waters are deep and sometimes murky and often times there’s an undertow threatening to pull us down, too. Our world is hard and messy and at times hilariously simple and even though we’re surrounded by bodies, it is ironically lonely. I actually said to my husband last night while he was trying to flag down the waiter on our date that all I needed from him in that moment was not a refilled beverage, but his undivided attention, because he was the first adult I had spoken to all day.
Listen, Moms. We’re all sometimes overwhelmed; at times we are lonely; often tired; occasionally under-qualified. But what we must always be, without fail or exception, is supportive. Of each other, of our kids, of our partners, and of the village. People will do it differently than you. They’ll be behind you in the lineup or raising their little ones to have different values than you subscribe to. But we’re all doing the same thing, and it’s hard enough without being patronized.
So to the new mamas, middle year mamas, mamas with babies who are grown-ups, grandmamas… I see you. And I hope you see me, too. And I hope when June arrives with its emptied out backpacks and late sunsets, we can all sit together with our sweaty wine glasses and toast to raising not only our kids, but one another.