Just Being Mom

Sara was just days old when I encountered my first parenting trauma. It was a quiet afternoon and my parents were visiting. I was casually nursing Sara when suddenly I sensed something wrong and glanced down to see a still, blue face. “Sara!” I instinctively jerked her into a sitting position and patted her back. In seconds, she was breathing. I held together long enough to call our doctor who felt she was just a vigorous eater who forgot to breathe between gulps.

Relieved and shaken, I started to cry. “I can’t do this. I don’t know what I’m doing. She’s too little!” My mom reached for Sara. “No,” I said, pulling her tighter. “I’ll hold her.” In that instant, something inside me roared: Of course, you can do this. You’re her mom! It was a moment of great empowerment.

The mothering instinct is a curious phenomena. Some women seem to have an abundance of it. They bask in a special maternal glow. Breastfeeding is a snap. They know all the right songs and can recite their children’s immunization charts by memory.

Others of us bungle along. We learn from doing, reading and watching. Some women have mentors in their own moms. My mom tended to the basic necessities like clean clothes, lunch money and Girl Scouts, but she missed some critical stops along the way. Her boundless energy spun her through countless errands and volunteer duties each day, but rarely did she land long enough to listen to a child’s heart. It was that I yearned for.

I still remember the one place I had her undivided attention. She loved bubble baths and I would sit tubside, my bare feet dangling in the scented water as if to keep her in place. She was a magical woman, full of movement and life. My siblings and I just felt on the outside of it somehow.

My mom’s mother was different. She devoted hours to us playing cards, baking ginger cookies, catching frogs in the creek behind her home in Bozeman. One of her favorite pastimes was picnicking up the Gallatin Valley. While Grampa fished, Grandma would lead us through the woods, pointing out various wildflowers and birds. We never competed for her attention, we all knew we had it. She loved us each deeply and uniquely.

The best thing about my grandparents’ house was the feeling of safety. Each night, we’d tumble into crisp yellow and white sheets, listening to crickets through an open window. We’d awake to the sounds of cows lumbering up the hill to nip Grandma’s raspberries through the fence. I find myself trying to recapture that security for my daughters. Even their room is awash in soft yellows and whites.

I don’t resent my mom. I recognize we’re all limited. After all, no one handed her a parenting manual. She was only 25 and had three children under 4. She did her best. I do ache sometimes for a mother I will never know. One who says “What can I do for you?” or “Yes, I’d love to help” with no strings attached. I realize, with all my imperfections, I am striving to become that mother to my own daughters. And, in some way, I am reparenting myself. Creating an environment that is welcoming, sure and calm. I’m not always successful.

Our culture does little to support healthy mothering. We’re bombarded with images of unreal mothers with perfect tempers, fingernails and culinary skills. Then fed a steady diet of stories about unstable moms who throw their toddlers out windows because they won’t sleep through the night.

Somewhere, between the Mother Theresas and Mommy Dearests, are the regular moms we don’t hear about. Those mothers who are just doing their best with limited resources. The average moms who can stretch one more meal out of the freezer at the end of the month, who don’t know how to sew curtains but are willing to play t-ball at a moment’s notice. They occasionally yell and frequently make mistakes but still, choose to hang up the phone, turn off the television and set aside their own agendas from time to time. They provide a little sanctuary from the insanity of life.

On Mother’s Day, I know I’m not alone in my feelings of ambiguity. At the card racks, moms are portrayed as either perfectly sweet and kind or gentle and good; categories limited to a saintly few. Not one card reads honestly, “Thanks, Mom, for my life. You did your best. I did, too.” I guess it’s time to get out the old glue and construction paper and create, once again, a Mother’s Day card only a mother can love.