Is a mother who has 6 children more of a mother than one who has a single child?
Is a mother who stays home 24/7 a better mother than one who places her child in daycare?
Is a mother whose children have grown and moved away or whose child has died still a mother?
Is the mother of a teenager more knowledgeable than the mother of a newborn?
Is a woman who has never experienced childbirth and adopts a child not as real of a mother as a woman who has?
Is a woman who has a child, loves and raises that child, and gleefully sets them on their adult path any less devoted than a mother who weeps at the thought of having an ‘empty nest’?
Is a mother whose children, in spite of her best efforts, grow up to be drug addicts or criminals inferior to a mother whose children grow up to be doctors and lawyers?
Aren’t they all mothers? With varying details, differing circumstances. Maybe the only thing they all have in common is the word ‘mother’, but don’t they all have something to offer the other just exactly as they are? Wouldn’t it be a shame if they all separated into their own niches and never extended the value of their unique experiences to each other? Don’t they all smile with the same pride and joy on Mother’s Day, and isn’t that exactly as it should be?
It’s an umbrella, with plenty of room for differences.
As a mother of teen-aged children, I may turn to a woman with grown children for advice on ‘what’s coming next’. I may even say to a mother of a toddler “I don’t need you right now. I need something else.” That in no way equals me saying that the mother of the toddler has *nothing* to offer me ever. Certain circumstances call for opinions of people with certain experience. That hardly means anyone else is “less than”.
When it comes to parenting advice in general, it’s open door. Every mother, from newborn to empty nest, understands the emotions behind mothering. We are universally mothers, all with our own approach on how to do it. One is not wrong if it’s different. We’re all going to say “this is what worked for me and my child and it’s not the only way to do it.”
Or, we should say that.
Substitute ‘slave’ for ‘mother’. Substitute ‘relationship’ for ‘child’.
More of, better than, less than, inferior, devoted, real. These are the words so many of us think of, write about, instead of sliding under the umbrella of the word ‘slave’ (or submissive, or bottom, or whatever you call yourself).
I do it, too. I refer to them as my ‘Pinocchio-feelings’. “I’d be real if I had this” or “I’d be a real slave if we did that” or “she is more real than I am because they do it this way”.
But it’s not a competition, no matter how much more experience she has than I do, or how much more I have than you do. No matter the finer details of how we do ‘this thing that we do’ or the level to which we take it, or where we want it to go. One is not better than the other, or more real than another.
We’re all different, every single one of us. Why can’t that be celebrated for what it is instead of picking apart what it isn’t?
Kum Bay Yah, My Lord, Kum Bay Yah ;)
(inspired by a post by calliphora_swe which made me realize how often I try and measure myself against others and how I wish I didn’t.)
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Uncategorized | kaya | 
Monday March 19th, 2007 7:56am | 
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