WHAT MAKES A GOOD MOTHER?
What makes a good mother anyway?
Is it patience?
Compassion?
The ability to nurse a baby, cook dinner, and sew a button on a
shirt, all at the same time?
Or is it heart?
Is it the ache you feel when you see your child disappear down the
street, walking to school alone for the very first time?
The jolt that takes you from sleep to dread, from bed to crib at 2
a.m., to put your hand on the back of a sleeping baby?
The need to flee from wherever you are and hug your child when you
hear news of a school shooting, a fire, a car accident, a baby dying?
So this is for all the mothers who sat down with their children and
explained all about making babies-and for all the mothers who wanted
to, but just couldn't.
This is for reading "Goodnight, Moon" twice a night for a year. And
then reading it again, "Just one more time."
This is for all the mothers who mess up. Who yell at their kids in
the grocery store and swat them in despair and stomp their feet like
a tired two-year old who wants ice cream before dinner.
This is for all the mothers who taught their daughters to tie their
shoelaces before they started school. And for all the mothers who
opted for Velcro instead.
For all the mothers who bite their lips sometimes until they
bleed-when their 14-year-olds dye their hair green. Who lock
themselves in the bathroom when babies keep crying and won't stop.
This is for all the mothers who show up at work with spit-up in their
hair and milk stains on their blouses and diapers in their purse.
This is for all the mothers who teach their sons to cook and their
daughters to sink a jump shot.
This is for all mothers whose heads turn automatically when a little
voice calls "Mom?" in a crowd, even though they know their own
offspring are at home.
This is for mothers who put pinwheels and teddy bears on their
children's graves.
This is for mothers whose children have gone astray, who can't find
the words to reach them.
This is for all the mothers who gave life to their babies, only to
give up their babies in the hopes of a better life.
This is for all the mothers who couldn't bare children of their own
and who love the children given to them as if they were their own.
This is for all the mothers who sent their sons to school with
stomachaches, assuring them they'd be just FINE once they got there,
only to get calls from the school nurse an hour later asking them to
please pick them up-right away.
This is for young mothers stumbling through diaper changes and sleep
deprivation. And mature mothers learning to let go. For working
mothers and stay-at-home mothers. Single mothers and married mothers.
Birth mothers and adoptive mothers. Mothers with money. Mothers
without.
This is for you all.
Hang in there!
"Home is what catches you when you fall-and we all fall."
-Author unknown.
