I’ve been watching this wonderful series on PBS that airs on Sunday nights with the title “Call the Midwife.” It takes place in the east end of London in the 1950s and reflects the changing experience of birthing and parenting as the war years dimmed into the past. It’s one of the most socially relevant shows I’ve ever seen about being a Mother and birthing a child and the network of community.
Reliving all the pregnancies and the births every week has rekindled my own maternal experience from the first fluttering I felt in the bath one night, to the hours of labor and birth, to the 23 years since that moment when my daughter at last emerged after an exhausting 13 hours.
Being a Mother is not always fun. In the early weeks after birth there are the every few hours wake-ups, feedings and a baby sometimes crying and you don’t know why. There is the frustration of the teen years and the loss of control over the child you had that is now often taller than you and more influenced by friends and the media than by you.
But most of it is sheer bliss. The tiny infant that suddenly develops a personality; the first steps; the first time you hear your child say Mama; the first day of preschool; the graduations; the growth spurts that make yesterdays clothes and shoes a thing of the past; the young adult that matures out of the adolescent that drove you crazy and wouldn’t listen anymore and the mutual bond of adults who happen to be parents and their children.
It’s an amazing miracle and whether you’re a natural Mom or an adoptive Mom or a Step-Mom, the miracle is the same. To watch the development of another human being is truly awesome. To have a major role in that development is a privilege and a gift and it’s hard to imagine a role in life that could be quite as satisfying, quite as fulfilling over a lifetime.
The celebration of Mother’s Day offers an opportunity for our children to make us a breakfast or buy us a meal in a restaurant or at the very least to recognize our constant love in their lives and say thank you. For us, it’s a day to be grateful for a miracle that changed our lives forever. I, for one, can honestly say that it was the best thing that has every happened to me.
Wishing all of you the Happy Mother’s Day you most likely generously deserve. Enjoy all the memories and all the milestones, those that have passed, and those yet to come. Let someone pamper you a bit this Mother’s Day if it comes your way, and enjoy the best part of all, the fact that there is someone in this world who calls you Mother.
Thanks for reading.
