My youngest just turned two and
has mastered the art of climbing in and out of his highchair unaided, much to
his mother’s horror. So this week I
jumped on Gumtree and found a brand new booster seat for sale at a house around
the corner for me.
When I arrived, I knocked on the door to find an eight year old boy playing Xbox. He yelled for his mum who let me in. She was a quiet lady with dark, sad eyes, and as she left to find me change, I noticed the corridor of the house was filled with different baby items. A car seat, a bassinet, a play center, a pram. All brand new but opened, like they’d been set up ready to use. This isn’t the normal way you find baby gear on Gumtree – even if it says “good condition”, you know chances are it has teeth marks and has been vomited on more than once.
The one thing missing from the house was a baby. There was the older boy and the sad mum, but no bub or obvious signs of one, like used nappies or baby smell. My husband pointed out that I’m overemotional (to which I burst into tears) and that I have a tendency to jump to conclusions. His theory was that the lady had simply bought a bunch of stuff for wholesale prices and was now reselling to make some cash.
That’s not the feeling I get. There was only one of each item and why would you open something and set it up if you were simply planning on selling it? My instincts tell me this was a home that had recently experienced a loss and the baby sale was an effort to purge the grief.
Of course, I didn’t say anything to the lady. I was buying a seat, not trying to pry. And how do you even start a conversation like that? “So… Where’s the baby?”
All of this got me thinking about the different levels of motherhood. The old saying goes that men become fathers in the delivery room and women become mothers as soon as they’re pregnant. But I’m not sure if I agree with that anymore.
I believe motherhood is a mental state. I believe my motherhood journey started the first day I took an Elevit tablet and had deliberate procreational sex (even though it was another four months before I actually fell pregnant). I don’t believe you become any less of a mother just because you’ve lost a child, and I believe you can be a mother long before you skip a period or cradle a bub in your arms.
So my message today goes out to all the mothers who go unrecognised in this world…
…For the woman who suffers in silence as she endures another round of invasive, expensive IVF therapy.
…To the lady who puts on the smile for her friend who’s pregnant again for the fourth time when she’s just gotten her period again.
…For anyone who’s ever lost a child, whether that child was still in the womb or a fully grown adult.
…For the foster mother who grieves after handing back a child she’s loved and looked after for years because the birth parents swear, this time they’re clean.
…To any woman who has filled in endless mounds of adoption paper work, only to be told, “Sorry, you’re not an ideal adoptive parent.”
Today, I offer official recognition that you are as much a mother as my Catholic mother-in-law who had baby after baby until her uterus fell out. Motherhood is a state of mind, not a state of being.
This Mother’s Day, celebrate your motherhood, whatever stage you are at. And if no one gives you slippers, go and buy your own, with the knowledge in your heart that you are a mother, no matter how many branches extend underneath you on your family tree.
