Alice's Adventures Underground

Monica gave me a topic assignment for today's post (which is also a contest... in case you want to join in) one that I've been putting off writing because I have such mixed feelings on the issue. Ironic too, because just a couple of days ago, The KingofHearts and I were discussing just this thing: When was it that I became a mother?

It's an interesting thought -- what makes a mother. I don't really know when it happened for me.

According to Dictionary.com:

Mother is one of the surviving words from Anglo-Saxon (starting as modor), which are among the most fundamental words in English. Mother has many cognates in other languages, including Old High German muoter, Dutch moeder, Old Norse mothir, Latin mater, Greek meter, and Sanskrit mat. These words share an Indo-European root. Mother is one of the Anglo-Saxon nouns that has an Anglo-Saxon adjective as well as a Latinate adjective — motherly and maternal — and motherly also came from Old English (modorlic). Mom, a shortened form of momma, was recorded in 1894; momma was first used in 1884. Both are chiefly North American uses. Mamma and mama, created by children reduplicating an instinctive sound, are much earlier terms showing up in the 1500s. In between came mommy (also North American in usage) in 1848, which was a variant of mammy (also 1500s).

1. a female parent.
2. (often initial capital letter) one's female parent.
3. a mother-in-law, stepmother, or adoptive mother.
4. a term of address for a female parent or a woman having or regarded as having the status, function, or authority of a female parent.
5. a term of familiar address for an old or elderly woman.
6. mother superior.
7. a woman exercising control, influence, or authority like that of a mother: to be a mother to someone.
8. the qualities characteristic of a mother, as maternal affection: It is the mother in her showing itself.
9. something or someone that gives rise to or exercises protecting care over something else; origin or source.
10. (in disc recording) a mold from which stampers are made. –adjective
11. being a mother: a mother bird.
12. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a mother: mother love.
13. derived from or as if from one's mother; native: his mother culture.
14. bearing a relation like that of a mother, as in being the origin, source, or protector: the mother company and its affiliates; the mother computer and its network of terminals. –verb (used with object)
15. to be the mother of; give origin or rise to.
16. to acknowledge oneself the author of; assume as one's own.
17. to care for or protect like a mother; act maternally toward. –verb (used without object)
18. to perform the tasks or duties of a female parent; act maternally: a woman with a need to mother. —Idiom
19. mother of all, the greatest or most notable example of: the mother of all mystery novels.

Since it's Men who plan and execute this happening, it usually involves having some kind of special talk during the meeting and then after the meeting having little smelly pre-pubescent boys stand with their shirttails hanging out at the door of the chapel as everyone exits, shoving marigolds - purchased the day before from the Home Depot which are now pulled directly from the flat and wrapped in wet paper towels - into the hands of every woman over eighteen who walks past. One thing I think has been done well in congregations I've attended over the years, is the sensitivity to this issue of who is a mother. No one asks to see your mother's card to verify it - every woman just gets a flower (and then heads straight to the bathroom to wash the dirt off her hands). In recent years, the talks and orations I've heard at church on Mothers' Day Sunday have been more a celebration of Womanhood than of simply mothers... an acknowledgment that we all nurture and teach one another and that even though a woman may not be a mother in the traditional sense, they have the ability to affect children's lives. Though I realize that I am the ultimate person responsible for my child's welfare, I like and appreciate that It Takes a Village mentality too. It makes me feel less alone.

It's hard to pinpoint when I started to think of myself as a mother. I'm not sure I even do. I, more than most women, was eased into it, I guess.

When I got married, I acquired a ready-made family. I became a Stepmother. In fact, The KoH taught his son (five at the time) to refer to me as "Wicked Stepmother"... and he did...

People aren't supposed to outlive their children.

Three years later, The Dormouse came along and cemented my motherhood (definition 1). Now no one questions my membership in The Club; it's obvious from the tiny tornado that circles around my legs everywhere I go. But I still don't necessarily consider myself a part of The Club. I refer to the "moms at church" without ever considering myself one of them. I ask for advice from women I work with as the authority on a given subject without thinking to myself that I might have picked up a thing or two from my ten-plus years of exposure. I'm working on my second one and I still don't feel like a mother. When does that change? I thought it would come with the first spontaneous "I love you" or the first trip to the hospital, but I still feel as inexperienced and clumsy about motherhood (definition 4) as I ever did.

I guess part of it is in not really internalizing that schpiel given at church - about how all women are inherently mothers... how we all fit into those definitions somewhere, no matter what our individual circumstances... how we all affect one anothers' lives in so many ways and that is a part of what makes our femalehood wonderful. Women can do so much in this day and age, career, hobbies, etc... I love that about the era in which I live. I have so many choices. I try and pass this golden age of possibilities onto my daughter too - that she can do whatever she wants (except, perhaps grow up to become a flagpole). But sometimes I forget that probably the most important thing I have ever done or will ever do is to af-fect and ef-fect the lives of other children, mine or someone else's. As a therapist, I've gotten more experience than most folks before having children of my own, working to help children of others. But nothing can prepare you for the depth and breadth of emotions and experiences you have when you realize a child depends on you as one of the sole examples of all that is good and right in the world. It's daunting. I guess that why I tend to eschew the label. I'd like that to be someone else's responsibility. It's not. But it's not just mine.