Mothers' Day

It's Mothers' Day and we honor the women who raised us, the role we continuously aspire to deserve, and the role we hope our daughters would eventually be prepared to step into.

But what is it really--this motherhood and mothering thing? I don't think anyone knows; not for sure. We have books about it (how-tos, self-help, inspirational) but nothing so definitive, precise, fool-proof, and technically sound as, say, a flight manual, that at the turn of the final page the reader is enabled to fly an airplane.

Mostly, we fumble, grope around until we until stumble upon a workable balance between disciplining and nurturing; giving forth and holding back. There are no road-tested formulae that ensure a well-adjusted, happy, hang-up free child as product. Exactly how much do we subjugate our interests and our well-being to those of our children? How much do we prioritize their needs over their fathers'? It doesn't help that this profession/vocation we call motherhood happens within the tempest that we call "marriage"--the most difficult of all human relationships to perpetuate, simply because we all are thrown into an arena where there are zero blood ties to bind us to another, supposedly for life.

A child psychiatrist once claimed that 99% of what our children turn out to be is because of how we parent them. I don't think there is a scarier statistic for a parent to bear. But then another one said, "You want to know when you're being a good mother? It's when you start truly enjoying your children, which means you're not stressing out over something, which in turn means that they aren't either because whether you like it or not, they are extensions of you and they feel whatever it is you feel; no exceptions!"

Growing up I didn't have a close relationship with my mother. She fumbled with the role; wasn't really suited to it, I think. I could say, that because I wasn't mothered much, because I had no one to emulate, or worse, I emulated an errant one, I fumbled too with Maverick and Kitty, but no; no excuses there. It was purely my doing--too preoccupied with self and other extraneous things. There were many painful lessons learned but learned they were--I hope...

I continue to fumble and grope around in rasing the four younger ones: Beli, Bidi, Pippi, and Mouse, but I feel more impassioned to find the right formula, like it is the fight of my life, like it is my sole purpose. This, I think, makes the big difference, at least that's what Maverick and Kitty say.

The reason I may be better at the task this time around is that I have Maverick and Kitty with me, always readily stepping into the role at any given moment. They may have mostly raised themselves but from all the pain of those early years come an instinct, a pulse, maybe even a wisdom for motherhood. The concept of a nurturing mother is something so defined in their psyche because its absence when they were growing up created a yearning so deep that it had sculpted a concrete character that is now engraved in their souls.

So what might be the difference between them and me? And what is the assurance that they won't fumble as I did because we had deficient role models? Awareness, is what it is--on both our parts: mother and children--plus acknowledgement, remorse, dialogue, debriefing, processing, forgiveness. And most of all, grace--a lot of grace.

They are ready.

Happy Mothers' Day to all!