MOTHER’S DAY

It’s Mother’s Day today in Australia.

Each year, there is some truth that I want to bring light to. Usually I speak about mother/daughter/female connections... however something else feels most prevalent this year.

Maybe some of my friends here relate....

I would love to be a mother.

I feel, or rather, know that I was born to be a mother. I get that not every woman experiences this. I was 20, married, and thought that I would have had all my babies about a decade ago. The pressure around becoming a mother had started for me by 20, the next logical step after marriage, it seems.

Two years ago at 34.5 years, it landed that I finally felt ready to be a mother. I can only explain it as a deep seated Earth Mumma all knowing kind of truth that makes me feel teary when I really feel into it. Something significant had shifted and I made peace with all of the big questions, concerns, history, desires and world reality that I am privileged to have had the space to ponder.

Yet, when I looked at my life, there was another layer that existed alongside motherhood. A big trip to go on, then a new home to be established, a business and a relationship formed somewhere along the way. Laying the foundations for a new chapter that I would consider bringing a child into.

The trip stopped not long after its initial starting point, and I’m not entirely sure that I’ve found my longer term home, the business is just kicking off, and the relationship will drop in sometime. The dots have not yet been connected.

And yet, like many women, particularly those in the second half of their 30’s, there are few things in my life that other people have as strong opinions about for me, than around the baby topic. Despite my openness, there generally seems to be a level of trepidation in the air when the baby/family question surfaces.

In Melbourne, the common response is “well, you better hurry up then”, and “do something about it”, like I’m running late to catch a train. This kind of focus doesn’t feel good, and honestly strips any romance right out of it all. Before I left Melbourne, my doctor made it clear that I need to be cautious about my eggs in making the choice to leave, as if it wasn’t already on my radar. And I certainly haven’t been in lockdown with a partner since then.

In fact, I’ve probably had more frank conversations of the opposite kind in the last year, with people who do not wish to have (extra) children, in their world.

Over here, it seems that a lot of people I have spoken to, don’t want to have kids. There are a lot of privileges here and kids apparently don’t support that freedom, even in a place where many of us don’t have to clean up after ourselves. Each person seems to know someone who had a baby at 50.... “don’t worry about it, you have plenty of time”.

None of this seems to fit with what I would like and my own personal timing. I wasn’t ready when I was 30, and I don’t want to begin my family at 50, when I feel like my time is closer. However that lands. It’s a dream, and like all dreams, it’s fun to sit in the creative potential of it all, rather than jumping to the lack thereof in present reality.

I do not wish to undermine Mother’s Day in any sense, it’s more an acknowledgement that this day can mean all kinds of things to all people.  I also appreciate the gazillions of ways that motherhood presents itself, rather than purely birthing a child from our womb. And my gosh, do I value the truth of coming to terms with all of our own mother stories along the way.

If anything, let this be some kind of celebration for the women who have invested in sitting with the deep stuff that goes alongside the question of whether motherhood is for them in this lifetime, and whether they would like to bring yet another human into this world. And for coming out the other side.... despite what the outcome of that choice is, how it lines up in reality, and how it is perceived by the outer world.

For me this year, my Mother’s Day celebration seems to bring with it the planting of a metaphorical seed, for which I am pretty sure will one day become a (human) plant family 🌱 💗

Love,

M x