Softening the Edges

Goodness, it’s been forever since I’ve posted any entries here. Truth is, I haven’t found the time or had the bandwidth to do longer-form writing. That combined with occasionally feeling like “what new do I have to say…?” has gotten in the way of me sharing here.

This Mother’s Day Season has got me thinking though. Got me thinking a lot about the myriad of ways motherhood shows up as well as answering the question: what are mothers for? Some would like to reduce mothers to the singular or dual purpose of creating life and raising kids. Personally, I think that’s a gross understatement. That became incredibly clear to me when my girls passed away and I was left feeling confused. What did it mean to be a mother without any babies? With no one calling me “mom”, does that mean that I’m not worth anything..? Have no purpose…?

It took a bit to figure out what being a mother meant without babies. And honestly, my son came into my life within a year of my girls passing so I got ushered into a literal mother-role quicker than expected. Before he was born though, I had began practicing what it looked like to hold an identity as mother without living children to care for. I had to work to expand my own thinking about what it is that mothers do, what they are for, and what makes a person a mother beyond successfully gestating and birthing babies.

I thought about the ways my own mother, mothered. The ways she listened, the ways she supported, the ways she made life feel a bit more joyful, a bit safer, a bit more comfortable. I thought about the ways community mothers created spaces that felt safe and warm in environments that feels harsh and dangerous. I thought about the ways parents-to-be begin prepping their spaces by baby-proofing for safety. I thought about ways I assisted families in navigating challenging school environments so kids got what they needed instead of struggling. I thought about the ways birth moms sometimes choose adoption in hopes of a softer, happier life for the child. I thought about the ways people in helping professions hold space for others in some of THE MOST prickly, scary, sad, vulnerable, and sometimes dangerous situations imaginable. I thought about the ways I gently held my girls after their birth, the ways I wrapped them to make sure they weren’t cold, the ways I held them close and tucked into my shirt, literally, to soften their interface with the world even though I knew they couldn’t stay…

I started thinking not just about who a person is, but how they BE (read:exist) in the world. I recognized that, yes, there is so much beauty and the miraculous in being able to create and bring forth life, ANNNNNNNDDDDDDDD there is so much more to who mother’s BE (i.e., how they often exist) in the lives of people connected to them. Often what’s so affecting about mothering are the ways in which it makes the harder moments of life, softer. Mothering energy is a buffer and a balm to pretty much anything that ails you.

It soften the edges.

Motherhood and mothering are on my mind all the time. Having such a complex journey that continues to evolve every second of every day makes that an inevitability. Not surprisingly, Mother’s Day Season (including Bereaved Mother’s Day, Birth Mother’s Day, and Mother’s Day) brings motherhood as an identity front and center. I think one of the things that complicates this season for people is the focus on literal, biological identity with a complete disregard for embodiment of what pretty much everyone understands mothering to be. It’s one of the reasons people are able to so clearly label someone as being a “bad mother” or not a “real mother”. Distinctions are fairly easily made between birthing person and the person who raises, loves on, listens, protects, comforts, orchestrates, creates safety, maintains safety, etc.

My hope is that this mother’s day season you can both remember the people who have softened the edges for you, and the ways in which you do that in the world also. Maternal energy is a gift to world and it isn’t contingent upon you having living children or birthing children from your body. Happy Mother’s Day to all of us out here doing this life-sustaining work <3.

Peace, Jeanae