What Motherhood Meant To Me

The times were different and being a child myself I thought I was ready for the responsibility. It was going to be fabulous, having someone to call my own, someone who would love me unconditionally and never ever leave me. The pregnancy was really rough, I gained so much weight and I was my biggest during the cold winter months in Michigan but even then I knew that the life inside of me was my child. My dreams could now be fulfilled, if not by me then by my child, especially once she was born…my daughter with her tiny little fingers reaching out for me, needing me and loving me.

I could make sure, she never got hurt in the same ways as I did, I would always take away her pain and never allow her to be insecure about who she was…as long as she became who I wanted her to be. Is that what I believed? Seemed that was true which began the pattern of me being controlling. I never wanted to continue the same dysfunction I felt as a child being controlled by my mother. Being totally unaware of those patterns…still naïve in my thinking that I could raise a child who would love herself and be good to herself even though it was still illusive to me but I was determined.

The mistakes were plenty, my own mother tried to be helpful but she did not know herself how to love someone unconditionally. She too tried several times to stop the dysfunction that she had been accustomed to in her life but even together we didn’t know just how to undo all the junk that had been instilled in our minds. There were many moments I retaliated and decided that it was all my mother’s fault that I was unable to love my own daughter unconditionally so many times…I left.

Over and over again I challenged my thoughts and tried to change them about just how to allow my daughter to become the person she was meant to be and time after time I could not. My conviction was that I was the mother and I knew best even though I knew in my heart all I was doing was pushing her further into a life that she too would have to learn from and pull herself out of eventually.

Then she grew up and had her own child and once again I thought I knew much more than she did and once again I became controlling and this time like so many times I had done before to my mother…my daughter left me. The pain was unbearable as the days, then weeks, then months and now years have passed and she refuses to even talk with me. I can never take back what I did or said to her during those last moments, and my apologies have been refused. The only way to help this entire situation is to finally let go and allow her to be her self.

It is not easy and there is pain and sadness I feel many times throughout my days but knowing that she is a strong, independent, loving, kind soul that knows right from wrong and will do the best she knows how to raise a loving son. That is something we have always known for sure, she is a good mother and loves her son very much.

As for my role as a mother, I will always believe that I did the best I could with what I knew then and when I knew better…I did better and will continue learning more each and every day.