I am, even though I am known as a childfree woman (by choice) to people close to me (and now everyone who is reading this). Truth is a mother I am, however not in the sense of what the society holds as mothering. Confused? Me too!
How can one be a mother if not by having children…..? It’s one cloudy thought however it became clearer and clearer when I realized what really the word Mother or Mom, Mama and however it is in languages of the world means. Mama is my favorite by the way 🙂 .
Wikipedia defines a mother as ‘a female parent of a child. Mothers are women who inhabit or perform the role of bearing some relation to their children, who may or may not be their biological offspring’. Wikipedia
As I enjoyed the clarity of it all, the thought came to google what a child is and here we go.
Apparently, a child could also be a ‘thing’ as in, when you ‘mother’ – Nurture, care for, comfort a thing/a person who is not your biological child but a living soul with body and spirit we can refer to it/them as a baby and you a mother.
‘One’s particular responsibility or concern. noun: one’s baby; plural noun: one’s babies‘ ‘This is your baby, Gerry,’ she said, handing him the brief – Google.
How all my feelings agreed to their informal definition.
Now, how come I have matters I love and care for, give myself to them and yet I get asked why I don’t want to be a ‘Mother‘?
My dreams, social causes close to my heart like empowering young people to reach their best potential through Etiquette training, my marriage, my relationship with family and friends and so forth. I nurture actively yet.. why don’t you want kids!?
I respect that what they mean is I have to mother a person in order to be one and here is where things get really messed up because guess what? I am, I have mothered a human, I do. I feed her (I had forgotten about her some years ago, prioritized other things that I deemed more important and her health deteriorated terribly 😦 , to date both me and her look at that time as an important lesson). I soothe her, comfort her, listen when she wants to talk because she isn’t sure about what to do, listen when her day has not been all roses, give her the hype she needs to get stuff done, shower her, take her out to play, tell her its okay – its gonna be alright when she is scared, you my friend name it. It’s a 24/7 job.
The lovely girl has recently married, I therefore end up caring for her man too to an extent. sigh! huh, still I hear – why don’t you want to mother a human being? I guess it doesn’t matter, ‘let the girl die but have kids!!!’.
