I have this picture in my head of Magoo the first time she rode in her baby carrier. This was a big day for all of us. We were taking her home from the hospital to meet her home and her cat and the whole world that was waiting for her.
But it was also a big deal for another, seemingly small, reason.
She was going to ride in a baby carrier car seat. Our baby was going to ride in our baby carrier. In our car. And either TJ or I was going to hold her.
That probably sounds like a silly thing to make a big deal about. Especially to all of those parents with permanent bruises on their thighs from the hundreds of times it bangs up against them.
But for us it was a big deal. It meant we were parents.
For years before we were able to conceive Magoo, I would see mothers and fathers walking around carrying their babies in these things. They seemed to be, besides the actual baby, the biggest indicator of motherhood. And motherhood was a tribe I desperately wanted to join. Those carriers to me became an outward symbol of what I most wanted in the world. A land I couldn’t reach.
Flash forward ten years and yesterday, we removed Tessie’s baby carrier and carseat base from our car, and we installed a big girl car seat. We had come full circle. It was late in May 2008 that we first used one, and it was early in September 2018 that we last used one.
Ten years.
It got me thinking about what motherhood was to me before I became a mom. I knew desperately that I wanted to be one. I had love in my heart for the baby that wouldn’t come. But if you would have asked me what I desperately wanted to experience, I would have probably given some trite cliche about love or something.
Because, really, who of us can even grasp what motherhood is before we experience it.
I heard this song today. (Please, please if you are a mother listen to it – it says everything I’m trying to say in a much more eloquent way.)
There’s a line at the end that says, “So they can keep their treasure and their ties to the machine/ ’cause I am the mother of Evangeline.”
And this made me realize what it was that changed the most inside of me. That needed to change the most inside of me. That I was most longing for in those days.
Before my girls, I had so many big dreams I wanted to follow. I still do. I wanted to write a book and get a doctorate and become a tenure track professor. I wanted a big house in a fancy neighborhood. I wanted recognition and accolades. I wanted to be significant.
But I look at that list now, and things have changed. Some of those I still want, and some have fallen by the wayside. Ambition and goals are great things. I would never want to fully put them to the side.
But now, what they are isn’t everything. They aren’t the most important thing. They aren’t what I would regret missing if I were to die tomorrow.
Now, what matters the most to me are those four girls and my husband. I want to achieve my goals and make a difference in people’s lives, but first I want to slow things down and create a cocoon and make a difference in my girls’ lives.
I want to teach them that women can be anything they choose to be, but I also want to teach them that there is glory and honor and intense meaning in choosing to be a mom. That not all goals require us to look outside our homes. That not all sacrifice and achievements need to be honored. That life is about so much more than reaching a certain level and rising to the top. That what matters isn’t so much what we do as who we are and why we do it.
When I first started staying home with my girls, one of my biggest challenges was feeling productive. It was a significant factor in debilitating my mental health at that time. What was I if I was not making money? How else could I prove my worth? How else could I earn my keep?
But ten years later, those thoughts don’t plague me anymore. I no longer believe that life is work and that the few hours left in a week are just extra. I now believe that life is life. Work is a valuable part of it, but it is not the only valuable part of it.
Living life is the most important part of it. Growing and changing and maturing and loving and nurturing and sacrificing and giving and praying and succumbing are the most important parts of it. Being is the most important part of it.
The day we give birth to our oldest, we also begin to give birth to the mother inside of us. It’s not a quick birth – it’s not over before we leave the hospital. And it’s not always a clean birth. After all, new beginnings require some dyings away, and that isn’t always easy. But it’s always worth it.
We all have to give birth to our motherhood in different ways. We all have different lessons to learn and different identities to assimilate, but we all do it nevertheless.
And it’s a beautiful process.
Then one day we can look around and hear the words “because I am the mother of Evangeline,” and can know that in succumbing to that role, we can start to find the parts of ourselves that make us most ourselves. We can strip away the old and step into the new. And our world can become a much larger place when we start to also see it through another’s eyes.
And no, that isn’t a picture of Magoo – it’s Mae. And she’s definitely not a newborn. But it was the best I could do without wading for half an hour through my photos.