The Weary Mornings of Motherhood

Who will I be when I’m on the other side?

Does it ever feel like your children are out to get you?

Maybe it’s just me, but every time I try to make a good motherhood-related decision, especially if it involves self-care, my two small daughters immediately conspire to foil my best-laid plans. Sometimes in the cleverest of ways.

Take this morning, for example. I’ve been blessed with a bout of good sleep from my two children lately, for which I will never complain. But my youngest has started rousing a bit earlier, meaning that if I want to be awake and halfway-coherent before walking bleary-eyed into her room to lift her out of her crib, I have to set my alarm just a bit earlier.

So this morning, I did just that: and was greeted not only by her adorable morning babbles, but also the loud, grating churn of the water softener. Which, for the record, is supposed to run at 1am, not 6:30.

So up I go, once again greeting the day as a zombie with a tiny person attached to me.

What mothers crave above all else is a little bit of space. Space for quiet; space to feel like a clean and nourished human; space to reclaim a sliver of the independent adult we once were. Without a few moments of solitary quiet, it’s nearly impossible to return to the things that give our life meaning, aside from our progeny.

Moms are more than motherhood–we know that in our heads, but it’s oh-so-hard to feel that in our weary bones.

In these moments of disappointment, when I feel like trying to do the right thing for myself has once again failed me, I turn to the gracious words of Ronald Rolheiser in Domestic Monastery:

“Raising small children, if it is done with love and generosity, will do for you exactly what private prayer does. …A mother who stays home with small children experiences a real withdrawal from the world. Her existence is certainly monastic; her tasks and preoccupations remove her from the centers of social life and the centers of important power. She feels removed. Moreover, her constant contact with young children, the mildest of the mild, gives her a privileged opportunity to be in harmony with the mild and learn empathy and unselfishness. Perhaps more so even than the monk or the minister of the Gospel, she is forced almost against her will to mature. For years, while she is raising small children, her time is not her own. Her own needs have to be put into second place. And every time she turns around, some hand is reaching out demanding something. Years of this will mature most anyone. It is because of this that she does not need during this time to pray for an hour a day. And it is precisely because of this that the rest of us, who do not have constant contact with small children, need to pray privately daily.”

I long for the days past and future when my time was my own, my schedule my own. How I so often squandered that privilege!

The “withdrawal from the world” that occurs when your children are small feels oppressive at times. Even my thoughts often aren’t my own, as the constant interruptions stemming from the tidal wave of my childrens’ needs make creativity and “flow” impossible. There are a million things I’d like to do with my life, but every single one is on hold. That’s a tough pill to swallow.

But of course, this season is far from wasted. Not only do I have the immense privilege of providing two beautiful tiny humans with love, affection, and comfort–humans that, I pray daily, will grow into strong, independent women who change the world and in my wildest dreams one day become my best friends. But I, too, am growing right alongside them.

I won’t double my height or quadruple my weight throughout these years as they will, but I’ll be stretched beyond my limits to “learn empathy and unselfishness.” There are other ways to learn these things, but raising small children has to be the fastest. I have no choice but to mature, as Fr. Rohlheiser reminds me.

And who will I be, when we come out the other side? In the not-so-distant future, my girls will head off to school five days a week, leaving me with a brand new void in my day. I know I will grieve the constant companionship of my sweet daughters in these early years, even as I know I can’t hold on to them forever. They must strike out into the world, forging their own path, knowing they always have a safe place to come home to.

I’ll reclaim my time, but I’ll trade it for my heart, now wandering outside my body in the form of two resilient young girls.

But not just yet. Today, that heart is asking for a cup of milk and a snuggle on the couch, and I’d trade a million extra hours of sleep for one more morning just like this.