Commentary Archives - Page 43 of 72 - Mothering in the Middle

Motherhood: Lies, Secrets and a Culture of Shame (A Mother’s Day Promise)

by Cyma Shapiro

I believe that we, as women, live in a culture of shame, failure and inferiority regarding our attempts to reach, and our paths to achieve, motherhood.

There, I’ve said it.

I believe that our gender – known for compassion, nurturing and strength – has created a hierarchy of sorts rating the exact method, age, and end result of securing motherhood. Note the whispers about actress Kate Winslet, who was purported to have lied about utilizing natural childbirth when she had a C-section. Or, Halle Berry, who has until-now failed to show the “bump,” and is the focus of stories indicating that she may be using a surrogate. To me, none of this is anyone’s business – and certainly not ours. […]

Special Delivery – from Haiti

by Michelle Eisler

Reflecting on my first Mother’s Day, now three years later, my thoughts and memories are as powerful as if it was yesterday. Each morning I wake up, no matter how tired I am, and realize that I don’t take for granted the treasure that arrived on the plane January 30, 2010 – my precious daughter. Here is my original post.

I just celebrated my first Mother’s Day this past weekend. At the age of 38 it feels late but as I understand, it isn’t as odd these days. One would think motherhood has been something I have been trying for forever but it isn’t. I’m just a late bloomer! I have, however, waited a couple of years for this but didn’t know just how much I’d truly waited, until this past January.

My husband and I were matched with Nathalia in October ’09 and would have traveled to Haiti in February 2010 to sign the first Haitian documents for our adoption process. We expected to be a family by the summer of 2010. […]

Mother’s Day Gift

by Maggie Lamond Simone

“Look at you – you’re just like your mother.”

Weren’t those dreaded words at one point in my life? Didn’t I work all these years to not be like her, to identify her faults and weaknesses and to do everything humanly possible to avoid them?

I read a comic strip once in which a woman was lamenting the fact that she’d turned into her mother. All the behaviors she hated, she’d adopted. And I heard once that if a man wants to know what his wife will be like in 30 years, he should look at her mother. It was meant to be mean.

Why now, then, am I desperately wishing for that one profound gift that eludes me – to be like my mom? I think it’s because I’m a mother now myself, and I’m beginning to wonder if I could ever hope to be the mother she has been to me. […]

Mother’s Day

by Marc Parsont

Mother’s Day terrifies me. I have an opportunity to make up for everything I may have done poorly, am doing wrong or will do poorly as a husband and as the caretaker in the house. If I get it right, brownie points until her birthday. If I get it wrong, the Sirens will howl for my head.

So, it is with this thought that I share the following: I was shopping for cards for my wife for Mother’s Day, when my friend Virginia sidled up to my cart. After we greeted each other warmly, she looked at the cards (plural) in my hand and started on a diatribe that I wouldn’t have expected coming from her. […]

Perspective (It’s All About Perspective)

by Jane Samuel

In my older age (NOT old age) I have noticed something. Call it an Oprah-Aha-moment. Or wisdom that comes with gray hair – of which I have none yet, thank you very much. Or clarity. Or Karma.

Whatever it is, it is important. It is what can turn an opinion on its head, an observation into a judgment or a friend away. It can make silver-linings shine through apparent darkness.

It’s perspective. And as we age we gain more of it I hope. At least that seems to be the case with me and why I am glad that I am parenting my kids a tad later than I had planned.

I think back over so many events that now seem vastly different because life has handed me – through other events – perspective. […]

Sticks and Stones

by Ellie Stoneley

Dear Reader: Our very own UK-based Ellie Stoneley has been shortlisted for the prestigious Brilliance in Blogging award for her blog, Mush Brained Ramblings.

Here is her latest work:

“Sticks and stones may break my bones But names will never hurt me”

This pearl of wisdom, attributed to a Mrs George Cuppples in something called Tappy’s Chicks back in 1872, is now part of nursery folklore.

I’ve never been particularly bothered by names or labels, which is probably just as well. I always wanted to be known as Beth (inspired by sweet gentle Beth from Little Women), but that never stuck, instead I ended up with Ellie as a result of my brother singing his version of (N)ellie the elephant very gleefully when my mother plated my hair into tight braids behind my ears which then stuck out at right angles.

I married in my mid forties (maybe the ears had put people off before that) and a few months before the wedding, was referred to by someone as a ‘spinster’ that’s one of the few names I have objected to … not long after that I became a “Mrs.,” a label that seems somehow too grown up for me and I’ve never quite got the hang of. Then, by an utter miracle, just over four years later, I became a mother. […]

Motherhood, with Gratitude

by Andrea Lynn

Kristi and children by photographer Tracy Cianflone

I finally saw the NURTURE: Stories of New Midlife Mothers* photo exhibit. I’ve seen many of the photos on the website, of course, and knew about the project before I started blogging here. I consider the creator of this whole Midlife Mothering project an old friend, though I suppose it has only been a few years. But, seeing the photos in real life, and reading the stories of the mothers and their children in black and white, was different.

We read so much online now, it seems rare to be standing before a real photo, much larger than my computer screen, and reading the stories in person, as others shuffled around me, sharing the exhibit space in downtown Toronto. […]

Walk the Talk (A Commentary)

by Wendy Sue Noah

Life with five precious children by my side has inspired me to be the best person I can be so that my children have a role model to follow as they make bigger and bigger choices in their own lives.

I didn’t have a role model growing up. And, so, I found myself in many dark corners trying to figure out where to shine my light. Or, trying to figure out where my light was hiding. […]

Cyma Shapiro Chats with the Creator of PureAdam*

Q: Hi, Adam. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today. We’d like to shed light on the fascinating business of sperm donation – a more recent addition to the variety of paths leading to motherhood. Please tell me a little about how you started your company?

A: From just chatting about topical issues with various friends and acquaintances, I had a general awareness of the obstacles facing people who – for whatever reason – have been unable to have children but who still want to pursue that dream. I’m thinking of obstacles such as long waiting lists for clinics, expensive fees for treatment, the embarrassment of asking for help from friends, that sort of thing.

Then I heard about a man who had offered his services (on Craigslist or something similar) and thought there must be a middle way. I discussed the concept of PureAdam with a great many female friends in their late 30s and 40s and they were extremely enthusiastic about the idea. […]

My Misconceptions About Conceiving

by Lori Shandle-Fox

There are a dozen reasons why, according to nobody but me, I shouldn’t have had trouble getting pregnant. Sure, I was old. But my mother had been too. She was 36 when my sister was born and 40 when I was born.

Shouldn’t I somehow have inherited my mother’s fertility? I’m not sure exactly how of course. Through osmosis, photosynthesis, something. I mean we were pretty close, I looked just like her, and we lived in the same house for 18 years. Clearly the dominant fertility gene should have rubbed off on me somehow. And my sister and I were both born in the sixties. Haven’t our lifestyles and technology and our environments progressed so much in forty plus years that our reproductive systems should have been more durable? (Yes, I AM aware that not one of those is rational but there you have it.) […]