Mothers Over 40 Archives - Page 10 of 30

Stand and Be Recognized

by Jane Samuel

It’s that time of year again. Time to recognize our mothers. To make them breakfast in bed, buy them expensive cards, mold clay into indiscernible lumpish presents at preschool, take them to tea or brunch or dinner, to kiss them, hug them, honor them.

But in my Momma heart it is time to fully consider them. To not only parade around and polish the shiny head’s side of the motherhood coin, but to turn it and look at its tail side too. To ask, and answer, something that perhaps we don’t consider enough – when is a woman a mother? […]

Mums, Moms and Mothering

by Ellie Stoneley

I’ve fallen foul of it several times. My brother, who lives in the Far East, gets it wrong every year. The confusion has resulted in quite the most incredible mother in the entire universe wondering what she’s done to deserve being forgotten on a day she should be the centre of attention. I’m talking about my mother, and about Mothering Sunday. Or is that Mothers Day, or perhaps Mother’s Day?

In the UK, we celebrate our Mums on a different day than when the US celebrates Moms. Back in Blighty, Mothering Sunday falls on the fourth Sunday in Lent, while in America (and most of the world), Mother’s Day is always on the second Sunday in May. Just to add to the muddle, in other countries, mothers are celebrated on special days throughout the year – from January in Myanmar to December in Panama and Indonesia.

Our current tradition of celebrating and thanking our mothers is consistent with the States, but the roots of the celebration are different again and in a fascinating and thought- provoking way. […]

Offering a Mother’s Day – To Others

by DeAnna Scott

This Mother’s Day will be the first one I can celebrate as a mother of humans. I spent many years celebrating Mother’s Day as a mom of furry four-legged critters, but of course it wasn’t the same. In actuality, it hid the emptiness I had – an emptiness brought on by years of infertility and loss.

Women who are currently in the throes of, or those that have been through infertility, most assuredly can relate to these feelings. It is because of this emptiness that on this first Mother’s Day and all that shall follow, I shall celebrate it feeling grateful – I don’t want it to be a celebration in honor of me as a mother since it is I who has the honor to have been blessed with my two baby humans.

Yet, I can’t help but contemplate the emptiness of the remaining members of the moms-in-waiting alliance. It’s a club no woman wants to be a part of; you don’t volunteer for it and you certainly don’t search it out. But you pay your dues – you have no choice in the matter. As a matter of fact, you pay years of dues reluctantly learning that often this quest for motherhood is a journey, not a sprint. At least for us in the club. […]

Having Faith as a Mother

by Heather Griffiths

Lately, I’ve found myself internally struggling with the same two questions: “Is motherhood all that I dreamed it would be?” Yes, and then some! “Did I ever imagine, in a million years, I would feel as blessed and as challenged as I do now?”– No, never!

This year, I have experienced more challenges as a mother than I ever have in the past. For example, in the past three days I’ve gone from the exhilaratingly proud moments where my son sings out his praise to God unabashed and passionately on the school’s stage to frustration and defeat when he is in the throes of a temper tantrum of epic proportions. […]

This Is What Happiness Is…

by Aviva Luria

“Pickul Clan”

“I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

– Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

Someone posted the above quote by Kurt Vonnegut on Facebook recently and it truly spoke to me. I hadn’t encountered it before; although Kurt Vonnegut was one of my favorite authors in high school, I’ve read very little of him since. I loved him then because he made me laugh and think and view the world in a new, demented way, and this is likely at least partially why I am the way I am now: cynical but loving and tending to view the world in an odd, demented way.

Have you ever said to yourself, “I am happy now; this is what happiness is?” I’ve always thought it was a little odd that I do. I’ve long thought it was my writing tendency that so often made me feel as though I were standing apart from the scene in which I found myself, a somewhat impartial observer. Reading that quote made me realize that, even if that’s a strange thing to do, I’m not entirely alone. Kurt Vonnegut, at least, knew about that. […]

Breakfast in Bed

by Andrea Hopkins

Weeks before Mother’s Day, it became clear that six-year-old Claire had absorbed the importance of the day and had big plans to check off every box a child could check to mark the occasion. Bags of artwork would come home from daycare and school, but I was not allowed to look — it’s a surprise, she’d say. Pockets were filled with pebbles one day and pine cones the next, but if I even asked about their purpose, I was met with a plea not to look, not to ask, not to wonder. It’s a surprise.

She fretted that her oven mitts were at school (for the class pizzeria — don’t even ask): how was she going to bake? She needed a recipe for chocolate cake, but I was not to inquire why. She needed to know how much something would cost, but she wouldn’t tell me what, or where, or how. […]

Finding Compassion in Motherhood

by Lora Freeman Williams

When I held my son in my arms for the first time, awe welled up within me as I gazed into his liquid, soulful his eyes. He returned my gaze, wailing to me just how difficult his journey had been, how shocking this moment was to him. I have never been so fully present a witness to someone’s story as I was at that moment.

As a new mother, I wanted to be that present to him every moment of his life to come. I was in my late 30s, educated, a Buddhist meditation practitioner and in recovery from a massively abusive childhood. I would be everything my mother was not able to be most of my childhood: present both physically and emotionally. I would give him the experience of having a parent witness his experiences with so much love that he would grow up to be deeply connected to himself and to others, trusting that the world is a safe place. […]

What Lies Within – Reflections on Being a Mother

by Michelle Eisler

Who are you in the hidden corners of your heart? What are the secrets that no one knows about, tucked away in the dark?

Do you hope for more happiness or wish for less pain? Do you dream of perfect health, maybe you hold onto memories from your 20’s.

Is there something you haven’t been brave enough to step out and do but the glimmer of hope still flickers in your heart?

The reality is during any given day you are the caregiver, the doctor, the chef and the housecleaner. You may work outside of the home, after which you come back and pick up where you left off. Some of you spend your day in the home, being a teacher, acting as chauffeur, or a cheerleader, and the lady at the laundry mat. […]

My Daughter’s Mothers

Hanni Beyer Lee

My three daughters were all adopted from China at older ages. Despite the immense losses each of them have carried, they have loved me and accepted my affection and care without question.

It doesn’t mean they have not hurt inside or pushed back at me. But they have called me Mama from the get-go and always reached out when they needed me.

My second daughter has a different story. We found her family early on. Her life in a state-run orphanage in the historical city of Nanjing ended at age 7 when I flew there to get her. I presumed she had been one of countless abandoned infants and spent many years with her orphaned peers.

I met Jiawen on an unusually warm evening in March, 1999. Although the flight was predictably excruciating, I was ecstatic. I was pulsing with adrenalin and I felt very confident, having done this the year before. I spoke Mandarin, and China was no longer a wildly foreign place. […]

Adoptive Moms and Mother’s Day

by Jane Samuel

When is a mom really a mom? When do we get to stand up and take the recognition being handed out in the Hallmark card aisle and the pews at church? In the newspapers and May issues of women’s magazines? In the perfume and jewelry departments? In the breakfast-in-bed rooms and brunch-serving restaurants?

In my younger-I-know-it-all days I would have answered, “When you give birth and raise that child you get the card, the flowers, the hugs and kisses.” Then life experience expanded to include miscarriages and adoption. Despite feeling just as fully a mother on those occasions, my perception of myself did not always match the outside world’s opinion of me. Indeed I would be rich if I had a dime for every time I was asked if I was my Asian daughter’s “real mother?” […]