Dear Reader: Please enjoy some haikus from BoomerHaiku that celebrate the special challenges – and rewards – of midlife motherhood.
Japanese symbol for Mother
What’s Boomer Haiku? Well, a haiku is a 17-syllable poem in three lines of 5, 7 and 5 that traditionally evokes images of the natural world. Boomer Haiku (a blog by Roxanne Jones) takes a mostly light-hearted, often irreverent look at life as a baby boomer as we move through midlife and beyond. After all, what could be more natural than looking (and laughing) at our lives at this juncture?
Having a baby practically guarantees you never get enough sleep. Plus, you’re likely dealing with the sleeplessness that often accompanies perimenopause or menopause:
Sleep deprived. Whether
from hormones or new baby,
it’s my new normal.
Dealing with the terrible twos at midlife is no hormonal picnic, either – inspiring these two haikus:
Midlife motherhood
means tantrums and hot flashes
at one time. Wine, please.
Kid has a meltdown
while mother has a hot flash.
Is this irony?
And then there are mood swings…what if you have a daughter going through puberty when you’re going through The Change?
Menopausal mom
and teenage daughter. Pity
the man in that house.
An estimated 30 to 40 percent of middle-aged women have urinary incontinence, often the result of childbirth, weak pelvic floor muscles, pelvic organ prolapse and/or menopause. More irony:
Toilet-trained my kid
just as I need diapers of
my own. I’m so pissed.
Remember rolling your eyes at things your mother said when you were younger – and vowing never to say them to your own kids (one of my favorites: “If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it, too?”)?
Do you find yourself
saying things your mother did?
And now they make sense?
For those of you whose eggs have flown the coop and must turn to surrogacy, adoption or other methods to have a child, just remember the bright side of being eggless:
We’re all out of eggs.
That means we older chicks can
Cluck with abandon.
This, of course, assumes you’re in the mood, what with everything else on your plate:
Wordplay or foreplay?
Frankly, these days I prefer
social intercourse.
Talk about multitasking…in addition to managing the myriad details of everyday life, midlife moms who work outside the house get to deal with two major life events – parenthood and retirement – simultaneously:
Your career may end
but, as an older mother,
your job’s just begun.
Chances are, you’re also dealing with aging parents:
Our age group is called
the Sandwich Generation.
Think I’ll get toasted.
But we persevere, because that’s what being a mom is all about:
What doesn’t kill us
makes us stronger. Kind of like
midlife motherhood.
Giving and nurturing life – at any age – demands exceptional focus, commitment, patience, discipline, flexibility, humor and love. To raise a child at midlife, well:
Raising kids in life’s
second half is no small feat.
Midlife mothers rock!
Roxanne Jones blogs at boomerhaiku.com, a mostly light-hearted, often irreverent look at life as a baby boomer, 17 syllables at a time. When she’s not tapping out haikus, she’s a freelance medical copywriter, enjoys chardonnay and contemplates plastic surgery to get rid of the wattle on her neck. Although she’s never raised a child , she does have a 44-year-old stepson, 36-year-old daughter-in-law and six-year-old grandson, two cats and a husband. You can read more Boomer Haiku at www.boomerhaiku.com.