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.
Even in the public space, I wasn’t embarrassed by my open tears. The stories were all mine – versions of people I could have been, anyway. Single women with good careers, divorced women with heartaches, wise women who married late. All of them finding new motherhood in the middle of their lives, youth far behind them, age not yet disqualifying them from the chance.
As I emerged into the bright spring sunshine, I emailed my Single Mothers by Choice group and told everyone to try to get to the exhibit – these were our stories, I said. Mothers by birth or adoption or fostering, parents to babies, children and teens, healthy and challenged, straight and gay, surprise and relief and fatigue. And more than anything, gratitude. So grateful, all of us, that we grabbed onto this vessel just in time, the fear clambouring in our hearts that maybe the ship had sailed. But no. We’re aboard. We made it to motherhood, a tiny bit late, but just in time.
I’m active in the Single Mother by Choice group in Toronto and internationally, and every day, every week, every year, a new woman will find us and start immediately with her excitement, and her fear. Can she have a child by herself? Can she do it morally, financially, biologically?
These women fear exhaustion, fear poverty, fear illness in their child or themselves, fear bureaucracy, failed adoptions, lost pregnancies, judgement by family or society. But they hope, too. They hope for someone to care for, someone to raise and feed and teach. The dream of their own bundle of joy, a small warm hand in theirs, a connection to the future, a purpose to their lives. Motherhood.
My daughter Claire, aged 5, wants to have five children. One at a time, she assures me. Boys and girls. Part of it is the age, I know. We are very deeply in a doll phase in our house – a phase I thought Claire was going to skip. She wasn’t into dolls at age two or three, like Anna, her little sister. Anna’s been doll crazy seemingly since birth. Claire is late to the party, and of course I can relate. Dolls didn’t appeal when she was younger. Now they do, and imaginary motherhood consumes her days.
As we were shopping tonight at the new Target, I let each of my girls choose two small dolls, about the size of my hand. They came with a tiny stroller or cradle or bathtub, and at bedtime tonight as I brushed my girls’ teeth, they brushed the teeth of their dolls. They tucked their dolls into bed (a tissue box was the perfect size), then I tucked them into their beds. It was very Lion King circle of life, somehow. I have my two children, they have their two children.
I asked if their dolls were boys or girls. “Girls,” said Claire, without hesitation. “Girls are better,” she said, and I braced for a sexist sentiment of a 5-year-old. But even she was looking to the dolls’ future. “It’s better to be a girl, because then you can have babies, and be a mother.” The feminist heart of me thought, briefly, eek. Doctors, you mean. Girls can be lawyers and doctors and journalists. But I didn’t speak up, because we can be all those things. But the luckiest part is motherhood, of course. If we’re lucky, we get to be mothers.
*NURTURE: Stories of New Midlife Mothers (www.MidlifeMothers.org) is the voice and face of Midlife Mothers. MotheringintheMiddle.com serves as the voice and forum. Both are created by Cyma Shapiro.