The title of this blog – Mothering in the Middle – comes at me in more ways than one.
It sums up my life because I am a mid-life mother. I am the mother who wears night sweats and ponders progesterone while also wearing the face paint my nine-year-old old recently painted over my fine lines.
And it sums up my life because I mother in the middle, between biology and adoption; between raising natal daughters – whose faces and flesh, hair and habits mirror my own – and an adoptive daughter – whose body runs deep with descent and DNA, past love and loss I do not know.
And it sums up my life because I mother one in college, and one high school and one in elementary school. And I mother in between states, with some at home and one miles away.
And it sums up my life because I mother my aging and sick parents and my children. Caught between the bread of those two worlds I am the meat –the PB&J – in my own sandwich generation.
How do you Mother in the Middle?