THE MOTHER I THOUGHT I WOULD BE

The harsh truth is, I’m not the mother I thought I would be. I love to roam. I love to travel and taste and explore. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m a forever learner, but I thrive when doing something new. I knew having kids meant I’d get to experience so many amazing things with them for the first time. It was a big part of my desire to be a mother. I had so many ambitions; I was going to take my children everywhere with me. Whether it was a splash pad at the park, or an afternoon at a market, or a trip to another country… I was going to ignore the hassle of getting them up, and dressed, and out of the house, and just focus my energy on the experience that I was going to be giving them. I have images in my head of walking up and down the aisle of an airplane with my baby waving and babbling to passengers smiling back at them. I can visualize the look on their face when they see the ocean or a palm tree. I saw maternity leave as the ultimate opportunity to take advantage of the freedom I would have with my children. But as every parent knows, time is not our friend, and my time to do these things with them while they’re so small is slipping away. 

We had a trip to Florida planned after Lou was born. I bought all the travel gear for a baby, purchased swimsuits in January, researched the best sunscreens. We’d booked our seats on a flight that perfectly timed with naps, and we got Lou a passport. We were going to stay at a little condo with our very own pool, a short walk from the ocean. It had a patio on the marina for us to sit out on and watch the boats go by. I was so excited and then, it was March 2020. 

So hear I am, sitting and rocking my next baby without ever having done any of those things with either of them. It’s hard to not feel a little like a failure because this is not the mom that I thought I would be. I didn’t want to be scared of taking my kids to the park on Saturdays because it’s too busy, or ordering take-out so I don’t feel irresponsible for going to a restaurant unnecessarily. I wanted to teach my kids that the world is small, not scary.

Now, all of a sudden, the world is starting to open up again and sometimes I don’t even recognize myself. I hunkered down for motherhood with a head full of plans and a heart full of dreams, and it’s like I’m emerging from hibernation years later as a cautious mother of two. It’s not just that my identity has changed by the fact that I now most strongly (and proudly) identify as a mother, it’s also that I don’t identify as the mother that I thought I would. I know you may read this and want to remind me that becoming a parent is never going to be exactly like how you pictured in your mind, but cut me some global pandemic slack. 

Something else (something unexpected) has come out of all of this. If you’d have told me before that I wouldn’t travel with my kids as babies, or that I wouldn’t always feel comfortable leaving the house with them, or that my extended family wouldn’t visit when they were born, or that my biggest hopes and dreams for them would be turned completely upside down… I don’t think I could have taken it. So along with all the parts of a mother I didn’t get to be (yet), I have been resilient beyond anything I ever expected. I have been adaptable in ways I never would have thought I could. I have made compromises and sacrifices to my entire vision of motherhood. I have been entirely selfless, but in a way that doesn’t crush my mental and emotional well-being. Despite having some of my biggest hopes and dreams taken away from me at a time in my life that I’ll never get back, I have woken up everyday with the unwavering motivation to do what is best for my children. Despite it all I feel stronger, and so much more capable.

It hasn’t always been as fun as I’d planned or as adventurous as I’d envisioned. I’m not the mother that I thought I would be, and even though it sometimes makes me sad… it does not translate to a disappointment in myself. These days (especially with being limited on what we have been able to do), are going by in a blur and I don’t know if my daughters will grow up remembering that they didn’t go out for dinner, or that they didn’t get to sit on my lap on an airplane. But I have hope that they will remember feeling loved, and protected, and safe. Not getting to do what I dreamed of doing with them, and instead doing what I know they needed, has been my hardest lesson. But the sacrifices made have laid the groundwork for a love rooted in selflessness. 

The world is opening up again, and because of what the past few years taught me about the mother I am… I’m ready for it. We will travel. We’ll show our kids the world, we’ll see things for the first time again through their eyes, we’ll do things that are completely new and exciting. It may come at a different time but it won’t be any less significant to them or me. I may not have turned out to be the mother that I thought I would be, but I have hope that the mother I became will be even better for them.