As mothers, we have significantly challenging periods of time where we may find ourselves a tad lost. In times past, I might have described it as a season, but after recent reflection on my own 22 years of motherhood, I have determined the term era is a bit more fitting. Seasons cycle themselves and often repeat. The word season sounds a bit weathered and mundane, whereas an era is a period of time with notable, memorable development in the growth of who we are as women. An era is significant, a time of becoming, a period of time marked by a new order of things. What if losing ourselves within the era of motherhood isn’t the problem but rather the purpose?
My oldest daughter is walking down the aisle this fall to wed her Wyoming boy, and as I’ve watched her transform from a toddler in her daddy’s cowboy boots to a young bride in a long white gown, I have noted her becoming. We tend to hang on to those things that give us identity and security because we feel safe. Yet growth comes from being squeezed, challenged, insecure and losing a bit of ourselves in the process. It may take a lifetime, but a woman is forever becoming, surrendering who she was to the possibility of who she is becoming. My daughter isn’t losing her grace, dreams, desires and individual beauty, but learning how to carry her grace, dreams and desires into a union with another soul—something new. I often look at motherhood in the same way.
Maybe our fear of what happens to ourselves during motherhood derives from a culture today that cannot even define what a mother is and devalues her surrender to the transformative nature of motherhood. The relinquishing of an older self that was once motivated by self-preservation is now dedicated to caring for what carries her legacy into the generations ahead. She could once fly solo without a care in the world, yet now she is forced to care for someone completely dependent on her. The era of motherhood is hard and beautiful, and it becomes the conditioning agent that refines her spirit and gives her strength for the next era of her life.
Sometimes, we don’t recognize who she is in the moment, but the best pieces of her will withstand the squeeze of motherhood and produce empathy, compassion, patience, unconditional love and grace. What has previously been about how we look and what others can see becomes more about what comes alive within our mind and soul.
I am sure some of you mothers have that stack of “mom dream jeans” in your closet, divided into pre-baby, post-baby and hope-they’ll-fit-one-day sections. I don't know why letting a pair of jeans go is such a challenge, but a part of me mourns losing who I was before, and I tend not to want to let that go. I have tried to reclaim those jeans and stuff my mom chub back into those size six legs, but realistically, after having six babies, my body has changed … and it is no longer about size but comfort. Organically, our bodies change just as our minds change, yet why do we hang on to a pant size to define our body’s success or accomplishments instead of remembering the miracle our bodies have made? It is what we cannot see that is transforming us from within!
Meals that were once a party-of-two romantic reservation have now become a three-way conversation over tiny grilled cheese sandwiches, a sippy cup of milk and a ketchup-smeared face full of french fries. Conversation no longer focuses on the latest cocktail party or designer handbag but centers on kids menus and an early bedtime. On the way home, you stop by a big box store for infant Tylenol because you know the teething era is no joke and expect an all-nighter. Yet, through this all, have you realized your capacity for empathy has grown 10-fold?
Our identity inevitably changes whether or not we leave our careers behind to enter the mom era when we bring home a newborn bundle of dreamy joy for the first time. When we pivot from the workforce, where we constantly receive verbal validation and achieve measurable results, to the thankless days of motherhood where we are covered in baby poo and may go four days without a shower and see no hint of a thank you, we can’t help but feel displaced. Time will continue, and we must trust that the pieces of us meant to be reclaimed will return! We may not physically fit into our favorite pair of jeans, but our perspective on how beautifully a body changes to carry a miracle will give us greater self-worth than any brand of jeans could provide us.
Motherhood changes our desires, motivations and even our drive to get out of bed in the morning. Those all-nighters are exhausting and can leave us lost and feeling depleted. The spontaneity we once thrived on is replaced with intention and a slower pace, which causes us to reflect more intently on the effects of our daily decisions. That is good! It slowly changes our personality and temperament until one day, we wonder who we are. Yet, despite all the changes and depleted feelings, we are slowly becoming something different, something new.
So, how do we navigate this loss yet hold onto ourselves with hope and purpose? It is OK to put time back into yourself! Take when you can the quiet moments of things you enjoy: reading on a hot summer afternoon by the pool, staring at a latte by yourself at a local French coffee shop, baking that pie as your grandma did, keeping a journal and writing to yourself, getting lost in a bookstore on a rainy day, going to the farmers market and buying fresh honey, making that appointment at a local salon for a blowout , rearranging your closets, lighting candles in the evening for dinner, stopping by a local thrift store and adding to your collection of vintage spoons. Taking care of yourself and giving yourself time is priceless. Find grace for yourself during this mom era and embrace the changes that come into your life from having children. Let them refine and shape the woman you are continuing to become.
After 22 years of motherhood, I love who I am today, and it is because of my children who have been the grit in the refining process and the motivation for me to make better decisions. We may wander a bit and get lost in the era of motherhood, but the product of our love and self-sacrifice far outweighs the loss of who we think we were in the past. Give yourself grace, my friends. You now have new pieces of yourself you can never live without. It is worth it all.
“Sometimes, when you pick up your child, you can feel the map of your own bones beneath your hands or smell the scent of your skin in the nape of his neck. This is the most extraordinary thing about motherhood—finding a piece of yourself separate and apart that all the same you could not live without.” – Jodi Picoult
Elizabeth Hammond is a sourdough-baking homeschooling mom of six and a “want-to-be” homesteader living in a tiny cottage in northern Overland Park.