The Mother Altar

I lay this message to myself on the altar of motherhood. It is an altar that belongs to all of us, whether we have offspring or not. I understand that my learning happened from a place of privilege, and from that place I honor that everyone goes through hard and impossible issues thoughts and feelings surrounding motherhood. These are my thoughts today, but I also embrace the correction and wisdom that comes from those who have different experiences. If this helps you, fantastic. If it doesn’t, I hope it doesn’t add pain.  

The Mother Altar

When my kids were little they would go to church and bring me cards made in their primary groups. Those cards would thank me for things like cleaning, washing, cooking, etc. These things were great, but I didn’t feel like they were especially strong indicators of how I mothered. When I was finally able to articulate that to my kids I pointed out that while I often cook them dinner, but that isn’t unique to me, and I really look forward to not doing that for the rest of my life. If you are going to go to the trouble of making me a card, think of one thing that I bring to life that is different than all the other moms you know. We took care of this whole conversation in one sitting and I hope it didn’t cause them too much stress.

I decided to write my own Mother’s Day list for myself this year, because I can and it matters to me.

Dear Carrie Ann,

Here are things I think you brought to the mother altar that were important and done from a unique part of your soul:

• You are good at seeing humans as individuals and you cared about who each kid was for their sake alone.
• You are calm and good at getting to the heart of a problem. You didn’t worry about blame and so you teamed up with your kids to solve problems.
• You watched each child and tried to taper media and lessons for them as individuals—mystery books and active adventures for Kat; embodied activities and caregiving opportunities for Erik; imagination and metaphysical conversations and puzzles with Kirk.
• You gave individual nightly tuck-ins and love for each kid every night you were home. You were highly involved with community, political, and school events so you weren't home every night. They also learned to self-comfort and that is equally important. 
• You enjoyed them—like really enjoyed them. You enjoyed them, not because you were their mom, but because they were enjoyable humans.
• You kept learning and talked to each of them with respect. When you learned something, you shared it and when they could teach you something you listened to and learned from them.
• You let them know you. You worked through your own life out-loud so they could see that it was all about making mistakes, learning about what you don’t know, make amends often, being embarrassed and scared, but then enjoying the new knowledge and using your privilege to make the world a little better.
• You let your kids correct you. You never believed you knew everything (and you deeply understood that you couldn’t read minds) so when you were wrong you let them say so. You showed them how to take correction with grace. You hope you also gave correction with grace, but that is for them to say. You did your best.
• You played. You sucked at imagination games, but you were great with physicality, so we played with our bodies a lot. We wrestled, poked, ran, kicked, giggled, snuggled in blankets on the back lawn, danced, sang, hiked, camped, and drove. Even though you were horrible at imagination games you tried to build space for them to play them and then got out of the way so they could fully immerse. You were good at building forts, organizing Legos, finding materials, and making space for them to do what they wanted to do.
• You tried to build-in the room for them to make individual relationships with others. You are good at not being jealous, so they could be as close to their dad, grandparents, teachers, leaders, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, and themselves as they wanted. You didn’t ask for attention or to be their favorite.
• You taught them to argue well and get what they wanted out of a situation. You let them practice these skills on you. This open space to argue for their desires taught them to use their natural abilities to weave their own worlds and situations. The world might block them, but you didn’t.
• You kept learning and included your learning in their lives. You had them learn vocabulary and theory as you talked through all your new insights with them. You also had them read scholarly articles out loud to you as you drove them to soccer games, meets, musical activities, lessons, and while you cooked. You and Richard also talked in front of them so they could see how adults talk through big important issues. Slowly you overcame your belief that you were not as smart as their dad, and you lived all of that out in the open.
• You let them work through their own beliefs, ethics, morals, and learning, and you believed them as they shared what was important to them. You learned to not push your own beliefs on them and opened your heart as they grew their own worlds.
• More than anything, you loved them with a crazy, mad, gigantic love. You loved them as big as the worlds we created together. You loved them, not because you were their mom, but because they were them.
• You built an altar of motherhood that was not based on sacrifice, but a co-built altar of love, light, and joy. This altar can hold pain, growth, failure, and triumph with equal respect.

Today, for the zillionth time, I lay guilt on that altar. Mother-guilt takes up too much space in the world, and it is an unnecessary component of mothering. We can mother without it, so let it burn. Let mother-guilt ashes rise and fall. Our mother earth who carries our joys and tears with equal importance will take those ashes and make them into new life. Let them belong to her because she is strong and our carrying them does not do any good.