It’s very cold and rainy today. I think some mulled wine sounds good. Something warm and cozy to enjoy as I watch the rain pool around the stalks of my daffodils.
And I know it is colder and the weather more severe other places, but I live here and for us, this is cold! It snowed most of the morning which is rather extraordinary.
In keeping with my February love theme and our extraordinary morning snow showers, I want to post about loving my children. The definition for “my children” is broad here. I am including all the children I have mothered. There are the nephews and niece, the cousins, the foster children, my biological children, step child and the lost waifs that touched my mothering spirit along the way. They are all my children as far as I’m concerned.
When people ask how many children I have, I sometimes answer, “It depends on how you count.”
Mothering has been an astonishing life experience for me. Becoming a mother helped to heal heart wounds from my childhood. Becoming a mother to children I did not bear, helped me know love is not a matter of biology and labor pains. Mothering children who did not know me as a mother but as their teacher, case worker or neighbor made me learn that titles are meaningless. Mothering this way also made me especially and eternally grateful for the mothering I received from those who were not my mother.Becoming a mother gave me a knowing of God’s love I could not previously grasp.
The theme of these posts this month is loves. The love I have been able to give and receive as a mother has given me the ability to know love in any form.
Whadayathink? If you’re a parent, how has it affected love for you?
I loved this post. I have often thought of you as one of my un-biological mothers. Although we do share some biology! Like you, I have had many “mother figures” in my life that have healed wounds created my my own real mother. I use the term real mother very loosely. I never got the chance to thank you for what you were to me. I remember the Halloween you sewed me a princess costume and you did my hair and let me wear your jewelry. I had never felt so beautiful. Then you took several of us cousins out trick or treating. I remember that Halloween more than any other in my childhood. What a gift you gave me. I remember you taking me swimming, and doing my nails and even giving me a bottle of nail polish to keep. You really did have such an impact on me. I remember being crushed when you got married. I miss you and am getting entirely too mushy. Can I blame it on the pregnancy hormones? I was so sad to miss our get together last fall, we should plan another one real soon.
Wow! Thank you so much. It is a full circle moment to have given you those experiences and then have you acknowledge how important they are to you too. I appreciate the mush- hormonally induced or not.
I’m not a parent, but I’ve been called a mother on occasion.
When my mother gave birth to my little sister late in life, it gave me the opportunity to experience what it’s like to be a parent.
I do try to be a good parent to my inner child; I often take him out for an ARB (Adult Refreshing Beverage).
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