What Being a Mom Means

Being a mom is loving a soul before you even meet, promising to protect and love it with every ounce of your being. It is sleepless nights and hard, long, isolating days, all of which, once passed, you long for and would go back and endure again in a heartbeat.

Being a mom is sitting back and watching your heart walk around outside your body.  It is the inherent feeling that you are doing absolutely everything wrong but yet somehow, your kid is turning out okay.  It is the constant worry that “okay” is not enough and that you should be doing more to develop, shape and guide your offspring into the ideal human being.  

Being a mom is forgoing pedicures or gossip magazines, and being happy to do so, so you feel slightly less guilty spending money you shouldn’t really be spending on that Paw Patrol playset that he most definitely does not need but wants so dearly.  It’s having your heart break every single time they cry out in pain or illness, wishing you could absorb it and suffer in their place.

Being a mom is enforcing rules and being stern even if you don’t want to be.  It’s ensuring everyone at the table is fed, washed and clothed before you even begin to think about washing your face or brushing your hair.  It is teaching them that they can do anything they want to do but also expressing to them that they don’t have to do it all.  It’s holding sticky, little hands and wiping grubby little noses, and kissing scraped elbows and knees.

Being a mom is having a crap day and still smiling through bathtime and bedtime stories.  It is having your mood lifted by hearing a simple, “I love you, mum”.  Being a mom is silently willing them to go to bed so you can have some peace and quiet, and then spending that time watching them sleep and wishing they were small again.

Being a mom is building them up, up, up while teaching them many may want to tear them down.  It is instilling in them the desire to strive for greatness but not at the expense of others. Being a mom is showing them that kindness is contagious and gratitude can feed the soul.

Being a mom is experiencing a love that knows no bounds. It is being strong when you are weak and being brave when you are terrified. It is a life-altering gift that’s significance is unimaginable until you have experienced it first hand. Being a mom is a magical endeavour which creates an unbreakable bond that will never die. It is thankless, exhausting, and the hardest, most-fulfilling job I have ever had. It is my reason for waking up every morning and it is what gets me through a long work day.

Being a mom is anything and everything you could ever want it to be and I thank my lucky stars everyday that I get to go on this crazy, topsy-turvy, adventure. It is the best thing I have ever got to be, the greatest love I have ever felt, and is what completes me.