Taking the time to become a mother

How long does it take to become a mother? A day? 9 months? A year? Two? A full life?

When the conception of a child takes only one special moment (sometimes repeated over years), the birth of a mother is often a way longer process than the nine months of pregnancy. You may have a newborn in your arms and everyone calling you “mama”, and yet the mother in you is often at this stage still also a newborn mother. 

As your newborn is learning to drink milk, to poo, to pee, to open his/her eyes, to move this body, to sleep, you are doing pretty much the same, learning how to eat, drink, poo, pee, move, sleep, and more while having the responsibility of another being in your arms most of the time.

You may not know how to deal with all these, and that is normal: you are learning, just as your child is! You are not alone, mama. We all go through this once? Twice? Let's be honest here, an endless amount of time in a motherhood journey! This being true for a first child, a second, a third… Every time you are a newborn mother, and as you are trying to give all the kindness and patience of the world for your own child to grow in his/her own rhythm, I would love to invite you to do the same for you.

You may grow faster or slower in some areas than other mamas around you, and that is all good. Our daughter is now two years and three months old and starts to show interest in colors, and for now, everything is red. Some of the children of the same age already know all the colors and start to know the nuances of them, but Opal had different interests until now. It is the same for me; some of my friends had a pretty good idea what kind of mother they wanted to be even before their baby was born. I am just starting to figure this out: seeing the emergence of the values that guide my steps on this journey!

It takes time, but even more important, this time is not to be counted in days, weeks, or months but in your own rhythm. 

As I felt that motherhood gave me very little time and space to reflect on motherhood itself and almost no possibility to see what would be my inner compass in it, I have created with some other mama friends of kids of the same age a mama book club. There we read books about motherhood, children, etc. and then we reflect on it together, around 3 leading questions: 

• What have I learned from this book that I wish to apply in my life? 

• If already applied, what is my experience with it?  

• What ideas from this book would I like to challenge? 

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Those books and those sharings have supported me tremendously to slowly find my own answers and inner compass within motherhood. What I mean by compass are these values that guide you in everyday life and decisions; they are not rules, they are a deep understanding of how you and your family wish to connect and weave life together.

Many books have supported me but I would like to mention here the two last ones we read: Mothershift from Jessie Harrold, which is so deeply supportive within the motherhood journey, and Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne, which allowed me to go slower and simpler in our everyday life.

And to finish, I would like to share with you, mamas, my favorite mantras as mama: “It will pass”, “It will come” and “You are not alone.”

With love,

Natacha