Mothering.

I've been away from this blog for almost 6 weeks, but truth be told, I've actually authored several blogs that I haven't posted. But this topic seems timely with Mother's Day coming up this weekend, so maybe this post will actually make it out there to cyberspace.

Lately the discussions/fights/tears in our house have to do with mothering. My husband and I were raised very differently, but regardless of those differences, we each have very strong feelings, both positive and sometimes negative, about our mothers. Mothers shape our self-worth, our ability to make decisions about our own lives, our self-confidence, our values, our relationships with others, our likes and dislikes, our independence, our ability to love and care for others, and our outlook on the world - all in a way that a father or any other close relative or friend never could. A mother is someone who teaches you to be who you are; no, this isn't a nature versus nuture debate, because even those who believe that nature determines one's personality will admit that nuturing, or lack thereof, will play a role.

A mother can either build you up or cut you down, teach you to follow the "rules" or teach you to make your own decisions, let you be your own person or encourage you to "fit in", do things for you or allow you to learn for yourself, show you what it means to love unconditionally or show you that love comes with a price. Both types of mothers will raise a child to an adult who is capable of existing in the world, but these two adults will have entirely different worldviews and ways of relating to others. And when these two adults meet, get married, and have children - you have all the emotional baggage our mothers sent us packing with the day we left their households. Not to say that our mothers left us any more than any other kid - we all have baggage, it's finding the matching luggage set in another person that counts. :)

Perhaps most importantly, it's your mother that teaches you how to BE a mother (and profoundly impacts the parenting style of her male son as well). The two of us, learning how to parents ourselves, have realized that it's ok to learn from our mothers, and sometimes it's learning what NOT to do that is the most important lesson. In keeping with the clever baggage theme, there are some things in both of our suitcases that I am willing to throw out, and there are certain items I will keep. My son will grow up knowing he's loved, no matter what he looks like when he leaves the house, no matter what activities he chooses to enjoy, no matter what person he decides to be. He will have the freedom to make his own choices, learn from his mistakes, and throughout his life, develop his own values set based in his own moral standards. And thanks mostly to his father, he will know how to have fun, know how to break the rules when he should, and know how to be a man. Hopefully when he packs his bags from our house, they will be at least partially empty so he can begin filling them with his own things.

It all boils down to one personal revelation: Every choice I make as a mother in the raising of my son will impact him more than I could ever imagine. Something I say to him when he is 10 years old could travel with him into his 20s and 30s. I have to expect that for a time he will want to copy everything I do, and then he will want to do the exact opposite of everything I do. He will learn some of life's most difficult lessons from me, and the coping strategies he will use to get through them. He will subconsciously measure every woman he meets against me - what kind of woman am I? And my simple task as his mother: I must be careful with his heart. I must be careful with his mind.