Motherhood… or the lack thereof

For me, who is (still happily) childless, motherhood comes with a truckload of issues and baggage. Truckload, being used in the place of a much more apt rhyming expletive.

I know I have very little authority to comment on the subject of being a mother, but again, a truckload, full of thoughts when it comes to being mothered and yet the two in part is very difficult to separate. Does the one not determine to an extent the other? The way you were mothered will determine the way you mother. I pray not.

Reflecting on how and by whom I was raised resembles a relay. It started out with my mom who was relieved by my grandmother very often up until age 10 when I went to live with my dad and stepmom until age 18, again with my grandmother stepping in over holidays. So, I had two moms. Lucky me! Two moms looking out for you, taking you shopping, having heart to hearts with, drying your tears …. Not in my world, no.

I obviously can’t go into years and years of detail here, but so often when my mom and/or stepmom speak of something that happened while I was growing up, I wonder whether I was delusional or just very emotionally detached as a child. I do not recall things with the same nostalgia they do. The overpowering emotion to this day when I think about my childhood is fear and loneliness and a feeling of not being good enough. Reference back to my first blog post; I am not a speaker, and this is probably the first time I am ever putting this out there.

If this sounds very grim, let me assure you that I never went to bed hungry and always had clothes to wear. My stepmom likes to use this as her defence for breaking me down emotionally and blaming me for wanting a relationship with my biological mother who ran away to work abroad and missed literally every important thing in a young girl’s life from my first kiss, getting my period, bitchy friends, matric farewell, making a career choice and getting into varsity.

I had a grandmother who was an angel in my life. Not without faults, very impatient at times and also very set in her ideas of right and wrong. I lived for holidays when I could go visit her. Those were the precious times when there was peace, when no one was fighting, when I felt like I could breathe. She also taught me about wearing the right underwear with certain outfits, having a skin care routine and wanting more for myself.

But really, there were good times. There were. Just because the good times did not translate to the type of love or reassurance I needed, does not mean they were not there.

To sum it up, I learnt from both of my mothers. Calling them mothers feel untrue, because I’m not sure that that is what I want my definition of a mother to be. And maybe that is why (one day) being a mother is the most daunting thing to me. I don’t know what a mother is supposed to be. And I am not so sure if I am meant to be one.