“Motherhood rose around me like a tide in the weeks after my daughter’s birth,” begins Rosalynde’s 2005 post The Sea All Water. “Each night advanced toward me, implacable as a wave, my panic and dread rising like froth up a beach until the moment of submersion, when, wondrously, I found I could float. Few things in life have come to me as arduously as motherhood came, and nothing else has revealed itself as suddenly.” (more…)
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Mother’s Day: The Sea all Water
4 Responses to Mother’s Day: The Sea all Water
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Okay, I will admit my stupidity. I read it three times through, and didn’t “get” it. Can someone translate this into non-poetry?
To me, it sounds like major enabling, that is teaching a child there are no consequences to procrastination–indeed, that if they want one-on-one time with mom, put off the assignment. That does not strike me as healthy.
I am sure this is not what she is saying. I just don’t understand what she *is* saying.
I miss Rosalynde.
Naismith- What I see in it is that motherhood isn’t some nirvana achieved after giving birth where instincts and nature take over.
Rather mothering is simply a matter of doing what needs to be done, (sometimes at personal sacrifice).
I grew up with a lot of rhetoric about mothering instincts and instantly loving your children, and women being natural nurturers and caretakers, and euphoric joy at having snot-nosed 2 year olds pulling your hair. When motherhood didn’t come naturally or easily or fill me with euphoria it was easy to feel like I was defective. The notion that care taking is just something you do, and you learn as you go, and the baby is a person that you develop a relationship with just like anyone else was a huge relief for me.
You can’t float up a mountain, you climb it by putting one foot in front of the other. Similarly you can’t float through raising kids, you raise kids by the small acts of will like getting up at 2am to feed the baby.
(I do agree that this particular incident sounds like enabling to me too).
Thanks so much for the explanation.