Real Mother

by Patti


Sometimes I feel like a fake mother.

Like I somehow don’t have the right to complain, or vent the same vents that those “real” mothers have: The ones with more than one kid.

I have an only child, and I feel like that sometimes puts me in the Freak category rather than the Mother category.  That somehow, because I only have one child to deal with, I get off easier than those that have 2, 3, 4 (oh God!) to deal with: 2, 3, 4 backpacks to rummage through; 2, 3, 4 noses and butts to wipe; 2, 3, 4 lunches to make; 2, 3, 4 more times laundry to wash; 2, 3, 4 sets of homework to check…. The list goes on and on.

I also don’t have to deal with the brain-stabbing cries of “She hit me!”; “He won’t give me my toy back!”; “She won’t leave me alone!”, "He started it!", and all that other sibling rivalry that can drive a mother to want to lock her children in a windowless room for pretty much ever.

And knowing all of this, and hearing my mother friends lament these very things, I sometimes secretly feel… like maybe they are more a mother than I am. It’s like they are part of a world I will never understand or know, which, in many cases, is very true. I often see my friends have to negotiate with their children in order to keep the sibling peace in the house. “Let your sister play with you guys!” I’ll admit: Sometimes, from my perspective, I think, “Wow, that’s not fair. Kids need to learn they can’t always get their own way.” I remember once a friend had her 2 kids, a brother and sister, spending the night at another friend’s house, who also had a brother and sister set the same age. My friend’s little boy had an allergic reaction, and she had to go and pick him up. Apparently, he got really upset about having to go home, especially because his sister was staying behind. To keep the peace, my friend made her daughter leave the sleep-over, too. When she first told me this, I thought it was unfair that she forced her daughter to give up her fun just because her brother had to leave. But then I realized: Siblinghood is all about learning sacrifice, empathy, sharing, society. Though it may have seemed unfair to her daughter at the time, my friend was actually teaching her to do something unselfish for her brother.

These are things I will never have to deal with; things I will never know.

Does this make me “less than” in the world of motherhood?

I wonder about this.

But this I do know: I deal with things my friends with more than one child don’t have to worry about.  Will my daughter be lonely? IS she lonely? Will she be selfish? Who will be her support system when her father and I are old and in diapers? What if we die while she is still little? Who will share her history? Will she hate me because she is alone?

And that is when I realize: Yes, maybe my friends are more frazzled than me when it comes to the logistics of motherhood - after all, everything I do for my daughter, they have to do 2, 3, 4 times more. But in the end, whether it is for 1, 2, 3, 4 or even more, we, as mothers, are only doing the best we can. Sometimes we fail, sometimes we triumph. We are all different as mothers and have unique experiences, both good and bad, in raising our children. But the one constant, common thread we all share is the aching, all-encompassing love that we have for them.

That is real motherhood.