Finding the Joy in Mothering

Today's post written by Chrysula

Finding the Joy in Mothering

Photo credit IndependenceKids.blogspot.comUma Thurman is starring in a new movie due out next month about motherhood.  She plays a SAHMommy Blogger in New York City with two kids.  Add two more kids and small business and that could be me (if only I looked like Uma).  I am curious as to how the film will portray our mothering?  Will we see the constant seesaw of the bitter and the sweet that is our daily rhythm?   I wonder.

At night around the dinner table, I ask my children “What was your best thing today?”  I might have just stormed and shouted my way through “set the table”, “eat your broccoli”, “please keep your milk in your cup or in your mouth”  and “get your hands off your sister”. 

And yet it’s always there.  “Snuggle time with Mommy” or “This lovely dinner”.  Lately we’ve branched out to “school”, “recess”, and “music class” – each declared emphatically.  I am always staggered at how quickly they can move from conflict to supreme happiness.

There’s a life lesson right there.  Our children are so quick to forgive, to move on and reclaim their joy.  Whilst I get bogged down in the details, the day-to-day detritus and sometimes forget the deep, unequivocal, rich happiness I receive from my mothering.   I am not an overly playful person and honestly don’t play with my kids that much.  Just not my thing.  But we spend a lot of time together.  When we have those moments, there can be real bliss.  For a few seconds, even minutes, everything in the world is perfect.  Then of course the next melt down comes.  And we begin again.

We have to find ways to capture those moments  to strengthen us for the remainder of the journey.  I am a great believer in journals or personal diaries.  I’ve been keeping one on and off since I was a young teen.  It is sporadic.  Something I want to do more of, consistently.  I record sad times and difficult days, but I also very consciously record my joys.  So I can remember when I need to recall those emotions the most.

I’ve also started journaling with my older children, daughters aged 5 and 7 yrs.  Once a week on Sunday afternoons we sit down at the computer.  They dictate, I am the typist.  We talk about the week.  I prompt them about things they did, experiences I know they had.  Then the rest just flows.  It is both enlightening to see what they highlight, what is important to them and relationship building, tightening that mother/daughter bond.

Let’s create the space for this conversation to happen, for joy in our homes to be discussed and shared and recognized.   If we don’t talk about our joy and take note of it, somehow I think we risk losing it.  In those times of frustration, conflict and sheer exhaustion it is elusive and difficult to remember.

I would love to hear what you do to keep the joy in your mothering.  Sometimes just asking what made our children happy today is all it takes.  And asking yourself too.  Take note: what was your best thing today.

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Love, to the Moon and back