The role of a mother has been described by many in various different ways. A mother is the nurturer, doctor, nurse, teacher, cab driver, cook, house keeper, homework helper, as well as someone who is being a part of baby's life like being a part in their body.
As many opinions as on how one should behave to be considered a “good mother”, there are really no instructions ever to make the point clear.
Motherhood is a spiritual path. This does not seem to have been considered either by women themselves, or by those who guide them spiritually. Because the conventional ways of thinking about spirituality are not really suited to the circumstances of their lives, they see what they can do as merely temporary.
The birth of a first child is an experience which totally changes the life of ANY woman. The birth itself is life-threatening and painful, even in these days of powerful medications. On a psychological level, it may be the first time in a woman’s life that she has experienced her body as totally out of her control. Nature takes over with relentless efficiency, and there is nothing she can do about it. All the control over the process that she was promised in the pre-birth classes turns out, for many first-time mothers, to be an illusion. When a woman becomes a mother, she is abruptly initiated into a new way of life, with no breather and no days off.
Often she loses a sense of her own identity. The woman simply lives ‘being a mother’. In doing so, she enters into a life of self-denying service to her child—a life far more demanding than that asked by a guru of his disciples, an obedience far greater than any vow can command. If a baby needs something, everything else has to be put aside until that need is met. If not, the need only escalates.
Additionally, to deal impatiently with a complaining baby only upsets it further; so the new mother is forced to learn patience and self-control. Contrary to popular fairytale, this does not come naturally to mothers. It comes only with the repeated experience of the consequences of impatience. In spite of the challenges, however, motherhood is not without its spiritual reliefs. A Sufi woman of Turkish origin, when asked how she integrated her family life and her spiritual life gave a simple, thought-provoking reply: “When I looked at the faces of my children, I saw the face of my Beloved”.
Now seeing that so many relationships are not going in a loving way, I take that, as she saw the new face of God.
This spiritual path is one that is not any different than any other that is introduced in the history and it is by far the oldest. We have had two different types of mothers and two different types of children for a very long time. We have mothers that are apologetic and we have mothers that are demanding. We have children that are grateful and we have children that are demanding.
Let me give you an example of myself. My mother to date she transitioned was apologetic. She thought she has not given enough, she has hurt our feelings, she has not provided enough and she has not been there for us. I – being the grateful child – to the moment she transitioned, kept on telling her that she had done the best possible. She was an amazing woman and she was and will remain my hero in how she became my mother as well as my father. To my brother – the demanding child – she never did anything right. She needed to do more. As per him, we did not have good parents. He only realized his mother’s value and innocence when she no longer was in physical existence.
My plea to my mother went unheard over and over again in making her understand that as a mother, I as a child, expected her to love me. That’s ALL. No child needs more than that. My mother lived being regretful for what she thought she had done wrong and what she thought she had not done for us. I remain grateful if for nothing, for one thing and one thing alone: her love.
I would like to say a big, gigantic “THANK YOU!!!” to all the mothers out there. The spiritual journey they have chosen is tremendous. No matter if you are or have been an apologetic or demanding mother; owning a grateful or demanding child; it is not about what society and the mass wants you to do. It’s not about a mould that you need to fit. It’s about you, paving a new spiritual path, every single time for God to experience.
Every single decision you have made through the path of “motherhood”, no matter what you consider it to be today, good or bad, was the one offered to you by this amazing source of energy we call God. There should truly be no regrets in what you have done in the past or how you have dealt with situations and circumstances. There should be no judgements passed, neither by you or any other entity, on how “you” have behaved at the time; because ALL situations no matter how similar they may look are and contain different variables.
If you are a regretful mother, ask yourself: have I loved this child? If the answer is yes, you have been an amazing mother regardless of anyone’s opinion including yours. If the answer is no, the only way to mend it is to become loving no matter how the child behaves towards this new found love today.
In Love & Light,
EL
