Kind and Good is Motherhood

This was on Facebook today by a woman named Bunmi Laditan.

Why is motherhood so exhausting? Because you are not just taking care of children. Anyone can do that. Anyone can feed a child, clothe a child, give a kid a bath, and send them off to bed. That's not what makes motherhood hard. What make is utterly draining is the intensity of the love you feel for your child.

It's a love that keeps obsessive track of everything they've eaten since they were born, what they like and don't like, what they might like, what they like yesterday but won't touch today, what they need to eat, what they shouldn't eat, what you hope they'll eat...all of that data us constantly at your fingertips and adjusting.

It's a love that makes you obsessed with not just their bodies--how much water they've had, when the last time they peed and everything in between--it makes you in love with their soul. You're in love with you they are now, what they'll be in the future: who you know they can be, who you hope they will be,...and everything in between.

It's a huge love and it exists in a world where you know you can't always protect them and nurture them like a houseplant. And everything you do is to prepare them to walk away from you; it's a reality that breaks your heart but is also the best case scenario.

Motherhood is like a wave that's too big and keeps knocking you down to the wet sand as it crashes on top of you. You barely have enough time to stand again before another wall of water and bubbles hits you, and you do it because you're that in love with this little human who regularly wipes their boogery face on your shirt.

It's ridiculous and intense and...exhausting. And somehow we keep doing it which speaks not to how strong any of us are, but the strength of the love we feel. If that isn't magical, I don't know what is.