“Motherhood brings as much joy as ever, but it still brings boredom, exhaustion, and sorrow too. Nothing else ever will make you as happy or as sad, as proud or as tired, for nothing is quite as hard as helping a person develop his own individuality especially while you struggle to keep your own.”
— Marguerite Kelly and Elia Parsons
BY NOW, you have met several Emporia-area mothers in our newest feature, “Meet a Gazette Mom,” published in the weekend edition on the Family Life page.
In a simple way, these moms are sharing a little of their lives with our readers. By telling us the television mom they most identify with or the one thing about their younger selves that they’d like reclaim, these women are doing something that can be hard to find — building bridges between mothers.
There is, after all, a reason this journey we are on is called motherhood. The word itself conveys a sisterhood of sorts. There’s something about the experience of trying to take little people and raise them to be good big people that connects us all.
No matter where we live or where we come from, we’ve all changed diapers that make us want to puke, cleaned up throw-up in the dark, tried to explain the difference between a potty and a Pull-Up to a 2-year-old, sobbed (or maybe cheered) on the first day of school, bribed our kids with candy to get them to eat their cauliflower, been humiliated by temper tantrums in the aisles of supermarkets, wanted to personally punch a classmate who was mean to our child, and if we haven’t yet, we will someday cross our fingers and say a prayer when our “babies” get behind the wheel of a car and experience “freedom” for the first time.
We are all — to the best of our abilities — trying to be the best mothers we can for our kids.
But, somehow, in many ways we still feel alone, unrecognized — and human. And even though most of us have quit believing in the myth of Super Mom a long time ago, there’s still that lure of superhero status that can make us crazy, no matter how long we’ve been mothers. We are foolish enough to think that there’s always someone who’s doing the job a little bit better.
Even many of the Gazette Mom nominations we’ve received look more like applications for a Nobel Peace Prize than for a simple article in the paper: “She has four children and works two part-time jobs. She plans amazing birthday parties. She’s on the PTA and spends all her extra time volunteering at school. She’s a ‘scrapper’ extraordinaire and the modern day June Cleaver...”
It’s exhausting just reading some of the submissions.
But what we don’t need is more Super Moms in this world. We need more real ones who are willing to share their real lives with one another.
So, that’s what “Meet a Gazette Mom” is about. It’s not about whether our paycheck comes with dollar signs or hugs and kisses. And it’s not about the trillions of things we do or how well we do them. It’s about how being a mother has shaped that person we were before children into the person we are today.
After all, no matter how “human” we may feel at times, we will always be superheroes to the ones who matter most — our kids.
If you know a “real” mom our readers would like to meet, please let us know at ashley@emporiagazette.com.
zoahjoe (anonymous) says...
Wow, so glad we have Ashley Walker to qualify what a "real" mom is. Every mom is a SUPER MOM, and every super mom is a REAL MOM.
What a silly, silly article.
February 14, 2009 at 2:01 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
goodoleboy (anonymous) says...
No every Mother is not a "super" mother, case in point would be the idiot in California having 14 kids that she cannot provide for, that is not being a mother, that is being irresponsible.
February 14, 2009 at 2:36 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
oh4theluvof (anonymous) says...
Thank you, Ashley, for the message you brought to help clarify the purpose of the "Meet a Gazette Mom" article. Some of us haven't yet realized the "super mom" idea that is lurking in the backs of our minds, ready to attack us once the first hard phase hits. Many of us have fought it off many times, only to have it resurface each time we thought we had things under control but life changed on us. It is good to forewarn the newest mothers that this will happen so they have some point of reference on how to respond to it. It is good to remind those of us who battle the recurrences that we are not the only ones. It is also good for fathers who don't have this problem or grandparents who have forgotten what it was like to have it called to their attention. Thank you for the "awareness" you have put out there.
February 14, 2009 at 4:27 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
LifeGoesOn (anonymous) says...
goodoleboy, Your post says it all!
February 14, 2009 at 8:39 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
cloud (anonymous) says...
Motherhood is so undervalued. Kudos to the Gazette for recognizing the good moms of Emporia.
February 15, 2009 at 12:22 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
create (anonymous) says...
zoahjoe, get real. Foster homes are full of great moms who are taking care of the kids who were taken away from their "mothers" who abused them by beating them, viciously berating them, or getting so drunk and high that they were stoned for days at a time. What about the many, many grandmothers who are raising their grandchildren for those same reasons?
Silly? Silly? What's silly is believing that giving birth makes a female a mother.
February 15, 2009 at 7:58 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
ef6 (anonymous) says...
It was most disappointing to read "A Few Good Moms" this weekend. The editorial seemed to take a rather large swipe at mothers who are heavily involved in their children's lives and yet find time to get other things done for their families or the community at large -- whether it's through school groups, charitable work or running businesses. LIke other moms who may choose to display their motherhood in other sensible ways, these moms should be celebrated and not dismissed out of hand simply because they have found ways to positively affect more lives than those in their immediate households. If the applications look like something out of Bree Van de Kamp's cookbook on Desperate Housewives, then so be it. Being male, I can only guess about the weight of living up to the SuperMom ideal. However, I thought the purpose of the series was to celebrate moms and what they did, regardless of whether somebody tagged them as SuperMoms or not. Unless Gazette readers missed something, the rules have apparently changed. Sounds like some mothers automatically can't be honored because they "qualify" as SuperMoms. That's a shame. At least they have a positive impact on lives. That is worth honoring, not slamming.
February 15, 2009 at 11:30 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
zoahjoe (anonymous) says...
Well said ef6. The other posters missed the intent of my posting.
February 15, 2009 at 11:39 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
create (anonymous) says...
My post still stands!
February 16, 2009 at 6:39 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
zoahjoe (anonymous) says...
Oh, Create that's what makes reading the posts so fun. Posters that are completely off story, but so strongly stand behind what they write.
February 16, 2009 at 6:56 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )