After my first baby turned three, I told my mom, “Being a mom is the longest I’ve ever held the same job.”  She ever so quickly and smoothly responded, “And it always will.”  Almost sixteen years into my mom career, I’ve come to appreciate my job like I never thought I would.

The first few years were hard.  The constant needs and attention of younger kids was so draining.  I remember telling my mom after two weeks with my firstborn, “I want to go back to work.  Being a mom is A LOT of work!”  I never did go back to the office.   As much as I might have felt overwhelmed with my new job as a mom, I couldn’t let anyone else take care of my baby. My mom and I formed a new kind of mother-daughter bond, now we were on the same team.  We both seethed when I told my mom someone thought I had lots of spare time since I didn’t “work.”  She was so on my side.

In the early years I joined playgroups.  All the moms joked the playgroups were really for the moms, not the kids.  How much do babies or even two-year-olds interact?  We commiserated and celebrated the tribulations and triumphs of our mom jobs.  We navigated our way through the unknown together.  Sharing pediatrician advice to quell the ridiculous worries of newbie moms.  In regard to potty training, “Your child will not be wearing diapers to college.”  Or taking your baby in for every little ailment, “Yes you are right mom.  He has a cold.”  Or my favorite, my husband’s request to ask the doc about how we could work on hand-eye coordination for our 6 month-old.  I never asked but it made for a good laugh.  All the worries and stories forged a mom bond I didn’t know existed—a fringe benefit.

As my kids entered elementary school I made mom friends through PTA, field trips and classroom projects.  Now in high school, the moms share college prep stories.  What worked?  What didn’t work?  What would you do differently?  Or we share war stories over sports injuries from concussions to ACLs to fractures.  We talk about saving our kids from car wrecks, drugs and alcohol.  I met and still meet great moms working at the schools.  When I thought I needed a volunteer break, my mom reminded me I needed the community of sisterhood.  When did my mom know so much?  Everything we moms do surrounds our kids and we bond.

Moms commiserate about the expanding waistline, practically unshrinkable.  We must eat less and less and exercise more and more.  We complain of the mounting wrinkles and gray hair.  We never thought we’d get to this point, like our moms.  We were never going to be like our moms.  Even my mom warned me, “Don’t get old.  It’s inconvenient.”

We count the years or even months we have left with our kids before college.  And we are sad the end is in sight of this phase of motherhood, the part we thought we dreaded.  My mom was pretty tough, until I moved out of state.  She hid herself from me so I wouldn’t see the tears when the moving van arrived.  I didn’t see her tears but I saw her run away and she never runs.  I pieced it together.  She saw four of her kids off before me and still had two more at home.  She mourned my move like I was the last.  Moms bond over sad things too.

Now I’m sharing the mom journey with writers.  Being a mom gives you so much to talk about in person and on the page.  My mom loved  the author Erma Bombeck.  I didn’t really get it.  I was just a kid.  All I knew is Erma poked fun at motherhood and made everyone laugh about the thankless job most of the world holds.  I didn’t know how much my mom’s connection to Erma would influence me today—humor writing.  I didn’t know how much writing about motherhood would bond me to other mom writers.  I had no idea how big the world of motherhood could be when you read mom stories and meet mom authors.

In the past month, I’ve spent a lot of time on motherhood.  I was part of a Listen To Your Mother performance in San Francisco where thirteen of us shared stories on stage about mothering.  Almost three hundred of our friends and family came to hear our tales.  All of us writers shopped for new dresses or in one case, a dad, planned a nice outfit for the stage.  We laughed together.  We cried together.  We formed new friendships.  I love my new “playgroup” of moms, maybe-a-mom-someday, and a dad.  We celebrated motherhood as it should be celebrated, something to be honored, respected and loved.  We wowed the audience and ourselves.  We all felt so lucky to soak in the stage lights on behalf of motherhood.  Every mom should be so blessed to wear a pretty dress and take a bow for her performance.

My showpiece was about being a cool mom for my kids.  I learned from my boys I make a cool mom, just not a cool teenager.  After my Listen To Your Mother experience, listening to all the mom stories from the other writers and thinking about my own mom, I realized one more thing:

It’s COOL to be a mom.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Share on Facebook