Feminism and a Definition of Motherhood

There is a list of feminist quotes from Caitlin Moran going around the internet lately. If you don’t know what I’m talking about you can read it here.  I don’t hesitate to call myself a feminist, and lots of those quotes were really awesome... until this one:

“If you want to know what’s in motherhood for you, as a woman, then — in truth — it’s nothing you couldn’t get from, say, reading the 100 greatest books in human history; learning a foreign language well enough to argue in it; climbing hills; loving recklessly; sitting quietly, alone, in the dawn; drinking whisky with revolutionaries; learning to do close-hand magic; swimming in a river in winter; growing foxgloves, peas and roses; calling your mum; singing while you walk; being polite; and always, always helping strangers. No one has ever claimed for a moment that childless men have missed out on a vital aspect of their existence, and were the poorer, and crippled by it.”

Don’t get me wrong. Childless life can be just as amazing and fulfilling as having children, (see Mother Teresa). Happiness is always within your grasp if you’re willing to take it, regardless of your circumstances.  However, I will definitely claim that a childless man has missed out on something.

A portrait of my family as illustrated by Robby Cook.
Because Awesome is what being a parent feels like

I’ve always believed that with enough dedication, I was capable of anything. And yet becoming a mother has made me feel, simultaneously, infinitely more competent and completely inadequate.

Motherhood is having a pair of small yet impossibly strong arms clinging to your neck with the knowledge that you could save them from anything, and it is the euphoric rush  of feeling like you could. Having access to another realm of instinctual ferocity inside of you, yet outwardly more tender than you’ve ever been.  Brushing the tears off your child’s cheeks with an angel’s touch and a lion’s soul.

Motherhood is meeting the dark side of yourself, of knowing what your spirit desires when you haven’t slept or eaten. It’s holding a fragile baby over your shoulder while their cries bore deep into the prison that houses your inner demons, and meeting with horror the solutions your mind brings up to make the noise go away. Motherhood is telling yourself that you can only stand 15 more minutes and then you will abandon your baby while you roam the 3 am streets like a werewolf, and then somehow finding the inner fortitude to stay for an hour more, only to find yourself sleeping upright in a rocking chair when the respite comes. It’s being a well of strength tapped to the last inch, yet when two is required, finding it. And knowing  that all of that strength was inside of you all along, because your baby isn’t even capable yet of smiling to reassure you. Motherhood is becoming intimately acquainted with yourself and discovering that the carat weight of your soul is much higher than you had anticipated.

Motherhood is seeing the world with new eyes, greeting with gratitude a multitude of minuscule miracles you had never noticed before. Being forced to acknowledge the fascinating physics of an ant crawling up a wall, or the mysterious and earth-shattering skill that it is to be able to read.

But motherhood is not everything I will ever need. Motherhood gives and motherhood takes away, and my heart still looks forward to the experience of  those 100 greatest books and winter river swims. Motherhood however, unique in all that I have studied or done, accomplished or endured, has given me a spectrum in which I will experience them.

My heart and mind are vast. Motherhood isn’t the masterpiece of my life. It is the Smithsonian. There is room for many canvases.

For the record, I asked my husband if there was anything I should add about what being a parent means to a man. His response: "No. That was beautiful."

-Stephanie