Hardcore Parenting Days | Seasons of Motherhood | Artifact Motherhood Blog

“…I feel a deep sense of satisfaction of seeing her happy without me. A separate being. Still, there is a shadow. A shudder of growing redundancy. A reminder of the paradox, that my job is to make it possible for her to leave me. To walk away from our present intimacy and form her own life. My children are the main actors and I am the audience. I will always be enthralled to them, but they won’t always be enthralled to me. And I won’t always be able to watch over them. To keep them safe in my protection. This intimacy has a shelf life. Already it hurts. I feel a premonition as I watch them grow before my eyes; this is life, and it is hard, and it is right.” (Lucy Jones, ‘Matresence’)

It’s almost been 8 years since I became pregnant with my eldest son. And I am a wholly different person to who I was back then. Motherhood has brought me closer to my real self and has also made me feel so lost at sea and unsure of who I am on multiple occasions.

I swapped my office for playgroups and softplays, and my smart work clothes for joggers and trainers. My morning commute became 6am tv binges of CBeebies and my evenings became an obsessively sacred ‘me’ time that no one must disturb.

I am stronger in some ways and weaker and more fragile in others. I am more sensitive and delicate to situations I wasn’t before, yet more resilient than ever.

I exist in these eternal dichotomies. These contrasting worlds of love and joy and sadness and hardship. Everything feels so heavy and fraught and wonderful all at the same time.

Like Lucy Jones in the above quote so beautifully articulates, the ever present and growing sense of redundancy in this role of motherhood is getting closer. I have been so deeply immersed in my role, it is who I have become. I do not know who I am outside of motherhood anymore.

I’m realising that the places I go to so frequently, like parks, will gradually lessen. Places I used to dread and hurry to leave, I will long for deeply. Pushing my child in a swing, slipping shoes onto tiny feet, lifting small bodies in and out of a car, holding their small hands. Their little knee’s, feet, hands, shoulders, back, thighs, soft buttery skin. The most kissable of cheeks. The helping and caring and nurturing of another, gradually lessens.

I know in the future I will long for even the hardest of days we’ve had. To pick you up from school, to cook your sweet little tea, to give you a bath, to read to you, to hold your small tiny bodies as they fall asleep.

There is immense beauty ahead and already it hurts so much. The pain of knowing, ‘that my job is to make it possible for (them) to leave me.’

#artifactmotherhood

Welcome to Artifact Motherhood. This is a collaboration of artists from around the world who have come together to share our stories of the joys and struggles of our journey. Through our writings and visual records we want to create memories that are more than photographs with dates written on the back. These are the artefacts we are leaving behind for our children and for generations to come.

Please check out the next artist in our blog circle, the wonderful and talented Tanae Sorenson and continue through all the artists until you get back to me.