Motherhood, It Won’t Change Me

I had had 4 years of marriage before my first baby arrived. We worked together, we lived together, we slept together. We were rarely apart. I’d wanted a baby for all the normal womanly reasons, but I was enjoying life and I didn’t want it to change.

One thing I was determined, however, was that motherhood would not change me. I had a racing bike, one where you leaned forward to hold the handlebars. I could no longer ride it while pregnant. I got the handlebars changed so I could sit up and not squash the growing baby. One day, I resolved, the racing handlebars would go back on my bike. But the truth is, they never did.

The bike was a symbol of my growing motherhood. From a natural point of view one day I was not a mother and the next day I was (I did have hints it was about to happen from my ever increasing size), but really motherhood was something I fought, yet grew into.

I remember in the early days saying, “When we get back to normal…” But we never got back, we just developed a new and different norm.

After one baby came another, then another and oh gosh, a fourth. First it was the baby equipment, then the toys, then books, schoolbooks, backpacks, computers and just recently a job and a car. Each year my 4 children grew up that little bit more, they learned to walk and talk, to read and write. Each year what was normal morphed into something new, with different situations and fresh challenges.

I decided to homeschool, something I would never have dreamed existed in my life before children. My children were not easy to raise. One is dyslexic, one is ADHD. I became an expert on learning disabilities and raising not very easy children.

I have gained so much from having my children. For it is in watching new life that you discover your own life. It is in teaching that we learn. Now they are teenagers they question my rules and views of life and all the things I’ve always taken for granted. Children have to form their own opinions about life and I have the privilege of being the first person they use as a sounding board.

It is possible to find love and happiness without having children, but if I had to choose my life all over again, I’d choose 4 children. I’m glad I’ve had the honor of raising my children.

Motherhood changed me, and I’m glad to say it was for the better.