For most of my life, I believed my life’s purpose was to be a Mom. Not procreate, not to produce a mini-me to set out into the world - but to be a parent, to be the person who molded and protected a little person , and helped them prepare to be an adult in this world. No, more than an adult - a good person. As a parent, I felt it was my responsibility to make sure my child was prepared to live in the world, and was a good person. If my child got to adulthood and those two things were not accomplished then I failed.
You may say that being a parent is more than that. That really its primary purpose is to love your child. Part of me wants to say, “well, sure that is a given.” But I realize, it is not. I am sure there are parents who do not love their children. However, without love, the 2nd one, becoming a good person, is beyond challenging. Maybe even impossible.
Anyway, I digress
When we were having issues conceiving - not for lack of trying, my husband (at the time) gave me the speech - the “Maybe we can be complete without children. Maybe this is our family, just you and me.” And I knew immediately - No. No we can’t. Or more so, no - I can’t. I will not be complete without children. My family will not be complete without children. And to some extent, I even thought, “Maybe you can be complete without children, but I cannot.” Part of what brought him and I together was our ‘family values” and our desire for a family. If he was about to change his mind because it had become difficult, I was not on board.
Then came adoption. I have always, for as long as I could remember - thought about adoption. Not as an alternate plan, not as a back-up plan. not even as an ‘option” - but rather as something that existed. You could birth children. You could adopt children. You could do both. It just was. Our generation was always told “There are lots of children out there who need families.” I was not self-centered enough to think that I needed to reproduce. In fact my gene pool probably is a bit cloudy at best. I also was not particular that I needed to have an infant baby - because older children need families too. (This is about to rabbit-hole into a diatribe about adoption and our choices ….let me reign it in)
My point being, no matter how it happened, I was meant to be a mom. I’m not saying I am a good mom, or a talented mom - I think I am an average mom. I have strengths and weaknesses. I certainly have made mistakes. But my kid is “ready for the world” (living skills - CHECK!) , and is a good person (not entirely sure if that was us or her, though) so I have succeeded in that regards.
My life would not have been complete without being a mom.
And here, I am at a milestone, of the child going off to college and I am semi-empty nester. What now? Does this mean my life is over? I have no purpose? No. I think that is one thing that I learned from my parents’ mistakes. Being a mom, being a parent, does not end when your child turns 18,21,25,30,40 You will always be their parent. Their mom. And your responsibility does not end. You are there to help them, and love them, and be there for them. My parents stopped parenting me at 15. At that point, my decisions were my own, and they had their own lives to worry about. And to some extent, our roles were reversed, to where I was parenting them. (They didn’t listen, anyway!)
In times where I think about how my child would be fine without me - I know that isn’t true. I know because deep in my wounded soul I still want my mom sometimes. It is painful that she left my life so soon. It is still painful 17 years later.
Someone once told me that my mom’s legacy was how to love. Gladys loved with her whole heart. And I am part of that legacy and now so is my child. I hope that I have taught her living skills, how to be a good person, and how to love.
This is my life’s purpose.
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