“…giving birth to or raising another precious human being changes you as nothing else can.”
In her beautiful Mother’s Day offering, What Becoming a Mother Can Mean to a Woman, published on Fox News online magazine, psychologist Phyllis Chesler, a distinguished professor of women’s studies and author of thirteen books, recalls the changes in her own life:
Female motherhood is both a sacred undertaking and a sacred experience. Becoming a mother—giving birth to or raising another precious human being—changes you as nothing else can. You are pitched, head-long and feet-first into a parallel universe, a new way of life, a craft, a passion which tempers and deepens all those who engage in it.
For example, before I became a mother, my ego knew no bounds. I thought I could overcome all obstacles through force of will, not by bending to circumstance, or trusting in forces larger than myself. Becoming a newborn mother changed my life. It humbled me, slowed me down, made me kinder, and infinitely more vulnerable to cruelty.
Mothering a child is an incomparable rite of passage.
So, now that the pancakes have been served in bed, the car washed for you, the garage cleaned out (with your help of course), and it’s back to everyday motherhood, ask yourself, how has motherhood changed you? Please state your age, so we can see if there’s a difference in the generations. Of course, we older mothers-turned-grandmas have to dig deeper into our psyches to remember what it was like before children!
