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INDEPENDENCE DAYS
- Bunmi Zalob, Tastybaby Online Networking
Before I was a mom, I tended to lump all mothers into a single category of superwomen: stressed out, multi-tasking, loving beings that I feared and hoped I’d one day join the ranks of. After having my daughter I realized that moms are as different as the unique children they parent and as much as people try to box us into alphas, betas, Brees, Susans, Gabrielles, and Lynettes, we don’t lose our individuality when we start nurturing a life.
My time at farmer’s markets, playgrounds, and birthday parties has allowed me to see many similarities between mothers, though. The psychic power to detect the moment before a child is about to get him or herself into trouble seems to be in every mother’s DNA. Whether they can stop the glass from crashing to the floor in time is another story altogether. Most moms also seem to possess the power to stuff their fatigue into a dark corner of their consciousness until exactly 59 minutes before their child’s bedtime (leading record breaking bath-pajamas-story-bed completion times).
There’s one more phenomenon every mother shares. It usually manifests itself only in a
look; a twitch of the eye so subtle that it’s easily missed. Watch a mother of a young child who is learning how to walk. As the baby hoists himself up against a steady object and his chubby, wobby legs begin to move, pure joy and surprise washes over his mom’s face. Then, the look. In just one millisecond the mother is able to imagine having a walker, then a runner, then a high schooler, and off to college her baby goes leaving her alone with the knitting channel on PBS. She knows that every shaky step her baby takes into her open arms is also a step away from them. The brightness is her eyes as she watches her son dims just a little bit as she ponders his growing independence.
As obsessed as we are with our children: we know every owie by name and date of occupation- we realize that childhood is really a series of independence days wrapped up in hugs and sealed with messes. They’re not gaining their independence from their mothers (they’ll always need us of course), but from any “I can’ts” that dare to prevent them from life with a view. Our forefathers fought hard and brave for sovereignty of government and our children laugh, smile, and cry as they strive for sovereignty of their beings, their battle cry being a loud and victorious, “Look what I can do!”
The 4th of July is the perfect time for me to remind myself not to be what Britain represented all those years ago- it isn’t my place to hold my two year-old back. I’m to keep her from danger and let her see the possibilities. Perhaps I’m a general…or maybe the Second Continental Congress, who knows! For now, I’m more than fine with just “mom.”
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