We have an empty room in our house. That’s the first time we’ve had a space like this in nearly two decades. With one-third of our kids now in college, it feels a bit more real that I’m transitioning into a new phase of parenting.
In the words of Farmer Joe, “It’s going to take a lot to keep track of these two kids in big schools, states away.”
True, but it has also freed up a bit of space for me to reexamine who I am as a mom. I have been a mom of this tribe of kids through a lot, but I have experienced mothering whiplash from time to time because I continue to morph as my kids become individuals.
For example, a few years ago, I was attending a golf match when Anna first started playing. I saw a friend with a “golf mom” t-shirt. When I asked Anna what she thought about me getting one, Anna replied, “Why? You’re not one of ‘those moms.'” What did that even mean? I put the thought aside, inevitably not buying the shirt. I’d rather spend the money on a pair of Madewell jeans, truthfully.
A year or so later, with the same child, I apologized for being the worst stock show mom on the planet. She wisely told me, “I don’t want you to be a ‘show mom.’ I want you to be my mom.”
There you go.
My kids didn’t want me to be a fill-in-the-blank-with-the-activity-as-an-identity mom. They want me to be their mom.
Put that on a t-shirt, but don’t really because that’s a lot of text and probably not cute.
All jokes aside, I am still kind of surprised by how much weight that statement holds as I figure out who I am as a mom today. How can this individualistic take on mothering help me with the social currency that comes attached with being a certain type of mom? Even this week, I sat among moms in t-shirts bearing their kids’ football numbers, signed up for the field trip to just come to lunch and even ended up hiding college Facebook group boards because the moms felt too intense.
But I intensely love my kids? Am I doing this wrong?
Probably not, but it hasn’t been for a lack of trying and studying. I have been a student of mothering since I started this journey. I attended moms groups, moms conferences, read the books, followed the Instagrammers, heck, I even thought about being one of “them.” However, in all that content consumption, that small statement has helped me fight back against being “one of those moms” and standing firmly in the mom I am supposed to be:
I may not be that mom, but I am their mom.
As I scrubbed the baseboards of the now college-kid room, the years of study of motherhood all came together clearly. I may not be a “sports mom” or a “theater mom” or a “dance mom” or a “show mom” or even a “put a sticker on her car for all the things mom,” but I’m their mom: the six Webel kids’ mom, chosen to have this job, and someone who has worked really hard to be the mom they needed me to be at all stages of their lives.
Side note: Would a sticker be worth making for this? Thinking on this now.
Have I been the Webel kids’ mom perfectly? Nope. I feel the tug of my shifting mothering identity all the time. I still see myself as the stay-at-home mom who should volunteer and provide snacks and sign up (on time!), because I know that life from years ago, but I’m really a working mom. I’m now the one who can’t do all those things, but can write a check and will show up in a white blazer at the nature preserve for the field trip lunch. But I still feel like I’m not strongly in the working mom camp, never having to race out of meetings to pick up daycare kids since my kids are older, but still apologizing for the lack of experience due to the 10-year hole in my resume. I may not be as experienced as my contemporary mid-career mothers, but I have six human lives that I kept alive and even launched. Shouldn’t that give me some cred in the experience department? It does, sometimes, but it also makes me question myself a lot more than I probably should.
But what does this mean for a reader, if anyone is still reading? If you identify as a certain type of mom, congratulations! You must have this figured out better than I. But if you don’t, don’t lose hope for yourself. You’re probably overthinking it (which is something I would love to market myself as an expert upon). You’re probably not needing to put yourself next to a certain mom on the bleachers, in the audience, in a lawn chair or even with your friends. You’re probably right where you need to be, and you just might ask one of those humans you kept alive today under your watch.
They might just want you to be exactly who you are.