My mom was there for the birth of my first born. She walked through that first week of motherhood alongside me. As much help as my husband was, I needed my mom. I was in the beginning of postpartum and going through hormone changes. I felt vulnerable. I just needed the person who had was a safe place for me, as well as someone who had walked this road before.

Over the next months, I saw her in ways I hadn’t before. As I changed my own baby’s diapers, sacrificed sleep and alone time, lost my temper, took on the mental load, watched my son meet milestones, dealt with the mom guilt, prayed over my child, pulled out my hair in frustration, snuggled with my baby, sobbed quietly, and tried to be patient as I swayed my boy to sleep, I knew she once did the same while mothering us.

I look back on my own childhood and see my mother through a different lens. A lens of understanding. Because I get it now. I get how long the days must have felt, and how all she wanted at the end of the day was a clean kitchen. I get why she was always the last one out the door and why she was sometimes last to eat. I get the love she had for all her babies, and how hard it must have been to watch us all get in a car and drive away for the first time when I got my license. I get why all of her clothes were years old with holes, but we always had new outfits for Easter or the first day of school. I get why her hobbies got pushed aside because she was in the trenches of motherhood and we were her only focus. I get how happy it must have made her when we took initiative to clean up or do chores, because it was one less thing she had on her plate. I get why she got annoyed with us when we bothered her in the bathroom, since that was probably the only alone time she got all day. I get why acts of service made her day, because your love language changes when you become a mom. I get how much she truly loved us, and how much she sacrificed to make our childhoods a beautiful era to look back on.

I get why she sometimes said, “You’ll understand one day when you’re a mom,” because she was right, I do.

When I realized I wasn’t alone in my motherhood, that other moms felt the same way I did, I recognized my mom as one of those other moms too. She was like me once, a first time mama just doing her best. And I will be like her one day, a seasoned mama, still learning as her children grow. 

The journey of motherhood doesn’t end; it changes. And with change comes exciting, new territory to navigate. My mom is not in the trenches chasing young, eager feet anymore. Two kids are grown and married off. The others are two teenagers still living at home. More free time has allotted space for new hobbies, for herself. I love seeing the joy that her passions bring her.

It wasn’t always easy raising us four kids. I remember all the good days, and I also remember the tough ones. Before I was a mom, I didn’t get how hard motherhood can really be. The mental, emotional, and physical toll it takes on you comes by surprise. But my mom always gave us everything she had to offer and still does. What a great roll model I have to look up to.

What an honor it is to be a mother alongside my own.