The 3 Most Important Things I Learned About Being A Mom

The following is a guest post from Sarah of Clover Lane:

When I set out to write a post about having a baby I thought of all the important advice I could give ranging from diapers to breastfeeding to managing on little sleep.  I thought of all the neat products I used — which I am sure are outdated now! 

I could fill up pages with everything I’ve learned over the last 17 years. 

I’ve had five children.

The firstborn, a surprise when I was 24, ten months after our honeymoon! The fifth born, heartbreakingly tried for when I was 39, and panicked from the potential loss of fertility I never before contemplated. 

All my five babies had very different personalities and temperaments – ranging from easy-peasy to 16 hour-every-day-colic.  I‘ve read dozens of books on all sorts of different parenting practices and asked and listened to advice from many friends and relatives.

And no doubt, I’m not the only one who is filled with advice.  There are many mothers out there who did things differently than the way I did — and it worked wonderfully for them, their babies, and their families. 

They made different choices, bought different products, chose different birth plans, had different schedules, and different views on everything from feeding to diaper changing to sleeping.

No one of us is right or wrong, and that’s good because we all had different babies!

It took me a long time to have the confidence and the experience to realize this, but these are the three most important concepts I have learned about being a mother:

1. No one will know and love your baby MORE than you do.

Not the nurses at the hospital, not your mother, not your best friend, and certainly not me. 

Trust your instincts!  Read, ask, learn… but then put it all aside and listen to your mothering heart. 

You and your baby… you are connected by that heart forever and no one else can claim the same.

2. Walk bravely the path of internal and maternal growth and change.

Form a close bond with your baby by opening yourself up to the incredibly intense, almost scary emotion of mother love.

Let go of the control, let the world fall aside from the moment you are handed your baby and then for the days and weeks afterwards.

I think many times today we try to compartmentalize all our duties and priorities we have as women, and sometimes I see the same being done to the role of mother. 

We are afraid to let it go because we feel we have to be the ones running things, keeping all the balls juggling, staying on top of the game of life.  We have to keep up with what it means to be a woman in today’s world, which in essence means doing a dozen things really well, while raising our tiny innocent dependent babies on the side.

When they place that baby in your arms, let the world rearrange itself. Let YOUR world rearrange itself.

This is scary! 

What you thought was so important might plummet to the bottom of the list.  Let it happen, and don’t fear change.  You will become someone new — the birth of your baby is also a rebirth for you.  Be open to that. 

Often I hear the lament about motherhood “I feel like I lost myself.”  Yes, you will become someone new and different, a new better version of your old self if you are willing to change.  You will become selfless and generous.  You will become confident and secure.  You will become tender and patient.  

I will bet that some of the things you will lose won’t even compare with the worth of these qualities that you will gain if you let yourself.

3. Remember the little things, but don’t forget the big picture.

Here is what a baby NEEDS:  a mother, a father, food (you come with a free supply, isn’t that cool?), soft clothes, blankets, and diapers.

I can’t believe how much stuff is now considered necessary.  Sure, some of it is convenient but most of it just seems to be invented for the pure sake of making our lives easier, making the pace of our lives faster so we can do all that multi-tasking. 

A mother could get away with not touching her baby all day!  There are swings to rock them in, carriers to set them in, backpacks to stick them in, gadgets that sing to them, and for goodness sake, there are strappy things that hold a bottle so you don’t even have to feed them!

Baby’s needs are very simple and not at all materialistic — food, warmth, and tender loving care.  A mother can supply all of those without ever setting foot in a store.

Becoming a mother is the best thing that ever happened to me, and the hardest journey I’ve ever had to walk.  It isn’t easy and I don’t mean to gloss over the hard stuff (leaking breasts, sleepless nights, and never-ending worry.) But one day, when you are paging through photo albums, you will look with wonder at that tiny wrinkled little newborn and wonder where the time has gone.

Enjoy every moment, the good, the bad, the easy, the difficult… and know that you have been given the greatest gift ever — the opportunity to be a mother! 

What is most important thing you learned after becoming a mom/parent?

Sarah is a mom of five, ages 3-17, which means she is giving driving lessons and potty lessons and everything in between, all in a day’s work. She loves babies, clean floors, writing, photography, good books, orderly piles of laundry, and old-fashioned values. She blogs at Clover Lane.