I’ve been renewed by mothering lately. This feeling is a shocking surprise, a gift, that arrived in the depths of summer.  The dog days of summer- when you are sticky, a touch angry and wondering how to find air con and a quiet room with no kids.

Not a feeling I’ve felt since the naive days of my first home birth with Jonah when I had a perfect sleeping baby on my breast and a triumphant story of the miraculous process of birth, this genuine re-inspiration to truly be the best mother I can be to my kids, has come with some experience.

Mothering is hard. It takes the piss out of you. It makes you tired, ugly, angry and pretty boring at least 1/2 the time and just tired the rest of the time.

Some women figure out how to balance it well, or to accept it with grace.   Or that is what I hear.  I honestly do not know any of those women. I only know women that have occasional, shining, evolved moments.  Moments we agree its an honor and we’d never wish it any other way. More often though, we are bitching. Or drinking. Or both.

But THIS shift is more than an evolved moment.  And there is a touch of grief it has taken me so long to arrive.  To realize my power, my role and my dharma.

And like most ah-ha’s, the moment of reckoning arrived in stealth.

Jonah was having a rough patch one day.  Bugging his sister and her friends, feeling jealous, being super obnoxious and doing other totally normal boy things.  It was a bit out of character for him but clearly he was screaming for attention.  After a few failed attempts to curtail his behavior, I sat frustrated and frayed by mothering. I sent him off to his room with a snappy and firm ‘go to your room right now.’  Immediately I felt empty and sad.  I stared out my kitchen window and pondered a new approach.

How can I influence him, I thought.  How can I inspire him to a different behavior? How can I educate him to be a smooth operator instead of obnoxious? How can I approach this differently?

Without much pause, I quickly went to his room and found him face down in his bed.

“Hey Jonah,” I said.

“What.” (said with a snarky, you-are-annoying tone.)

“Do you know you have a super power?” I said.

“No.  Does Ivy have one too? And WHAT is it.” Jonah asked. (with that same snarky tone).

“Well, yes. She does.  But its different than yours. Now do you want to know what it is?” I said.

“I don’t want Ivy to have one.”

“Do you want to talk about yours?” I persisted.

“Fine. Yes. What is it?”

“You have the super power to influence people.” I said.

Stumped, Jonah paused. His tone changed. “I don’t even know what that means.”

Having not given it any thought before I started, I realized it was difficult to explain to a 7 year old.

“Well, we all have this general super power, but we each use it differently. We all affect and effect one another.  Sometimes in good ways, and sometimes in not so good ways.  Its like… you know how much you like (your friend) Hamish?” I began my monologe.

Jonah said “uh-huh,” a few times and mostly stared at the girls running around.

I explained that as a big brother, he has a lot of influence over his little sisters. I told him stories about Uncle Rudy and Willy and how much they shaped me growing up.  I mixed in stories about teachers, parents, friends, strangers. Story after story, example after example came.

I doubt any of it landed in his little mind, but it sure did hit home for me. As I’m talking to him, I’m having a dual experience.  The words coming out of my mouth and the behind the scenes thoughts and images.

Hello influence. Not only does Jonah have a super power, but I have it too.  I suddenly felt like Elastigirl in the movie The Incredibles. Helen Parr appears like a mundane housewife, but really, she is an unstopable superhero.  What is more powerful than a mother’s influence on her child? Parents in general, but particularly the mother.  Especially in the early years.  It’s everything.

“If the child has been deep in love with the mother and the mother has showered her love, that is the beginning of all trust for the future.” Osho

We have always know this, but of course there is evidence too.  As UCLA professor and psychiatrist Allan Schore, Ph.D., wrote in his book Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self,

“The child’s first relationship, the one with the mother, acts as a template, as it permanently molds the individual’s capacities to enter into all later emotional relationships.”

And if you think about it, what kind of relationship is NOT an emotional relationship. Our emotions play a part in our every move.
Other studies point to a mothers influence on physical development as well. “Brain images have now revealed that a mother’s love physically affects the volume of her child’s hippocampus. In the study, children of nurturing mothers had hippocampas volumes 10 percent larger than children whose mothers were not as nurturing. Research has suggested a link between a larger hippocampus, better memory and easier learning. (link to article).

And I don’t know how they do these studies, but thank god there are researchers that have the dilligence to follow people for a lifetime to glean data like this:

“Ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no river wide enough, ain’t no childhood poor enough that a mother’s love can’t overcome, according to a study from the University of British Columbia. Researchers examined 1,215 middle-aged Americans and found that those who had grown up in poverty were at greater risk than their wealthier, more educated peers for type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke — unless they had an especially loving mother.

In fact, children who were raised in poor, low-educated families but whose mothers were nurturing fared just as well in terms of metabolic syndrome risk as kids from better socioeconomic backgrounds. The researchers speculate that this is related to stress levels, which can contribute to inflammation and insulin sensitivity.

Bottom line: Love doesn’t cost a thing — but it’s worth a whole lot.” (article here)

And more, mothers influence social mobility.

Prof Ian Walker, from Lancaster University Management School, told the Sunday Times: “It seems the mother-daughter relationship is now the transmission mechanism for social mobility. It used to be said that the father was the breadwinner and that would dictate household education decisions. If the father was richer you could afford to stay on at school rather than go out to earn a living. That is clearly no longer the case.”

I mean, jeez, my mother is a professional ‘Child Development Specialist.’ I’ve heard this stuff for decades and she sends me facts about this daily.  And if ever there was a mother who loves with her whole heart and gives herself (still) fully to mothering, its my mother.

In this ah-ha moment of superpower recognition, I had a strong image of myself giving birth.  Not the first one, or the second, but the last.  I was laying on the floor in a dark room doing my absolute best to breathe calmly and process the freight train of power that were my contractions.  It was early on and I thought for sure I could get this under control. But my legs were trembling.  Shaking out of control. I had never felt anything like it. Rumbling, INTENSE contractions ripped through my body.  One after another, no pause in between. All my best yogi breathing and jedi mind tricks were useless. Sweat beads were popping up right and left as a I was getting hotter and hotter with each surge.  My shaking legs were a massive distraction to my zen.  So I opened my eyes and talked to them.  “Stop shaking, legs.” I said to them. “Stop shaking.”

It all starts with birth.  Superpower training that is.  It can technically start in the prenatal period, as the influence of the mother on her baby in utero is complete,  but as the famous quote by Osho says.

“The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.”

For the past decade I’ve been very interested in birth and the process of birth.  The power of birth. The miracle of birth.  But now I see its impact in a whole new way.  By brilliant design, at that very infant stage of a childs life, it is also the infant stage of the mother.  She must realize her own power, but bow to the power beyond her.  She must have practice and prayer.  She must let go of control, but realize its okay to do so and fall into support.  She must muster great stamina, great courage, great surrender.  She must open to the flow of love that is god.  Of course, she doesn’t have to, she can be afraid and resist. But nonetheless, there is an awakening.

Remember Cindy Crawford?  Supermodel of the 90’s. She had a homebirth.  I learned about this in a Redbook Magazine I picked up at a public laudrymat in 1999. In our weekly trip with rolls of quarters and black trashbags filled with laundry, my mom and I sat on the plastic seats waiting for the dryers to finish.  I read an interview about the birth of her son and was blown away.  She was beautiful, the birth was beautiful, the story was rife with struggle and triumph and even then, in my teens, I identified with something. Perhaps the awakening began then as I never forgot that story.

Just to drive the point home, a personalized potent message in my inbox.  A reminder of the universality of love, the truth of the relationship of a mother to her child, the everlasting memory of the moment of birth, the power of influence and the inspiration to be as influential as my mother as been to me.

Jonah still loses his mind and is reduced to primal level reactions when girls come around, but now I understand. This is just part of the divine order of chasing love.  I think i’ll let his dad influence him in the ways of women.