Being A Mother
The fine print of parenting
Being a mum is scraping poop from under your fingernail because you accidentally poked your son’s open nappy while trying to fold it.
It’s having your child’s favourite song on repeat throughout the day to the point it is invading even your dreams at night. (I, Sylvia Emokpae, am sick, of Queen’s We Will Rock You. There, I said it.)
Being a mother is having a preference for certain episodes of your child’s favourite TV show.
It’s trying to make your child’s lunch look and taste like Gordon Ramsey’s meals because otherwise the food will be rejected in the form of being tossed on the floor or spat out.
Being a first-time mummy is like an Internship — you learn the ropes, you don’t get breaks or sleep, and you're constantly making cups of coffee you won’t get to drink.
Being a mother is begging your child to let you finish one, just one, conversation with any single one of your friends or loved ones, without directing your mind towards your attention-seeking, self-absorbing spawn.
It’s overcoming the mission of getting your child’s shoes on not just because their mobility makes it harder, but because there is no such thing as slipping them on even when your toddler is sitting still.
It’s not caring about how much TV your child watches in one day if it’s helping her achieve just one thing other than keeping her child alive — like eating breakfast, changing your tampon alone, or stuffing your mouth with chocolate in secret because she’s tired AF of “leading by example” and eating only healthy foods around him.
Being a mother is halfway through cooking a lasagne, realising you only have 2 lasagne sheets left and having to drag your toddler to the car, shoe and sock free to the nearest supermarket and paying the atrocious prices all because he’s going through a phase where any other type of pasta is rejected, and you can’t bear to receive another 1* rating on your meal efforts.
Being a mother is realising that your child has strong opinions loosely held and accepting that although he usually loves lasagne, he will not be labelled as a lasagne lover, and thus, has a right to reject lasagne despite the hurdles his mother jumped to cook it.
It’s learning to pivot on the spot to check your surroundings before moving in any direction, in case there’s a toddler or other unexpected items that were not there before you’d like not to trip over. I learned this the hard way.
It’s going in to comfort your whining son in the middle of the night because you think he had a nightmare, only for him to projectile vomit, three times, all over you and your hair.
It’s seeing your child subsequently having a blast with his father while you take a 3 AM shower to clean the puke off your hair and put him back to bed, and it results in you all having a party at 4 AM until the child passes out, literally on your face, and you lie there in bed dreading the next day because you’ll feel hungover but you still can’t help but smile at the events that just unfolded.
Being a mother is playing poker with your toddler every time you’re trying to be serious and he smiles back at you.
It’s your patience being tested every single day in ways you could never have anticipated, like waiting for them to open the door for you because they only recently reached the door handle and they need the practice.
It’s feeling emotions of love, anger, alarm, exhaustion, confusion, joy, and excitement, all in the space of a minute, while you watch your child go about his day and you desperately aim to merely keep up with him.
Being a mother is the hardest and easiest job in the world.
Being a mother is so good.
Sylvia Emokpae, thinker and philosopher, is passionate about self-love, motherhood, and pro-race. See more work like this.
