“Making the decision to have a child – it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ” -Elizabeth Stone
I stumbled upon the above quote just around the time I became a mom. I realized how absurd it sounded and at the same time how true it was. It literally does feel like having your heart live outside your body. Anybody who is a mother would vouch for it, I am sure.
It’s such a crazy place to be, you know, inside the mind of a mom. One moment, you are so sure of yourself and your parenting skills and the next moment you wonder if you have made a grave, irreparable mistake by following your instinct. Simple decisions like letting them go out to play by themselves is enough to drive you nuts if your child is a little late in getting back home. By then, your impatient mind had concocted thousand different horrible things that could have gone wrong.
You want to shelter them and protect them and hide them from pain and heart ache and all the evil in the world just by keeping them safe and sound in the shadow of your wing like a mother hen. But then you also want them to grow strong and confident, kind and tolerant, generous and forgiving. Now these are not things that can be taught or learnt in isolation, removed from social interactions, disappointments or failures.
While my overprotective mother’s instinct would love to keep them under wraps unharmed and protected, it’s important for them to step into the world and experience all of this, to become well-rounded and well-adjusted people; whether we like it or not. Incidentally, we would be doing more harm if we don’t allow this transition.
Therefore I surrender to that universal truth and instead pray that I’ll have the strength to love them well by protecting and covering when needed and letting go when the moment is right.
I know that I am learning on the job…stumbling, making mistakes and learning, all at the same time, so please help me God.
I’ll have to trust in God with all my heart to care for them when I can’t and when I feel things are beyond my control.
There’s no turning back now. Those little hearts of mine are walking around in the bodies of my kids, I love most. But do they understand all this I am going through inside, while trying to look all normal on the outside?
I stumbled upon the above quote just around the time I became a mom. I realized how absurd it sounded and at the same time how true it was. It literally does feel like having your heart live outside your body. Anybody who is a mother would vouch for it, I am sure.
It’s such a crazy place to be, you know, inside the mind of a mom. One moment, you are so sure of yourself and your parenting skills and the next moment you wonder if you have made a grave, irreparable mistake by following your instinct. Simple decisions like letting them go out to play by themselves is enough to drive you nuts if your child is a little late in getting back home. By then, your impatient mind had concocted thousand different horrible things that could have gone wrong.
You want to shelter them and protect them and hide them from pain and heart ache and all the evil in the world just by keeping them safe and sound in the shadow of your wing like a mother hen. But then you also want them to grow strong and confident, kind and tolerant, generous and forgiving. Now these are not things that can be taught or learnt in isolation, removed from social interactions, disappointments or failures.
While my overprotective mother’s instinct would love to keep them under wraps unharmed and protected, it’s important for them to step into the world and experience all of this, to become well-rounded and well-adjusted people; whether we like it or not. Incidentally, we would be doing more harm if we don’t allow this transition.
Therefore I surrender to that universal truth and instead pray that I’ll have the strength to love them well by protecting and covering when needed and letting go when the moment is right.
I know that I am learning on the job…stumbling, making mistakes and learning, all at the same time, so please help me God.
I’ll have to trust in God with all my heart to care for them when I can’t and when I feel things are beyond my control.
There’s no turning back now. Those little hearts of mine are walking around in the bodies of my kids, I love most. But do they understand all this I am going through inside, while trying to look all normal on the outside?
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