Mother's Day Reflections from a Non-mother

Yesterday (Thursday) at my regular physical examination I was lamenting my inability to lose weight, despite the fact that I have been foregoing potato chips and cookies, and adding significant minutes and speed to my daily walk. I'm not asking for a lot: one or two pounds, just to give me hope, would be nice.

My doctor told me that my troubles had their roots in evolution: long ago, women in my age group (that is, post-menopausal) were considered the least valuable to the group, and so got the least amount of resources alloted to them. Therefore, we learned to "conserve what we had", or so she said. That's why it's hard for me to lose weight.

Later I thought about what she said. "Women in my age group" means women past child-bearing age.

In other words, women who could no longer have children had lost their value.

I know some women who are not mothers by design. They never felt strongly about having children. (Some of them felt strongly about not having children.) But that's not who I am. Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be a mother. In fact, at certain ages, I was positively obsessed with having a lot of children. I read Cheaper by the Dozen and Who Gets the Drumstick and thought it would be wonderful to have a large family. I wrote stories about families with lots of children.

I know, I am a step-mother, and my two stepsons are wonderful people. I think very highly of them, and I have felt privileged to be in their lives, and for what I have received and (I hope) given to them. But, I don't think it's the same. At least, that's what I was told by a student intern who is also a mother. She looked me straight in the eye one day and told me I couldn't possibly understand what she was going through because, as she said, "I'm not a real mother."

This Sunday is Mother's Day, a day about which many people (including me) have complicated feelings. There are those whose relationship with their mother is painful, those who are grieving the loss of their mother, those who are grieving a relationship they will never have, but wanted, and those who are grieving because they message they hear on mother's day is, "a woman's value is primarily in her ability to have children."

Part of me believes that, too, and that is my struggle every Mother's Day. If I can't feed and raise and discipline and praise, if I can't bring life and watch over it, if I can't comb hair and say evening prayers and worry, who am I?