The Conscious Parent

These months of gestation render the mother-child bond particularly
unique in its intensity, leading to a complex relationship that’s highly
symbiotic and profoundly personal. This is one reason mothers are often
invested in their children in ways that fathers sometimes aren’t.
Expanding not only our skin but also our psyche as we participate in
the emergence of a new spirit, during these nine months we witness our
sense of who we are start to alter as we grapple with this miraculous
event taking place within us. Our identity comes into question as we
understand that our life is no longer ours to own, but is betrothed to our
child. We watch our heart surge with a protectiveness that’s as
invigorating as it’s unfamiliar.
We know we aren’t the same woman we were pre-birth, but neither
have we articulated who we are post-birth. Consequently, we get lost in
our role as mothers, giving to our children with the zest and zeal only a
woman possesses. In this giving, our sense of self fades, and we find
ourselves increasingly alienated from who we intrinsically are. We feel
as if we are in a no-man’s land, neither here nor there.
True, we feel purposeful, but mostly only in our role as a mother. Our
children grow up, our spouse climbs the corporate ladder, yet we who
have in many cases put our life on hold find ourselves without an anchor
in the world around us, let alone a sense of individual purpose. As the
years go by, we may long to feel secure in an identity separate from our
children yet tend not to recognize the gateway to any such identity. Part
of us may desperately want to recapture who we were, while another part
realizes who we were has died. Though terrifying, this loss of our
identity can also be potentially regenerative.