BEING JUST A MOTHER AFTER ALL

Joyce Peachey Lind

My mother died of breast cancer in December 2000. Her death, and the array of feelings surrounding that loss, has affected me profoundly in so many ways during the years since—ways I’m sure I haven’t begun to understand. The loss of a mother is painful, no matter what her age, no matter what her child’s age.

One day, a week or so after the funeral as we were sorting through some of my mother’s things, I found a cassette tape that had "for Jacob" written on the case. I put it in the tape recorder and was startled to hear my mother’s voice. Apparently she had made a tape for my oldest son, Jacob, when he was a toddler. On the tape she sang old Sunday school songs, and folk songs she knew, in that familiar voice I had heard lilting from the kitchen for as far back as I could remember.

As I listened to her songs, which sounded eerily like she was in the next room, I thought about the fact that her voice had surrounded me much of my life—the humming I’m certain I heard when I was still in her womb, the lullabies she sang as she rocked me to sleep, the hymns she sang as she washed the dishes, the "Hallelujah" chorus she sang at Christmas time.

I smiled to myself, amazed that she had had the foresight to record those songs for her grandchild. I don’t think she was aware of the cancer at the time, but I’m sure she had given thought to the fact that she might not always be around—that life was unpredictable, and one never knew when it would end.

My mom was a woman of her era, a housewife, a full-time mother, and later a warm and loving grandmother. She was the kind of grandmother that always had cookies for my boys, and always let my five-year-old win at Uncle Wiggly; the kind of grandmother who giggled when my seven-year-old told jokes.

My mother had a bachelor’s degree in Christian education, but not a professional career. Her life was spent nurturing children, being a supportive wife, and extending a warm and gracious welcome to anyone who entered her home. She was a kind and compassionate friend, even—and perhaps especially—to those no one else befriended.

Being "just" a mother was something to which I never aspired. I took offense when my father pointed out to me how much I was like my mother, because I didn’t want to become like her—I wasn’t going to be just a housewife. Our era had new opportunities for women, and I was going to seize them. As a young woman during the 1980s, I was swept into the feminist movement. We women believed we could do anything we wanted to do—that we should do what we wanted to do.

And being a mother was of course part of the natural plan, but to stop at mothering somehow wasn’t acceptable. We were convinced that we could have fulfilling careers and be great mothers, because the men were going to step up to the plate and help us out.

Many of them did step up to the plate, and they have helped us out—more than our fathers helped our mothers.

But someone still has to provide an income, and someone has to nurse the baby and do the laundry and buy the groceries, and somehow the details of how all of that was going to get divvied up didn’t get spelled out very clearly.

Once, when I was in my 20cvas and still single, my father told me about a woman he met at a conference who tearfully lamented that she had never finished her music degree, and was never able to fulfill her dream of teaching music and leading a choir. She and her husband started their family when she was young, and she had never been able to return to school.

My father and I talked about my dreams that night, and following one’s heart, and achieving goals. Sometime during that conversation I vowed that I would never be like that woman. I promised myself that I would finish the music degree I had started but never finished. I would go after my dreams, persevere, and have no regrets. I wasn’t going to let being a mother keep me from doing what I planned on doing.

Well.

That was before I had children of my own. Before my path was interrupted by two little boys who have dreams. A soccer player and a scientist, or a race-car driver and a video- game designer, depending on the day.

Before my path was complicated by a husband who has dreams, and a society that often makes it easier for him to go after his, while I keep the home fires burning and provide the sure footing from which great dreamers are launched.

I turned 40 last September and sank into a year-long funk. I could handle 30, and all of those 30-something numbers, because I wasn’t really "there" yet. I wasn’t half-way. It wasn’t too late. But 40 for me marked the beginning of the end, and I began struggling with the pain of being where I never thought I’d be, having not done things I thought I’d do. And the dream I had of finishing that music degree, I realized, had quietly disappeared.

It dawned on me one day that for 10 years I had been "just" a mother. I had done other work, too, part-time. But most of those things were nurturing activities, usually for children. Things I enjoyed doing, or that earned a little money, but that weren’t part of the "big plan" I had laid out for myself. I always thought I’d "be" somebody. Once the mothering was done, once the nurturing was done, I’d go do my important work.

I’ve spent a good bit of time in the last few years wrestling with my idealism, sometimes berating myself for not finding the balance, not being able to do it all. It’s not that I didn’t want to be a mother—there was no question that I would be—it’s just that I didn’t know I was going to have to give up things. I slowly came to realize that I wasn’t going to do everything, like a real feminist would. It simply wasn’t possible.

I had no idea what being a mother would bring: joy, frustration, exhilaration, exhaustion. I never imagined that parenting would give me new dreams. Certainly I value these fresh dreams, but somewhere along the way there has been a change. And my definition of what it means to be a feminist—well, that has changed, too.

So this year, as 41 approaches, I am coming to terms with where I find myself. And beginning to accept that what I’m doing, and who I am, are okay. Where I am is where I need to be. I’m probably not going to "be" anyone who is introduced with lots of degrees and professional experience tacked behind my name. But I am making a difference, in ways I hadn’t planned.

For the last five years I have been using music to teach young children. We sing and dance, tap sticks, and shake jingle bells.We sing lullabies to stuffed animals. When it’s time to get out the animal babies, the children choose an animal from my bag. We let the "babies" play for a little bit, then we tell the babies it’s time to go to sleep. One by one those three- and four-year-olds cradle the animals in their arms. Together we sing a lullaby to the "babies" and rock them.

The first time I did this with children it was magical. The wiggly little boy who couldn’t focus on any of the other activities was carefully attending to his baby. The chatty little girl, who always wants to show me her ouchies, was fixed on her bunny, and she patted it gently as she sang. As we sang together, the children rocked and hummed and cooed, just as their parents had done with them.

Now, when people ask me what I do, I tell them I’m a mother, a teacher, a musician. I don’t have that music degree, but a hundred music degrees couldn’t have prepared me for what I do. Being a mother did. As the preschoolers and I sing and rock those little animal babies, we are practicing what will be their most important jobs—to be mothers and fathers who rock and sing tenderly to their own children.

I think my mother might be surprised to know how much I value who she was and what she did. She and I didn’t always agree about what a woman—a wife, a mother—should do. But I carry her voice, her lullabies, with me. And sometimes, as I sing with the children, I think I hear her singing along.

—Joyce Peachey Lind is a mother, teacher, and musician who lives in Harrisonburg, Virginia. She is pursuing an M.A.T. in Early Childhood Education at James Madison University.