No More Mothering Like That

This is where being a mother stops. As a mother .... how I have been mothering... I have had no faith in people and even less compassion for myself.

I believed I needed to do it all myself because people can be so cruel.

I believed I must protect him because those same people cared not that I could still feel when they held me down to cut me open and grab him out of my body. His life began with the neglect of mine so this is not new to me.

I am a mother of a black son and I have to stop mothering... the way I have been.

What I have learned after trying to mother is I have to manage my expectations in two ways. One, for people to care about my fear and pain and two, for people who don’t have the ability to care about my fear or pain. Even if I wanted them to they can’t. The pain and struggle is so much to process, it's so heavy to carry that if I take one hand out from under it all just to reach out for your unavailable help ... I will be crushed by it.

*Photo credit: Self Magazine : 8 Ways to reduce maternal mortality

My new tactic and new mindset to end being a mother as I have known it was slowly crafted while he was young. The isolation while trying to nurse... learning how to mother and work in an environment that ignores your very human pain and struggle to balance it all and still ... mother.

Mothering had become mule-ing. Pushing feeding driving working feeding half sleeping ... wash rinse repeat.

Mule-ing day in and day out cause me to birth a new tactic by force. This tactic is simple. It changes how I mother and mule through life.

*Photo credit The Atlantic: What’s Lost When Black Children Are Socialized Into a White World

What is my new tactic?

I have stopped reaching out to turned backs, stopped expecting compassion where there is no understanding and stopped explaining myself to those with more mouths than ears. That's it. I stopped. Then...

I began channeling my energy into healing and empowering myself to be stronger, to keep my insides soft and to make my mindset strong.

I am taking my pain to the water ... to my knees to my critical needs and definitely not to you. I’m taking my pain to places I can be treated like a human being, with people who see my softness and want to hold it, care for it... love it. Places where they don’t require I work an extra 8 hours of patience, explanation, acceptance of being ignored and suppression of all that I critically need.

I will no longer walk in the desert and expect a moment to bathe.

You are now the desert to me. You who ignore what it is to be a mother. You who don’t sit with me and ask “what do you need?” You are now the desert.

I see clearly now that I have been wandering in a mirage of fake compassion and tenderness while looking for a moment of reprieve that fees like safely floating in a womb. I am no longer a mother like I've known. I have disconnected from what mothering has been to now rise above the thrown verbal “get over it” punches the automatic requests to smile while working hard and the absorption of despair directly on to my body.

That was mothering for me. That was awful self care for me.

I will now mother myself and have faith replace my birthing wounds. I will see ancestors and angels hovering over your knee on our sons necks with each video that escapes your evil looks. I thought you were taking my son. I thought those who don’t care could take my son... but I have been giving fear strength each time I forget all that surrounds my son when you threaten his life and I’m not around.

Those who seek justice are watching you and turning against you. There are consequences. God is watching you. Your choices. Your behavior. I don't have to live in dire fear anymore. His ancestors, my son's ancestors are watching you... and they are walking with him ... he has his own. We shared that once when he was in my belly. My steps were his steps. My ancestors shared him with me.

But now as you hunt for him ... as you treat him like a toy you can throw around and break apart ... they are watching you too. And they care for him as I do.

I used to think I had to fight alone to keep him safe but his ancestors have been doing that work without me for some time now. I couldn't see that before because I was swimming in fear.

I have just been so busy walking through mirages looking for warm water that I missed it. I missed seeing them protecting him but they are.

I now see that I am surrounded by men who are like a desert and even some women who have learned how to throw sand to stay hidden and survive the drought of compassion they feel every.... single...day. I am surrounded by the evidence of living a dry life in my home and on my body. The items in my home randomly quenching my thirst for support encouragement and peace instead of strategically replenishing me. The people ... around me... sowing dehydrated seeds in my mind with belittling words like “it’s only” or “hang in there” or “other mothers are dealing with the same thing.”

Something broke inside recently... even though this is an old pain we mothers have felt.

It all has to change immediately ... in my insides... in my soul. Mothering changes immediately because fear will devour me.

I’m turning my old home into a new womb.

When I wake up I will pour out of my bed into a soft room with sweet clean air that feels like a thousand smiles covering me in the morning dew. This is what new mothering will feel like. How I used to mother .. through fear... stops now. They cant have my sanity.

You cant take our sons... rough them up to prepare them for a cruel world... or even kill them and take the souls of their mothers too.

The old way to mother .. through fear.. stops now.

You can't have my soul too.

*Photo credit 400 Ancestor Project