Earlier...

...I read a story written by a mother who decided to leave her children with her ex-husband and forge a life for herself, on her own, separate of and from them.

This is not a choice one makes lightly and I have to say--I related to her experience. She felt very tied to them, existing through them, unclear of who she was, defined by her role as a mother.

I do not judge her--I've had my own 6 weeks. Ultimately, I'll have my children back but we're different women in different places. I have worked very hard to understand who I am, along the way, to maintain my 'self', asserting my boundaries early on--one of my daughter's first phrases was "mommy time". My son was a harder sell.

I have to admit here, had I not had the time and space to adjust to my recent life change, I don't know what the present would look like. I was in a bad place and damn' it--as mothers, we just don't get to be in those places, not without acrimonious judgement. We hear bullshit like, buck up for the kids or when you have children you don't get to...(fill in the blank with your own value judgement here) or we tell ourselves the same lies.

It's not realistic--we are multidimensional. I can't lay flat if I'm a cube and hell if I want to try. I refuse to be flat.

I would like to think that I would have the fortitude to ask for breathing room, to ask for space, to assert myself, to ask for EXACTLY what I needed, even if what I needed was a break from the life I was living, or, rather, the life I was experiencing.

The stakes are too high, all the way around. For them, for us.

Perhaps if motherhood wasn't such an all or nothing enterprise, perhaps if societal support existed for mothers, perhaps if we expected more out of fathers, then, perhaps, mothers wouldn't have to choose.

You back me into a corner and I choose me, first. I can't rescue my children if I'm drowning, I can't position their oxygen mask if I can't breathe and I can't hold them up if there's no ground under my feet.

My mothering is experiencing a glorious shift...

You can read her story here:
http://www.literarymama.com/columns/motherhoodfromafar/archives/2008/10/countdown.html