Mom

Yesterday, my daughter called another woman "Mom".

I was surprised that this struck me with such force.

"But I'm "Mom," I protested mentally, at least when it comes to this child.

I tried to brush it off, no big deal, I'm not bugged, but the fact that I am awake at 5am with a tear in my eye tells me that this was no small thing to me and I have to wonder: why?

Perhaps it is that the word itself is entwined around a woman and a relationship that I spent decades deciphering. My relationship with my mom was...complicated. Two very different personalities, struggling to find harmony amidst conflicting ideas and viewpoints. I spent my teenage years grappling with her on every issue, disagreeing on the vast majority of them. In my early adulthood, I blamed her for some of my own troubles while at the same time, recognizing that no one loved me with the same intensity that she did, nor was there was anyone I trusted quite as much as I trusted her.

Fortunately, God is kind, and He brought me into startlingly close proximity with my mom to work out my lifetime of conflicting emotions until together, we found understanding, resolution, peace.

I think it is this battle that makes the term more precious. "Mom" is not a title that I apply casually. There is only one person who has earned that name in my life, and I guard carefully its application; hence, the strong emotions when it came out of the mouth of my own child towards someone other than me.

I cannot deny that I am incapable of raising my children without the help of other women. I am not the end-all of mothers, nor am I the perfect fit for every one of my children, and there are many areas in which I am seriously found wanting. There are countless women who have stepped up to fill these gaps in my childrens' lives and I am profoundly grateful that they would care enough about children who are not their own to help this way. I cannot say that I have done the same. More and more the phrase "it takes a village to raise a child" echoes through my mind as I see my offspring become more than I could have helped them to be on my own.

So why the frantic stirrings over a title so small as "Mom"? Are we not all mothers?

And yet, a small part of me protests, "But these are MY children. I bore them. I sacrifice for them. I love them in a way that I love no other children and, I believe, in a way that no other person could love them."

I will have to think on this one.