What is a Real Mom?

Hello, my name is Dawn, and I’m going to be your newest Real Moms Guide blogger. Let me tell you a wee bit about myself. Those three wacky kids you see up there, they’re the source of my laugh lines, gray hairs and extra pounds, and they’re seriously some good kids. (Most of the time, as I’m sure you can understand.) Right now, they’re eleven, five and four, and yes, the long span between the first two was extremely purposeful. (That’s a different story for another day.) The eighteen month age difference between the younger two came as a gigantic surprise to everyone involved. Ahem.

It was twelve  years ago that I rang in the new year with a glass of sparkling apple juice, anxious about what it would mean to become a mom in the coming months. What kind of mom would I be? Beyond the immediate questions about keeping a newborn alive despite the seemingly millions of ways in which he could come to harm, what would it mean to be a mom in the long term? It was hard to imagine what motherhood would look like in a year or two, never mind a decade later.

In this time, I’ve had several stages in my parenting career. I’ve been a full-time working mom of one, a part-time working mom of two, and a stay-at-home mom of three. This past fall, life did a complete flip, and I’ve returned to teaching full-time again. For me, this has been a huge period of transition, emotionally challenging and the source of some significant self-reflection. A big part of that navel-gazing has involved thinking about what life as a mom is like now.

So, what is a Real Mom? It’s easy for me to think that my four year stint as a stay-at-home mom was my motherhood utopia, my “realest” time. My days were spent so focused on my children, and motherhood became my biggest defining characteristic. The younger two and I were never apart, and we were regulars at their big brother’s elementary school. We rocked the playgroup circuit, we took advantage of the local library, and we reveled in our fair share of low-key play time at home. When I spent hour after hour going through the never-ending cycle of breastfeeding, changing diapers, and shushing crying kids, my entire world was encompassed by my motherhood. Oh, I was a real mom, all right.

But now? Well, those baby days and the baby daze are long behind me, and we no longer have leisurely days at home. Our mornings are a blur of getting up and getting out the door, and the days apart are long. Even when I spend ten hours away from my kids, I have to keep telling myself that I’m as a real a mom to them as ever. They may be expanding their worlds, but they’re always going to be coming back to me for the love that only a mama can provide. I’m a real mom now, just as I was when I was surrounded by my kids all day long.

Here’s to all of us mamas, in all of our variations, all of us as real as the next.