What Does a Mother-of-Many Look Like, Anyway?

This may begin to sound a trifle vain - please, please, please don't imagine I'm being self-congratulatory or anything of the sort. In sharing a personal experience, I'm only relating what actually happens in order to illustrate a larger point.

So.

It often happens that if I'm in a group of people, and I happen to share that I have five children, people say lovely things like, "You don't look old enough to have five kids!" or, "You look great to have had five!" (And I'm not being unkind - those really are lovely comments.) My fellow mothers-of-several get this kind of reaction, too, and it always makes me wonder what exactly a mother of five is "supposed" to look like. I think I know - I think, given the supposedly ghastly effects of childbirth (and if you multiply that times FIVE - oh my!) and the way raising young children can sometimes seems to suck years off one's life, it would be expected that we would sag in all sorts of places and look (and feel) chronically tired and harried, not to mention rather frumpy (because who with that many kids would have time for personal grooming?). What's interesting to me is that I don't know any mother-of-several who is actually like that! I will even venture to say that it's quite the opposite, in more than one way. Most of the mothers-of-several (or even -of-many) that I know are fit, active, lovely, and nicely groomed (we DO manage to fit showers in now and then!). And what's more, they often become more so with age and with added children, rather than the reverse.

It's almost as if...could it be?...that children don't actually take away from our lives, but that they add to our well-being. It's as though life gives birth to more life, all the way around. It's really a beautiful thought.

I also often hear that people don't know how I "do it," and how I get anything at all done, much less have any time for myself. But here's another area in which I think our society has been neatly decieved. Among my friends who are mothers-of-several, there are intelligent people who are well read and who have all kinds of interests, hobbies, and pursuits. Some of them even write books in addition to reading them. A few have nicely kept houses, but I'll confess, most of the time those pursuits take away from our being able to have immaculate houses. They don't usually take away from time with our children, though. I think that instead of feeling burdened by our kids, and instead of feeling that we are making huge personal sacrifices for them, most of us feel we are surrounded by people with interesting personalities and viewpoints. Just as they watch us and learn, we learn from them, too. And of course we can read and pursue various interests while we're with them (the laundry might not get done, but hey...)

I've been a mother for just over twelve years. Of course it's hard work, Of course having five people needing me all the time can be tiring. Of course my opportunities are different than that of a single and childless 30-something woman. But I think I'm wiser and healthier than I was when I started this journey, and I think I'm far from exceptional in that. Motherhood hasn't been just good for my soul - like a nice sacrifice that has been worth a weary, battered body and the loss of brain cells. Motherhood - and especially motherhood that involves all these little people everywhere! - has been good for my mind and my body, too. I think my fellow warrior-mothers - all you beautiful, smart women - would probably agree.