When I started this blog I was the mother of a 10 year old daughter. My daughter is now turning 27 (in August). Along the way I have acquired and shed a number of labels which defined me and continue to do so.
At one time, this was a mothering blog only because there weren’t ethnic voices talking about the challenges of mothering; or how mothers weren’t receiving enough political capital for our concerns and worries like, over childcare, and I wrote about these. About 5 years ago I became an empty nester and wrote about the emptiness and sadness of an empty home once a child leaves.
Now, I am a mother of a fully grown adult child who is engaged and is planning her own life with a successful career.
My transitions are numerous but marked by a demand for me to swerve quite suddenly and address the changes almost immediately. As an example, my daughter decided that she wanted to move out and it took only 10 days for her action an intention into reality. That was an experience I wouldn’t want to repeat.
There were many times when I felt as if life was pulling me up by my hair – painful – to force me to confront my feeble sadness to the reality of not having a child at home anymore.
Transition, I have come to understand, is something that happens to you BUT you have the ability to choose the direction it takes. After my daughter left home, I threw myself into my career even more than ever and was awarded an MBE for my effort in the 2023 New Year’s Honours List. The award went a long way to helping me lighten the load of being an empty nester.
My point is that transition in motherhood is inevitable, but even though you change labels along the way in your motherhood journey, you don’t lose yourself—you grow into new versions of yourself.
Every stage asks you to let go of who you were so you can become the mother your child needs next and to address your own needs too.
