Like I’m not really a mom, I’m only just pretending. I’ve never had a conversation with someone about having kids, never got pregnant, didn’t give birth, never took care of an infant. I do all the other mom stuff, laugh, worry, be incredibly proud, wondrously amazed and a thousand other things. When I look back, I went from not thinking about having kids to, here they are and good luck. Insta mom.
It’s not that I don’t feel they are mine, or that we are not family. I guess it’s really that I don’t think of myself as a mom. When I think of a mom, I think of mine, but don’t see myself as one. When my mom was my age she had four kids already and 14 years experience raising them. She is fantastic and I owe so much to her. I’ve always thought how great mom’s are and how they just know the right thing. Now that I am one it seems odd to think that. Most of the time I have no idea what I am doing.
Or maybe it’s missing the whole being pregnant part. Having everyone talk to you about being a new mom, the baby shower, the excitement from friends and family about the birth. For months before the birth, people you know and people you don’t talking to you about being a mom.
For the months before I got my boys it was foster parenting classes and making sure that I remembered that this was temporary. I was very involved with their birth mom and trying to help her to get her kids back. I spent a long time telling myself and other people that these were not my children, as much as I loved them, they had a mom already. The transition between this is temporary and maybe it isn’t, was very fast.
It’s not possible for me to love these boys anymore than had I given birth to them. Like any parent my heart is near to bursting when ever I think about them. I never knew how much different it would be when I had kids or what it really meant to love someone so much it hurts. So why don’t I feel like I’m a mom? Do other new moms feel this way? Is it just because I had thirty years to learn who I was and only two to learn who I am now, as a mom? Does it go away and will I someday not feel like a child pretending when in a room full of other parents?
It’s not that I don’t feel they are mine, or that we are not family. I guess it’s really that I don’t think of myself as a mom. When I think of a mom, I think of mine, but don’t see myself as one. When my mom was my age she had four kids already and 14 years experience raising them. She is fantastic and I owe so much to her. I’ve always thought how great mom’s are and how they just know the right thing. Now that I am one it seems odd to think that. Most of the time I have no idea what I am doing.
Or maybe it’s missing the whole being pregnant part. Having everyone talk to you about being a new mom, the baby shower, the excitement from friends and family about the birth. For months before the birth, people you know and people you don’t talking to you about being a mom.
For the months before I got my boys it was foster parenting classes and making sure that I remembered that this was temporary. I was very involved with their birth mom and trying to help her to get her kids back. I spent a long time telling myself and other people that these were not my children, as much as I loved them, they had a mom already. The transition between this is temporary and maybe it isn’t, was very fast.
It’s not possible for me to love these boys anymore than had I given birth to them. Like any parent my heart is near to bursting when ever I think about them. I never knew how much different it would be when I had kids or what it really meant to love someone so much it hurts. So why don’t I feel like I’m a mom? Do other new moms feel this way? Is it just because I had thirty years to learn who I was and only two to learn who I am now, as a mom? Does it go away and will I someday not feel like a child pretending when in a room full of other parents?
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