One of the most difficult aspects of being a mother is the requirement of self-reflectiveness.
As mothers we need to be able to look back upon ourselves, most particularly our time as children, and recall the difficulties and fears we faced in order to remain connected with our children.
Our willingness to do this is most particularly effective in nurturing our daughters.
“[D]aughters can model a great deal from a mother who is self-aware herself,” says Juanita Johnson in, Know Thyself First(Part 6 of Our Mothers, Ourselves: Mother-Daughter Relationships)
I address this at length in the blog post, Of Daughters, Actions and Self-Awareness.
While sons are no less important and we should never ignore them and their needs nor view them as less important than those of our daughters, the fact remains that it is girls who grow into women. And it is women who bear children.
For this reason what we mothers do with and how we behave with our daughters has incredible influence on not simply the present, but also future generations.
The ability to revisit aspects of our lives as both women and mothers, both of whom once lived as girls, brings with it the ability to delve into our vulnerabilities, both past and present.
The weaknesses we possess as adults, the concerns, and disappointments we face as children and in early adulthood, prime the fears we hold as adults and when we become mothers.
Fear is a strong motivating force.
And yet decisions born out of fear(s) rarely prove fruitful.
How to live with our fears, allow them to guide, but not allow them to over power us.
This is the quest of every parent and mother.
A natural instinct of all animals, fear cannot be erased, not overcome.
We can make peace with its existence.
One prime gift of fear is that it warns us of impending danger.
People who refuse to acknowledge their fears or that fear is a natural part of the human condition, rarely live long and productive lives. Their demise most often brings with it many casualties.
Fear, ignored and criticized can and most often produces even greater problems.
Mothers who allow fear to rule our lives or worse, use it as an excuse to extort complete obedience from our daughters cripple our daughters from developing the ability to enter the flow of life with eagerness and strength, but with sensible caution and discernment.
Mothering any child requires that we walk a tightrope, distinguishing our personal hopes, dreams and wishes from what is factually safe and supportive of our children reaching adulthood with a clear sense of judgment around what is right and wrong and works towards their betterment and success.
Cultivating the ability within our children to identify their passion and follow that which inspires and fuels our desire to live most fully and thrive demands that we do this and ideally with our children as witness.
No experience is more important for daughters to partake than that of watching our mothers live out their passion.
Likewise, no greater gift can a mother bestow upon her daughter than a zest for life and the ability to find one’s path and follow it fervently.
Mothering possessing its own passion.
The degree to which we exhibit our commitment to seeing our daughters through life displays our ability to give our personal best without concern for what we will receive.
And yet the return, when invested with love and loyalty proves oh so great.
Living without being ruled by fear, loving with passion aware of, but not inspired by fear.
Each day we have our children alive and healthy, their warm gaze meeting ours presents a gift for which we must be ever joyful.
It is truly a miracle to have them enter our lives and remain with us for they years granted by the universe and/or powers that be.
The ability to look back on our lives and behold all that life grants us in the life of our children proves a gift in and of itself.
For those of us who are the mothers to and nurture daughters, this ability to turn inward, view ourselves, and our lives adds fuel and energy, as well as thought and care, to the steps we create, and that lead to the future as manifested in the children our daughters will bear–future generations, the lives of which enter the life of this world through the portal of our daughters’ wombs–wombs from which umbilical cords extend, umbilical cords that reach back to our wombs that fed the cords connecting us to them, and embody the circularity of human life and living.