Daily Living Archives - Page 43 of 74 - Mothering in the Middle

A Community of Mid-Life Mother Bloggers (In Celebration of Mother’s Day)

by Cyma Shapiro

Nine years ago, while sitting in the Moscow Marriott at age 46 with my newly adopted year-old daughter, I realized that I was going to be old when she graduated from college. The “old” was nearly my grandmother’s age – old! This was the very first time I’d ever felt my mortality and had ever even stopped to consider my chronological age. I had long ignored the biological clock theory thinking that it was mere hyperbole.

Although it came as a shock to me that I had not previously become pregnant, on that cold winter’s night nearly 9,000 miles from home, I finally felt my life begin. My age was a nagging problem, but at that moment I was filled with pride, joy and the fullness of starting a new family. I could see nothing but rosy times. Or so I thought. Little did I know that I had just joined a new club – moms over 40 – with no dues-paying members and no glue to bind them. Little did I know that in reality, I was one of them. (Two years later, we adopted our son).

Since then, I’ve made it my mission to expose the world to the group I call “Midlife Mothers” – that is, women choosing motherhood over 40. I have been featured on NPR and written for numerous online sites including Psychology Today and the Huffington Post. MLM entities MotheringintheMiddle.com and NURTURE: Stories of New Midlife Mothers (the only art gallery show dedicated to presenting women choosing motherhood over 40; now traveling North America) are intended to present a voice, face and forum.

Together with other midlife mother/women bloggers, we are helping redefine women in mid-life, dispel myths about who we are […]

Mother’s Day Cards

by Cyma Shapiro

Dear Reader: I wrote this blog post a handful of years ago for MotherhoodLater, but have rerun it every year. I also received those flowers from my stepson several years ago. However, the two experiences have reaffirmed the power of motherhood and my joy at being a mother.

It’s amazing how one year can change things; how motherhood makes us forget what happened when our children were younger or youngest; how they came into our lives and what changes we needed to make once they were here.

I can honestly say that I am nearly fully comfortable in my Motherhood-clothes, a role that I played well in the beginning, but one that I now don each day with ease in the same way that I donned singlehood for many, many years. I won’t say that there aren’t days I wish I could wake up, yawn, and go down for coffee all on my own time, my own rhythm. I will say, however, that I’m the happiest that I’ve ever been – now that I have children. […]

Mommy Bloggers and My Take (A Commentary)

by Amy Sullivan

The words “Mommy Blogger” used to make me think of breastfeeding and pureed fruits.

And previously, when I heard the term Mommy Blogger, I cringed and quickly looked away. I certainly wasn’t one of those bloggers.

I don’t share recipes (Shoot, did that yesterday), hold giveaways (um, does my birthday count?), chronicle my children’s antics (again, yesterday), document drivel (I don’t think you can really call singing Journey in the car with your closest friends drivel), talk about fashion (I had to tell you guys about the pink pants!), or capture precious day-to-day moments (well, only about a million like this one). […]

Motherhood: Lies, Secrets and a Culture of Shame (A Mother’s Day Promise)

by Cyma Shapiro

I believe that we, as women, live in a culture of shame, failure and inferiority regarding our attempts to reach, and our paths to achieve, motherhood.

There, I’ve said it.

I believe that our gender – known for compassion, nurturing and strength – has created a hierarchy of sorts rating the exact method, age, and end result of securing motherhood. Note the whispers about actress Kate Winslet, who was purported to have lied about utilizing natural childbirth when she had a C-section. Or, Halle Berry, who has until-now failed to show the “bump,” and is the focus of stories indicating that she may be using a surrogate. To me, none of this is anyone’s business – and certainly not ours. […]

Special Delivery – from Haiti

by Michelle Eisler

Reflecting on my first Mother’s Day, now three years later, my thoughts and memories are as powerful as if it was yesterday. Each morning I wake up, no matter how tired I am, and realize that I don’t take for granted the treasure that arrived on the plane January 30, 2010 – my precious daughter. Here is my original post.

I just celebrated my first Mother’s Day this past weekend. At the age of 38 it feels late but as I understand, it isn’t as odd these days. One would think motherhood has been something I have been trying for forever but it isn’t. I’m just a late bloomer! I have, however, waited a couple of years for this but didn’t know just how much I’d truly waited, until this past January.

My husband and I were matched with Nathalia in October ’09 and would have traveled to Haiti in February 2010 to sign the first Haitian documents for our adoption process. We expected to be a family by the summer of 2010. […]

Mother’s Day Gift

by Maggie Lamond Simone

“Look at you – you’re just like your mother.”

Weren’t those dreaded words at one point in my life? Didn’t I work all these years to not be like her, to identify her faults and weaknesses and to do everything humanly possible to avoid them?

I read a comic strip once in which a woman was lamenting the fact that she’d turned into her mother. All the behaviors she hated, she’d adopted. And I heard once that if a man wants to know what his wife will be like in 30 years, he should look at her mother. It was meant to be mean.

Why now, then, am I desperately wishing for that one profound gift that eludes me – to be like my mom? I think it’s because I’m a mother now myself, and I’m beginning to wonder if I could ever hope to be the mother she has been to me. […]

Mother’s Day

by Marc Parsont

Mother’s Day terrifies me. I have an opportunity to make up for everything I may have done poorly, am doing wrong or will do poorly as a husband and as the caretaker in the house. If I get it right, brownie points until her birthday. If I get it wrong, the Sirens will howl for my head.

So, it is with this thought that I share the following: I was shopping for cards for my wife for Mother’s Day, when my friend Virginia sidled up to my cart. After we greeted each other warmly, she looked at the cards (plural) in my hand and started on a diatribe that I wouldn’t have expected coming from her. […]

Perspective (It’s All About Perspective)

by Jane Samuel

In my older age (NOT old age) I have noticed something. Call it an Oprah-Aha-moment. Or wisdom that comes with gray hair – of which I have none yet, thank you very much. Or clarity. Or Karma.

Whatever it is, it is important. It is what can turn an opinion on its head, an observation into a judgment or a friend away. It can make silver-linings shine through apparent darkness.

It’s perspective. And as we age we gain more of it I hope. At least that seems to be the case with me and why I am glad that I am parenting my kids a tad later than I had planned.

I think back over so many events that now seem vastly different because life has handed me – through other events – perspective. […]

Sticks and Stones

by Ellie Stoneley

Dear Reader: Our very own UK-based Ellie Stoneley has been shortlisted for the prestigious Brilliance in Blogging award for her blog, Mush Brained Ramblings.

Here is her latest work:

“Sticks and stones may break my bones But names will never hurt me”

This pearl of wisdom, attributed to a Mrs George Cuppples in something called Tappy’s Chicks back in 1872, is now part of nursery folklore.

I’ve never been particularly bothered by names or labels, which is probably just as well. I always wanted to be known as Beth (inspired by sweet gentle Beth from Little Women), but that never stuck, instead I ended up with Ellie as a result of my brother singing his version of (N)ellie the elephant very gleefully when my mother plated my hair into tight braids behind my ears which then stuck out at right angles.

I married in my mid forties (maybe the ears had put people off before that) and a few months before the wedding, was referred to by someone as a ‘spinster’ that’s one of the few names I have objected to … not long after that I became a “Mrs.,” a label that seems somehow too grown up for me and I’ve never quite got the hang of. Then, by an utter miracle, just over four years later, I became a mother. […]

Motherhood, with Gratitude

by Andrea Lynn

Kristi and children by photographer Tracy Cianflone

I finally saw the NURTURE: Stories of New Midlife Mothers* photo exhibit. I’ve seen many of the photos on the website, of course, and knew about the project before I started blogging here. I consider the creator of this whole Midlife Mothering project an old friend, though I suppose it has only been a few years. But, seeing the photos in real life, and reading the stories of the mothers and their children in black and white, was different.

We read so much online now, it seems rare to be standing before a real photo, much larger than my computer screen, and reading the stories in person, as others shuffled around me, sharing the exhibit space in downtown Toronto. […]