佚名/Anonymous
After the birth of my twin daughters, my mother offered to stay for a week and help out.
Being a naive new mom, I figured I didn’t really need her help. How hard could it be? I thought I was the youthful, energetic one, newly imbued through the labor and delivery of two babies with an innate knowledge of how to care for them. My mom was nearing sixty, and although she had raised three children of her own, well, that was a long time ago.
I agreed to her offer, glad for the company, but not from a
perception of need.
My mother arrived, saw what needed to be done, and very quietly did it. Always with a smile, she made meals, including the entire Thanksgiving dinner for six that I thought I could handle on my own. She cleaned, shopped, did laundry and rocked screaming babies in the small hours of the morning. She never once did the thing I most feared she would do—lecture me on the myriad of things I could do better or differently.
She never once gave unsolicited advice. She did, however, frequently tell me what every new mom desperately needs to hear—that I was doing a great job.
I was endlessly amazed by her energy, her competency, and her unflappable, easy manner with my daughters. I stumbled around in a fog of bleary-eyed exhaustion, going through the motions of motherhood, while she busily snapped pictures and exclaimed over the marvels of my babies. She was always one step ahead of me, even though I swear she got less sleep.
I wondered if this was the same mother I remembered from my High School years, back when I knew everything and she knew less than everything. Back when I rolled my eyes at her a lot and she spent a lot of time trying to tell me that there were things I wouldn’t understand until I became a mother myself.
The last vestiges of my myopic, know-it-all adolescence died the week after my daughters were born, and good riddance. Because in its place, a new understanding was born. An understanding with a lot more respect and much better vision.