You've heard the expression "fake it till you make it", right? I remember reading in one of my psych textbooks in college about how when we enter into new and unfamiliar roles (let's say, starting a new job, or joining a new club, for example), as we start that new role, we start trying to "play the part". You probably know the feeling; you're trying to fit in, trying to learn the ropes, trying to find your place in the new schema. Eventually you get to a point where you are not playing a part anymore, you gradually fade out of "acting" and eventually just are.
I feel like I'm somewhere on that gradual shift as a mother. Some days I feel like I fit the role, I am the role, but [many] other days... I feel like an actor on a stage, trying not to mess up my lines. A difficult part of motherhood for me is feeling like I don't have a great way to calibrate my mothering. I wasn't around children much, as a child or as an adult, it's always been more of people my own age. Even Marty had much more exposure than me, he had something like 25 nieces and nephews by the time we had gotten married, so he has a decent idea of what kids are like.
So you know how when you started that new job, you sort of looked around at what everyone else was doing or how they were acting, and it helped you to get your bearings? Well, I keep trying to do that as a mother and I'm not exactly hanging out in a bunch of cubicles full of families.
I've been working to go on more playdates,
for lots of reasons, but this is certainly one of them. It's so nice for me to feel like I'm getting calibrated to what children are really like, and what other moms and families are really like, because I'll tell you what- children are not like adults. No sir-ree.
Today I had a playdate with a mom of six kids, her youngest two are similar in age to my two. It was so neat to get to see a big family in action, I loved it. And it's so nice to get to pick the brain of another mom, and see what other kids are like, and what life looks like when you're six kids deep. Maybe if I go on enough play dates, by the time all my kids are grown I won't feel like I'm "acting" the part of a mom anymore. Ha.
Labels: Motherhood, Personal Growth