A Woman Is... A Mother

Every single person who ever lived, called the womb of a woman their first home. 

This episode is the first episode in a new series on motherhood. May is the month we celebrate Mother’s Day and take time to honor mothers. So for the month of May we are doing the same on the podcast. Part of the purpose of this podcast is to highlight what makes women different from men, to honor the uniqueness of the female. One of the most brilliant distinctions is in a woman’s ability to bring forth life, to carry and birth new humans. Every single person who ever lived, called the womb of a woman their first home. 

Shayla starts out reading a brief scene from her book. Then over a dozen mothers share a bit of their motherhood journey with us. What motherhood means to them, their favorite part of motherhood and the hardest part. Each one of these women brings so much to the table and to the conversation. There is no one way to mother and as we hear their varying approaches to motherhood… the through-line is that they all love their children fiercely… like a mother. 

Transcript

Shayla: Welcome to a woman is Podcast. I'm your host, Shayla Raymond. I'm really excited about this episode today. It's our first episode in a new series on motherhood, and this is the month that we celebrate Mother's Day. And so I thought we would do the same thing on the podcast. Part of the purpose of this podcast is to highlight what makes women different from men, to honor the uniqueness of the female. And one of the most brilliant distinctions is in a woman's ability to bring forth life, to carry and birth new humans. Every single person that ever lived called the womb of a woman their first home. And so for this episode, I invited several mothers to share a bit of their motherhood journey with us. And each one of these women bring so much to the table and to the conversation, and there's no one way to mother. And as we hear their varying approaches to motherhood, the through line is that they all love their children fiercely, like a mother. And before we hear from them I thought I would start us off today by reading a scene from my unfinished and unpublished novel on female friendship, because I thought it really set up our topic for today. 

“She should be sleeping, but the pressure from her full bladder woke her up. Addison rubbed her eyes and rolled herself off the bed, leaning more on her arms to get up since her ab muscles had been stretched right out and rendered useless. She made her way to the bathroom and felt the soreness of her entire body. When she squatted down, the stinging pain jolted her fully awake, to the memory that just days before, she had been split right open to bring her daughter into this world. The painful sacrifice felt real and close, but also distant as the awe of her body overtook her. Wow. She thought, I did that. A baby came out of me. I pushed her through this tiny well, not so tiny anymore. Deep sigh. Distracted for a moment at how her body seemed broken and then back in awe again. That baby was inside me, and now she is out of me. Wow. Just days before, she felt like the most powerful woman in the world as she gave birth naturally and at home. After that, she thought she could do anything. The birth experience had empowered her more than anything ever before. But now, just days later, she didn't feel like she could do anything. She wobbled out to the kitchen to get a drink of water again because she was always thirsty these days. Her ******* began to hurt, swollen, and so full. And then she realized her shirt was a little wet. This meant her daughter would soon be awake. Lately, aside from always being thirsty, she was always leaking something, leaking milk, leaking blood, leaking pea sweat and tears. When she wasn't leaking, she was being showered with baby spit up or pea or yellow poop. She grabbed her ******* and squeezed a little to let the pressure off, and instantly her entire shirt was soaked. Overnight, her ******* became fire hoses filled with liquid gold. She lifted up her shirt and watched in amazement. Dang, I make milk. What's your superpower? She chuckled to herself and waddled back to her bedroom to change and waddled back to the kitchen for water. She sat down in the quiet of the morning in her favorite chair. From where she sat, she had a front row seat to the way the rising sunlight bathed her Christmas cactus. The buds were just beginning to appear on this crisp late November morning. Just a touch of pink emerging meant they would be blooming right on time, like nature's own advent calendar. She sipped her water, and she remembered the day her mother gave her this plant. Her mother had propagated this one from her own, which was propagated from her mother's cactus, which was propagated from her mother's. Perhaps it originated even before then. But as Addison knew it, her great grandmother broke pieces of the cactus off and transplanted them. Which group plants that she gave her daughters. And now her daughters have done the same. Addison's tired eyes caught this cactus shining in the light, reminding her that she was part of all the women that came before her. That's what women do. They break off pieces of themselves for others. They break open themselves for the next generation to be able to keep growing. The pieces they break off keep bringing beauty that blossoms even on cold days. And on that morning, the symbolism did not escape her that she is a plant that has grown from the broken pieces of the broken, wide open women who came before her. Her mother, grandmother, great grandmother and great great grandmother. And now the cries of her newborn daughter from the other room brought her to her reality. She went in, picked up her daughter, sat down on the rocking chair, put her daughter to her swollen breast, and listened to the happy gulping of her baby. Drinking up the milk her own body had made. She became acutely aware that she was physically breaking off pieces of herself for others to grow from. Is that the secret to the connectedness that women can experience with one another? Is it that we all come from that first plant? And the strength and power of women is in our ability to break off and break open, to bring forth life. And we constantly break off pieces to propagate more life, not just for our bloodline, but also for the sisters we choose, the friends we allow ourselves to be broken and spilled out for, only to discover that we are all a part of the same plant and we belong to each other.” 

And so, for the rest of this episode, we're going to hear from women as they break off a piece of their life and share it with us.

Speaker C: My name is Stephanie Aten. I am 36 years old. I have one little girl who is eight months. Being a mom has meant to me that I've been learning how to think bigger, dream bigger, and think generationally. I think that's something you don't really know how to do until you actually have another generation to affect. And so I've been thinking through recently of just what are the intentional things that we want to pass along to her, the values that we want to instill, the things that are important to our family, and then maybe even hopefully skipping some of the things that haven't been so helpful to myself. And then another part of that is dreaming and thinking through thinking generationally with the dreams that I have personally for our family. And the box feels like it's kind of gotten bigger to be able to dream beyond just my lifetime, and that's been fun. My favorite part of motherhood is watching her play and grow and learn. I love just sitting on the couch while she's playing with her toys and just getting to see her explore and just play independently and just watch her kind of do her thing. And so fun just to watch her play. And then the hardest part of mothering is probably taking time for myself. I'm a very classic enneagram too, and it is an absolute joy to care for her and take care of her. And it's really hard to be able to take time for myself. And I think figuring out recently that taking time for myself doesn't necessarily mean that I don't want to be around her, or my husband for that matter, but that there's two separate things. I can still want to be around them and still enjoy loving being around them, and yet still need time for myself and figuring out how to make that more of a priority.

Speaker D: My name is Jess. I get to be mom to a nine year old IVF wonder boy. To me, being a mom is a daily lifetime achievement. I wear a lot of hats as a wife, a career builder, a sister, a daughter, a friend. The one title I knew I had to become was a mom. That desire never wavered to my bones marrow. My life's calling has been to be Oliver's mom. Nothing makes me more inspired, so it means everything. My favorite part of mothering is relearning to explain everything is new to the brand new. Nothing demonstrates your surplus or lack of knowledge like answering a child's questions in kid friendly terms. At Oliver school, when a child repeats a grade, instead of saying they were held back, we say they were gifted a year. Motherhood is like being gifted a year. Year after year after year. You're now the experienced, the educated, the knowledgeable leader. To relearn is to fortify your own wisdom, and to reassess to make sure that you're passing along. Truth, you get to grow up again, hopefully better, so they might do the same. The hardest part of mothering for me is a struggle with spontaneity. My comfort zone is curated plan set up weeks ahead. When life interrupts. I can get grumpy and snappy and then the mom guilt sets in and it's just kind of a snowball effect. Still, we never regret impromptu amusement park days or stopping at the ice skating rink after school. Our chores and our homework will always be there. So I'm working on it.

Speaker B: My name is Ginny Puckett. I have five children oldest daughter 35, son 30, daughter 28, son 25 and lastly, the baby son, 23. To me, being a mom has meant everything. I loved every bit of raising them. Although it's the hardest job in the world, it's truly a blessing to have these lives in your care. I am so thankful that I was able to be a stay at home mom when they were young. Watching them grow from crawling to walking to playing outside with all of their friends, watching them at school and crying because I was just so proud of that violin player, the singers in the chorus, the soccer, volleyball and the football games. I was their number one cheerleader. And you know what? I will never stop being that cheerleader. I love them all and I am so proud to call them mine. My favorite part of motherhood is seeing my grown children find their place in the world. I know what a struggle it is to find out what you want to do when you grow up. And these days the school system wants you to know this by the time you reach high school. Most kids don't really know their purpose in life until they hit their mid twenty s. And it makes me just beam to see my kids happy and successful in whatever they choose to do as if I had something to do with it. But having them come through the ages and go through their own cycles it brings me so much joy to see them as adults, being content and happy and not to mention safe.

Speaker D: My name is Carrie Mullins. I have three boys a 17 year old, a 14 year old and a six year old. I would say that mothering and motherhood to me, as cheesy as it may sound, is really a dream come true. As a young girl through school, through high school they would always ask you what you want to be when you grow up. And really at the end of the day I just always wanted to be a mom. That was my answer. I would say I might want to be a teacher, I might want to be this but really I just want to be a mom. And I was able to do that. I've been able to homeschool my boys for many years and be a stay at home mom and that has been a dream come true as well. Just being able to live that out has been truly a dream come true. I would say my favorite part of motherhood is watching them grow. As hard as it is to watch them grow up, I love that there are things that they do and things that they say looks that they make. Even some of their passions that they gravitate towards can look like me or can look like their dad. And I just think that's so fun to watch. Or even things that maybe the littlest one does that the older one did when he was the same age. So it's really fun to see little pieces of you and your husband in your kids, but then also to see things that they do or say or thoughts that they have. And we're like, Where did that come from? I don't remember that in my family. Your husband doesn't remember it in his family and it's just because it's uniquely them. It's this neat thing that you've known them from the very beginning and you get to watch their personality and their passions just kind of grow and come alive. And it's a surprise because you have no idea who they're going to be or what they're going to do. And it's fun and scary. It's just one giant roller coaster like they say. And the hardest part for me, I would say, is comparing my ability to mother and just my mothering to other women. Women that have come before me, women that I'm parenting alongside at the same time, maybe even women I see on social media that I don't even know. I can compare how they do something or look at how they do something and think, oh, that's how I should be doing it. I've gotten better at remembering god gave me my children so that I can raise them and I have to know what's best for my family. And what may be best for us is not best for someone else. Just continuing to grow and learn in understanding that and not comparing myself to anyone else, just being who God's created me to be and helping me to raise my children into who God's created them to be. Honestly, I would just add for anyone out there that's starting off in the motherhood journey, do everything you can to get yourself a solid group of mothers in your life. That has helped me so much in a million different ways. But having women in your life older than you that have kids, maybe that are adults, and having people a couple of stages ahead of you, have people in the same stage so that you can kind of talk about what's going on. Because for me, I have friends that are raising teenagers, and raising teenagers now is definitely different than a generation ahead. So having somebody that's in that same stage is helpful. And then also having women under you or are not as far along as you that you can kind of pour into. So it's be mothered while you're mothering and mothering other mothers. That has been such a blessing and a gift to my life is having women that I can lean on, that are support, that we can laugh with. One of our things is if we don't laugh, we die. Because every stage of motherhood has its own hard seasons. And to also have women that celebrate you, that celebrate your children, you can celebrate them and their children. So get yourself a community, whether it's through your church or your neighborhood, whatever, because we are not meant to do this alone. It is all about community.

Speaker C: My name is Becky Burgess. I have eight kids. My oldest is Ryan, she's 20. Wesley is 19. Casey, my daughter, is 16. Jason is 15. Susannah is 13. Levi is eleven. Emery Ray is nine, and Evelyn is five. To me, being a mom has meant getting to partner with the Holy Spirit, to love and care for these eight amazing humans by introducing them to Jesus, by teaching them to communicate really well, and then having the privilege of watching them change the world. My favorite part of motherhood has been growing in relationship with these people because children are absolutely brilliant and I love how they learn and grow and change, and I love experiencing them in every stage of their life, especially as they develop personalities and a great sense of humor. And it's also really nice to be a whole bunch of people's favorite person. The hardest part of mothering for me is having eight children and being a highly sensitive introvert, so learning to control myself more every day and acknowledging that sometimes I just need some quiet space.

Speaker D: My name is Jenn Stockman, and I have four girls who are 17, 15, 13, and 10. And to me, being a mom has meant just a dream fulfilled. Ever since I was a little girl, I basically spent my childhood pretending to be a mom, playing house every day. So it's really meant a dream fulfilled. And my favorite part of mothering is just getting to be the number one fan in my kids corner and getting to just give to the best of my ability everything I've learned and received in the ways that I've lived the parts of their life that they're now living. So my favorite part is just getting to watch them come into who they are from a front row seat in their corner, cheering them on, for sure. The hardest part of mothering for me is just how our children are mirrors for our undealt with issues, our undealt with inner work, our undealt with grief work, the magnifying glass they become in. Just pointing out the next place of our inner development, the next place of our need for growth, and truly owning that and making that work the priority is a very hard part of mothering, for sure.

Speaker E: Hi, my name is Katie Hale. I have three kids, a daughter that's nine and two boys. One is seven and our youngest is four. To me, being a mom has meant living in a state of exhaustion and constantly being asked for more than I'm usually capable of. And it's also meant learning how to take personal responsibility for my own attitudes and needs. Being a mom was a dream I've had for as early as I can remember. And when you're in the middle of living out the dream, you realize that the dream in your mind of effortlessly floating through motherhood like a magical fairy and everything falling into perfect place and it's glamorous and beautiful and every meal is made from scratch and there's not a dirty dish in the sink and the toilets are sparkling clean. And that is not the current reality. My dream never took into consideration medical emergencies or family members living thousands of miles away and hard days and endlessly dirty kitchen or the feeling of isolation. Over time, realizing the idea I had in my head actually looked really different from my current reality and being honest with myself and aware that my life as a mother is different than what I expected. Not even in a bad way, just in a naive way. You don't know what you don't know doesn't really matter how many parenting books you've read. And taking the time to realize that I am where I am because of the choices that I have made, that this is actually what I have chosen. And today I'm just going to give it my best. Because in the middle of the dream is actually hard work. When I'm cleaning throw up off the carpet that was freshly installed 24 hours ago I remind myself that being able to do this was my dream and it just gives me that fresh perspective. My attitude usually takes a sharp turn towards not so fun really quick. When I'm trying to parent or act like or extracurricular like someone else I'm constantly reminding myself that these kids were given to me not to someone else and my entire job is just to do me really well. When I realize I'm comparing myself to someone else it's just a simple act of I just adjust and I recognize I'm comparing myself and I adjust and I begin asking myself questions to look at honestly like how am I doing? Because beating myself up over it is really easy but the real work is actually getting to the bottom of why am I feeling this way? I just ask myself things like why am I feeling this way? And get to the bottom of it and oh, it's because I was short with the kids and oh yeah, okay, how come? Well, I'm not leaving space in my schedule to take into account how slow a four year old can be. Okay. How can I adjust? Or when I feel overwhelmed with folding kid laundry again and asking myself, have I even asked for help? Nope. Okay. Can I include the kids or how can I include the kids in helping me fold the laundry? Okay, let's adjust. And, you know, they aren't going to get the corners as sharp as I would at first, but it actually feels really good to be working towards a goal together and for them to help contribute. Oftentimes it's the work of figuring out what I need that's been the most productive in my ability to show up as the best version of me and not the version that I think I should be. My favorite part of Motherhood is celebrating my kids in the small successes of life and in the large ones. When they are able to climb up on the trampoline by themselves and when they're able to do their first back handspring on the trampoline, believing in them more than they believe in themselves and daring them to try something new. I love celebrating their wins and celebrating when they've tried and failed and gotten back on and tried it again. I love watching them find things they love and how similar they are to me, watching them discover things that I never would have tried, and them being successful at it, and me recognizing how different they are for me. Another favorite part of Motherhood I've really enjoyed is finding other moms that are successful in areas that I'm not, and learning from them, seeing something that works for them and applying it to our life to see how that works for us. The hardest part of Mothering for me has been the battle in my own mind, my own thoughts. Could I have caught it sooner? Will they be good readers because I didn't read to them enough at bedtime? Are they eating too much processed foods? If we raise them to be this way, are they going to be made fun of? Do these multivitamins have too much sugar in it? Will our four year old ever eat another vegetable besides broccoli? Once those thoughts turn into scenarios that haven't happened yet, I quickly stop the thought process and recognize those scenarios haven't even happened. But what I do have control over is what information do I have today and what can I do today with that information? Most oftentimes, those scenarios never play out the way I imagine them to, or my children are much more resilient than I give them credit for. Sometimes there's an action step. Like tonight, we'll have a three course meal starting with Brussels sprouts. And in the event I'm broadsided with the reality that I haven't imagined well, all of life has been unpredictable, and we'll just take it one moment at a time.

Speaker D: Hello. My name is Carmen Raymond. I am the mother of two young adult children. My oldest is my son, and he is about to turn 24. And my youngest is a girl who just turned 21. For me, being a mom has probably been the most profound connection to my creator, and it allowed me to understand and encounter love in a way that was so much greater than I ever had experienced before. That motherhood has been the greatest expression of love in my life. My favorite part of being a mom is watching them in each stage from infancy onward, watching them discover and become who they are destined to be and to witness their becoming and get to help direct when necessary. It has truly brought joy to my heart in every stage, and I am quite confident that will never end. Those favorite parts of motherhood can quickly turn into the hardest. To watch your children go through tough things like heartbreak and hard lessons, illness or struggle. I feel it deeply, and knowing they are hurting, well, that hurts me like nothing else.

Speaker F: My name is dawn. I have three boys. They're 22, 16 and seven. To me, being a mom has meant learning to find humor in the chaos, to let go of the idea of perfection and to truly understand what it means to love unconditionally. My favorite part of motherhood is standing back and watching as my kids overcome obstacles and succeed, especially after they trusted me enough to come to me for help and encouragement in those areas. It's also the random, unexpected hugs and the silent looks of appreciation they give when they realize I've helped them in some way. But more than anything, it's realizing that even with all the mistakes I make, my kids are actually growing into really amazing humans. The hardest part of motherhood has been trying to simultaneously meet the needs of three very different kids and three very different stages in life. Being able to switch gears between a college kid learning to adult, a high schooler learning to drive, and a first grader learning to tie his shoes and be a good friend. It can be very tough, and it's so hard to give each of them the time and attention they deserve when most of the time I just feel overwhelmed by so many things coming at me at once. I feel like they've had three very different moms. The mom I was in my 20s with my oldest is not the same mom I was in my 30s with my middle child. And both of those were very different than the mom I've been in my 40s with my youngest. We learn and grow as mothers, just as our kids learn and grow.

Speaker C: Hi, I'm Vanderly, and I'm a mom to three children. I have Zoe, who is 22 years old my boy Joshua, who is 18 years old and my sunshine, Eliana, who is 13 years old. For me, being a mother and mothering is encompassing cliches about motherhood because they're genuinely true. Cliches, such as mothers hold their children's hands for a short while, but their hearts forever. That is deeply true. Cliches, like mothering is loving a human so much your heart could burst. Wearing my heart on my sleeve for my children. Mothering is truly looking at your children and your heart is just expanding because they truly are your pride and joy. But even more for me, being a mother has become a noble pursuit and honor to be the best that I can be and give the best that I have because my ceiling are my children's floors and I have learned over the years that I can love them all the more better when I pursue loving myself better. So being a mother has been such an integration of a pursuit of healing and wholeness to love me well so that I could love and give the best that I have for my children. My favorite part of Mothering is simply learning the art of knowing each of my children individually and simultaneously, bringing all our uniquenesses together and collectively being this incredible family unit. I have just had the greatest pleasure to just sit beside my kids when they're younger. Just sit beside them, watch them play, figure out what makes them tick. And then as they get older, even when they're in their teen years and they start to withdraw, going into their bedroom, not having to play with them or talk to them, just sit beside them and just wait for them to open up and just see what comes out of them. And I've just learned that when I enjoy my children, I love them better. And the more and deeper I know them, I love them better. So my favorite part of mothering them is just learning how to enjoy them. The hardest part of Mothering you think every stage might be the harder stage, and in some regards that is true. But now that my three children are teenagers and young adults, I have since concluded that the hardest part of Motherhood is watching and experiencing them grow and change in a way that may be so different from you that they even disassociate from some of your greatest convictions, values and even faith. And learning how to stay relationally connected with them, learning how to honor them even when you feel disconnected and disassociated in such ways and learning how to still trust them and have confidence in them even when they're making decisions you might otherwise think is not as good as a decision you would make. And so ultimately, for me, as my children have gotten older and you train them to be independent thinkers and critical thinkers and be unique and be strong willed, and then they start to walk it out and it doesn't look like you imagined, can you still appreciate it? Can you still trust them? Can you still have confidence in them? That was a learning curve for me. That was hard for me. But now with my children, as young adults and teenagers, it's one of the greatest joys to be able to learn how. To stay connected and honor them, even when their values, faith and convictions are a contrast to yours, and realize that who they are and your relationship with them can go beyond that.

Speaker G: Hi, my name is Tracy Murray, and I have two teenagers that still are in the home with me. Three grown stepchildren and their beautiful spouses and nine grandchildren. To me, being a mom has meant life, living it to the fullest, learning to love at a capacity that is just a fraction of the love that I feel in my relationship with Jesus. Just loving them because there's no fill in the blank, I love them. And being able to experience that kind of love has been the most beautiful gift. My favorite part of mothering is there's different things in different seasons where things were my favorite just practically when they were little. My favorite was snuggling on a couch and reading books for a long time and hearing their sweet little voices and their songs and their questions were just beautiful and wonderful and so much fun. But mothering my adult children or my teenagers, watching them become their own person and just learn how much they are valued and how to walk in the fullness of who they've been created to be, I have a lot of opportunities for that because I have the nine grandchildren as well. So they're all so wonderfully unique and different in their experiences and the way they perceive things. That's definitely my absolute favorite part. And it's also the hardest part letting go, waiting for things to flourish or come to an understanding in their own space and time of who they are and keeping my mouth shut and trying to let their journey be their journey and to self differentiate from that, to make sure that I'm loving them well and I'm available for them. But I'm not taking on their pain, their problems, their process, their journey, because that's the gift I gave them, is their own journey. So learn the hardest part is learning to watch that process and watch my own temptation to get overly involved in that process. And it's also the most beautiful part of parenting. So, yeah, of all the things I've called to be on the earth, being a mother is the most beautiful for sure.

Speaker H: Hi, my name is April Healey. I have five kids. Their ages are 12,9,8,7 - yes, ladies, three in three years.  Whoo.That was a lot. And a four year old. To me, being a mom, it's meant living inside a dream come true. I remember being little and dreaming into being married and wanting to be a mom. So being a mom has really fulfilled that place in my heart of just living inside of a dream. And also it's felt like the hardest thing I've ever done in my life all at the same time, a dream and the hardest thing. The other part about being a mom has meant really instilling values into my kids that create healthy individuals who will one day contribute back to society. And so I just instilled the values that are inside of me is loving family and loving Jesus and loving myself well and trying to give grace to yourself and to your friends and growing their gifting and the call on their life and discovering their talents and their gifts and kindness and generosity and all those things that we value so much. And then really falling in love with Jesus, hearing his voice and following the Lord, giving their life to him. And then really the other thing has been continued growth for myself that I've noticed that every year that goes on, it requires me to continue to grow myself in order to raise healthy kids. Because every time I'm like, now how do because they're constantly growing and changing that it requires me to grow and change so that I can figure out how to parent them. Well, in the season they're in, many times I'm stumped and like, okay, I'm at my limit. I don't know what to do. And so it requires growth. My favorite part about motherhood is watching my kids create and play, come up with activities. For example, the other day my kids took all the kitchen chairs and built a fort in the living room and my daughter created a bake sale and put a bake sale out in our front yard. Just watching their little minds create and figure out how to spend their day and enjoy their day really is fun for me. I love playing with them, tickling them and running around the house pretending I'm a monster or playing basketball with my older kids or soccer or foursquare. Just fun things that make them come alive and also make me come alive is really super fun for me. And then lastly, it's watching their giftings and talents unfold. I love that. And watching them learn when they crawl for the first time and roll over for the first time and walk for the first time is always so brilliant to me. I'm like, how did they know how to do that? As they grow older, you just watch their minds be so just know thing. I'm like, how did you know that? Who taught you that? I didn't teach you that, but you know that. That's amazing. So that makes me so happy when I watch them learn and grow. The hardest part for me is the constant mess, which for me with five kids is like endless. I don't know how to have a clean house would be gold for me. And that rarely happens. Being interrupted is really hard for me. And that also happens all the time. Yeah. And being okay with mistakes, small and big mistakes, just extending grace, being okay with mistakes, that part is more difficult for me to find grace for them because it's hard for me to find grace for myself. And then the balance between how often do I choose myself in this season and do self care things that bring me joy, and how often do I balance that with also choosing them and giving to them? Because I love giving to them, so I find it harder to give to myself than to give to them. So it's just trying to find that balance. Where I choose myself is a struggle for me, but something I'm working on currently in my season. Okay, thank you so much for listening.

Speaker D: My name is Quinn Weber. I have two kids. My son is 16, and my daughter is 18. To me, being a mom has meant learning constantly, which I love. It's meant growing all over the place all the time, growing in selflessness, growing in flexibility, especially in those early years. Going from having no kids to having an infant that's 100% dependent on you was an enormous adjustment. It's meant growing in patience, and I've learned that that never stops, no matter how old they get. Being a mom has meant loving wildly and unconditionally in these ways that I never even knew were possible. My favorite part of motherhood probably has to be seeing the growth in my children. They're always hitting a new milestone, or they're always learning something new. It's like a fascinating and exciting adventure as they discover who they are as an individual on this planet. I feel so honored and so grateful to be a part of this process. Another favorite part of mine is that fierce mama love. I never knew that I had the capacity in me to love in such a severe way, and I absolutely love it. The hardest part of being a mom for me is probably the insecurities and those feelings of inadequacy, the comparisons to other moms, the not knowing if you've done the right thing or if it's enough. Another difficult part for me has probably been letting them fail and make mistakes and then letting them clean up those mistakes. Another hard part has been knowing when to step in and when it's time to let them advocate for themselves. I've spent almost half my life investing all I have into these two incredible people. Being a mom has really been just such an adventure and such an honor, and I feel so wildly grateful.

Speaker I: Hi. My name is Vanessa. When I think about my favorite part of motherhood, I can't help but go back to when they were little. And even though I was stumbling through it as a new mom, I have two girls. One is now 19, and the other is now almost 15. One just finished her first year of college, and the other just finished her first year of high school. So there's moments that flash before my eyes when they were two and six or one in five, and it was such a special time, I had the privilege of staying home with my girls. We made a lot of sacrifices for me to do that. Many thought I'd checked my brain in at the door to do that, but I don't regret it. I saw and I experienced all their firsts, and at the time we had amazing community. And so my favorites came in seasons. Every season has been my favorite. Preschool, kindergarten, elementary school. We homeschooled. Our first and my second actually went to a home school co op, and then she went into a Montessori and then into public. So I've had the experience of teaching my girls of it, volunteering for my girls, and I just felt so blessed to partake in their little journey and watch them unfold from girls into little women. Now they're both young, strong, independent women. I raise them to have a voice, which is not easy, but they're beautiful on the inside and the outside. I've watched their faith grow. I've watched them struggle with their faith. I've watched them go through personal, physical and mental health issues and became so many things to them in that season. And mothering is not easy. I think the hardest part about mothering is, are you doing it right? Are you doing it right? And you have these windows that tell you, yes, yes, you're doing it right. And I'm convinced if you worry about if you're doing it right, you're probably doing it right. The participation part of it all is what I'm grateful for. I had an older mom tell me years ago when they were both little, that motherhood is a lot like dancing. Sometimes they lead, sometimes you lead. And I've really I've really stuck with that. And there's days that I've had to say, nope, this is not for you. We're not going to participate in thus and thus. If it's a friendship or something that I can see is just stealing their joy. And then there's other days that you have to sit back and let them learn and experience something that made them a better person. Now, my youngest is a cheerleader. The hard part of that is we've witnessed a lot of injuries and you get let down. You get disappointed for them because you enjoy seeing them do what they love to do. And when they don't get to do that, that's hard. It's hard on the heart. All in all, motherhood has changed me. It's made me a better person. I don't think I would have dug deep inside and done the soul work that motherhood required of me in any other role in my life. You choose to bring these people into the world and suddenly your heart's on your sleeve and you get a strength and a forbearance you didn't even know you had. But then you get this softness and this compassion and gentleness that comes with you all wrapped in one. But I think the greatest joy has just been watching them grow up. I love the season we're in right now with both of them. You can see the transition with my oldest one as we transition as mother and friend. It's a lot of fun. They both have just their own minds, and they have a way they're going to do things. They're intellectuals. They love to think. And that's something that my husband and I wanted for them. We wanted women who think. I'm just thankful. I'm really thankful. They've come out of a lot of refining moments stronger. So that's mothering to me. And I've been very grateful to participate in this journey with my daughters. One more thing I'd love to add. I mentioned that when I chose to stay home, and he thought I'd checked my brain in at the door, and I did as well. At the time, I was like, what am I doing? I never saw myself staying home full time. But when I look back, it was a journey of saying, yes. Yes, I'll stay home with them. Yes, I'll homeschool them. Yes, I'll participate in this. Yes, I will be that mom right now. I will embrace that season. And I just remember coining the phrase when my daughter, my firstborn came, was, you'll never pass this way again. And I had to remind myself on the darkest days and on the most beautiful days, I'll never pass this way again. As a stay at home mom, I found things to do. We were very active in our home school association. We were active in the city, just embracing the parks and the lakes. I just always had them on the go. We went out and we enjoyed life, and they had a great childhood. And when we moved from Florida to Texas, it was a hard transition on all of us. We had to start all over. And at that time, it was middle school and early elementary. It was like, okay, it's time. What do I want? What am I going to do now? And I started writing again, and I picked up a networking job, and as I transitioned out of that into my own counseling practice, so my girls have seen how a woman can change and a woman truly can be so many things. But sometimes we just have to say, I can't be all the things at once. And that is something I hope that they take from me as a mom and a woman and a wife. I'm a sister and a daughter. They've witnessed, oh, my mom, she was able to stay home, but she also volunteered. And then they saw me do my own job or start my own blog and start my own business. And now that they're more independent, obviously I'm away from home a little bit more, but home really is where my heart is. I've kept that in the forefront of my mind, that I want to be able to be present to them and available as much as possible. But they've got to witness that journey with me, of going from one season to the next. As a mom and a woman who had her own dreams, 

Shayla: I hope you. Enjoyed listening to these wise and wonderful women as much as I did. I'd like to thank each and every one of you who contributed and participated. It was a joy and an honor to hear from you. 

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