Empty Altar Essays: Mother Centered Motherhood (pt 7)

It isn’t about perfection. Or sacrifice. It isn’t about judgment. Or competition.

Patriarchy tells us that women can’t form supportive networks and hold them. Capitalism tells us that we must live in scarcity and competition and that abundance comes only with wealth.

We know that isn’t true.

When you stand in the center of your life, when self-care becomes a way of life and not a buzzword, you learn to lean. Not only to let others lean on you, always, and to give and give and give, always, but to lean.

Mothers can save each other. Mothers can help each other heal. Mothers can recognize each other’s humanity and celebrate each other.

Mother centered motherhood recognizes that the whole mother is needed to anchor the family - fabulous and flawed, all of her is necessary. It is choosing to do the work to heal - even when it takes time and money, even when it means saying no to people who want you to say yes, even when it means making changes that your family finds uncomfortable at first. It means placing ALL OF YOU in the center of your life and of your family.

It isn’t one choice, but a series of choices every single day. It isn’t a system that tells you what is right and wrong every step of the way, but a respect and that begins in the self and a knowledge of your own worth.