10 Truths That Change Everything From 10 Years of Motherhood

Decades hit different--I have so much to tell myself.

Inside this letter:

+ An essay reflecting on a decade of motherhood
+ The 10 Truths that I know deep in my bones from the past 10 years
+ My parenthood favorites over the past ten years
+ The grain-free strawberry snacking cake I make on repeat leading up to Valentines Day

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Ten years ago, I quickly painted a quote onto watercolor paper in my office. My giant belly, thirty weeks along with my first baby, grazed the linen board as I shoved push pins in all four corners and stepped back to stare at it. “Growing life for the first time, just a wife for the last time.” I couldn’t get the thought or the sentiment out of my head—I would never not be a mother again. Even if we were hit by tragedy or this thing I’d been dreaming about for decades and days wouldn’t come to be, I was already a mother then. I had been re-formatted, re-calibrated. My organs and my soul had a new fingerprint, nothing could take it away.

They, the collective mothers, filled sentences with hyperbole in efforts to prepare me. “The best” “the hardest” “the worst” “the most,” they’d said. And I mentally adjusted their sentences and stories to assume the entire collective a bit dramatic, maybe.

When I pulled my son out of my own body after twenty-four hours of laboring on beds, on stools, in showers, in tubs, on birthing balls, on the floor, swaying on my husband’s shoulders, at the end of myself, in that single moment I realized hyperbole doesn’t exist in motherhood. There are only understatements.

Motherhood is euphoria and depression. Elation and despair. Unprecedented anxiety and unparalleled contentment. Endlessly accompanied and gut-wrenchingly lonely. Motherhood made me brave and revealed to me how much I need a Savior. Motherhood seeks to be our entire identity, yet only in keeping our identity rooted deeply in Christ as a woman with passions, gifts, talents, strengths and weaknesses that aren’t found in motherhood alone will we be able to truly thrive in this, our most important job title for the time being.

My oldest turned 10 years old this week and it has left me in a state of reflection that no other birthday has. Decades hit different, I’m realizing. There’s something about the fact that ten years ago, I was in my last month of being twenty-four. I was so full of energy and fear for what my life would look like now that I was responsible for this thing I loved more than I loved myself yet truly had so little control over. I’d say things like, “can you imagine when he’s five and I’m thirty? Or when he’s ten and I’m thirty-five?” I saw my future self as a version of “ideal mother” I’d concocted over years of mashing up my own mom, my friend’s mom’s, mothers I’d loved in favorite films and shows, mothers I’d admired in books and articles—even mothers on the internet. I could see her in my mind, the “me” I’d be at thirty five.

Not to spoil this or anything, but I’m here to tell you that I’m not her.

I’m deeply flawed and still need to get down on my knees at eye level with the children who are half me, half my husband and apologize more than I thought I would. Sometimes I wrestle with myself over whether or not the apology is necessary, which is always my sign that it’s absolutely necessary. I don’t have perfect organization skills and my laundry system still leaves something to be desired. Sometimes I’d rather send the kids to play upstairs than play the game they’ve asked me to play and often I’d rather cook alone with a podcast then have their “help.”

But my relationship with my children is a beautiful one. I love their hearts and cherish our days together more than I thought I’d be capable of as an inherently selfish and easily drained person. I remind myself through potty-training and homework helping, through temperature taking and park playing that it is my joy to serve. It is my joy to train them in self control as they train me in self-control. It is my joy to teach them discipline as they teach me discipline. It is my joy to be trusted with advice and care. It is my joy to be growing older as they grow older. It is my joy to be the one they call Mommy.

Here are the Ten Truths and Tips I Know for Sure after Ten Years of Motherhood: