The Best and Worst of Motherhood


Until the moment I became a mother, I couldn't quite understand or comprehend the depth when people say "Mothers are the strongest, most noble and loving people in this whole wide world" It's just a whole bunch of cliché stuff that I could live without, thank you very much!

The pain. The joy. The sacrifices. The love. The fear. The confusion. The anxiety, panic, loss of time, loss of privacy. The internal battle between a person's own inner personality conflicting with those of being a mother. The need to be alone and oneself roughly pushed aside because a child needs caring, loving and affection. The loss of sleep, the loss of opportunities.

I knew but I never understood.

Now that I am mom, everything within me is screaming for attention. My needs to be the best mom in this whole wide world and the need for me to be the best that I can be. Now, I realize the weight of the statement. We are the noblest people in this whole wide world.

There are many different sensations which come along with being a mother. Some good and some bad.

Best moments of motherhood

1. Seeing your baby's first smile (does it matter that it could have been wind in tummy? Nah!)

2. Breastfeeding

3. Baby cooing and smiling when she sees you

4. Baby calms down when you give me a nice warm cuddle

5. Baby's first tooth

6. The first giant wobbly step

7. The first word

8. The first baby utters 'mamma' or 'mommy'

9. Getting down for tickle-time?right after story time

10. Seeing your child/baby overcome an obstacle without your help

11. The start of potty training (Very huge accomplishment)

12. The first A, B, C?

13. The first 1, 2, 3

14. When your baby comes over to you for a hug (for no apparent reason at all)

15. When someone tells you that your child is handsome or pretty

16. When someone compliments you on how well-behaved your child is

17. Child learns how to dance

18. Enjoying the off-key singing of your child

19. Seeing your child make new friends

20. Your child is able to love someone else other than you and herself.

21. You can dance around naked with your child with no inhibition

22. Going shopping with your teen.

23. Kissing your child in the morning before leaving for work

24. when your child gives you something to show you what a wonderful mother you have been to him/her.

Worst moments of motherhood

1. colic

2. First month as a mother

3. Teething problems

4. Inability to understand what your child is yabbering about (when learning to talk)

5. Sleeplessness

6. Awful excess of weight

7. First few months returning to work

8. Separation anxiety (for both mother and child)

9. Missing your child when you're alone

10. The inability to watch a single TV program or movie right to the end uninterrupted

11. Missing out with all your unmarried, child-less friends

12. Missing out on those romantic diaper-less moments with your spouse

13. Baby giving your health shock 3 times a week

14. The first few days of weaning baby onto solids

15. Weaning baby from the breast

16. You feel like complete old hag in a disco or party.

17. First few times baby starts walking (toddling)

18. Throwing a tantrum of your own in response to your child's

19. Clinging child when you're tired from work or rushing to meet a deadline

20. Starting preschool

21. Employing a new nanny

22. When your teen gets his/her driving license?.oohhh?.the tension and stress!

23. When your teen tells you she's got a boyfriend?worse still, she doesn't tell you a ting and you find out about it from your neighbor.

Copyright © Marsha Maung 2005

Email: marshamaung@yahoo.com
Site: http://www.marshamaung.com
Feel free to reprint or publish this article on your website, ezine, magazine, newsletter?etc. Please include the bio, links and credit intact.

Marsha Maung is a freelance graphic designer and copy writer who works from her home in Selangor, Malaysia. She loves nothing more than blowing bubbles in the park with her 2 kids, Joshua and Jared. She designs apparel and premium items at http://www.creativejooz.com and is the author of "Raising little magicians", and the popular "The Lance in freelancing". More information can be found at http://www.marshamaung.com

MORE RESOURCES:
RELATED ARTICLES
Parents Role in Helping with Car Wash Fundraisers
As a parent you will be asked to assist with your children's car wash fundraiser activities. It is important that you take an active role in these endeavors.
Top 5 Characteristics of Good Leadership to Instill in Our Home School Children
I am sure that this list can be jogged and added and taken away or all of the above, after being in the presence of several true leaders these are the ones that stuck out in my mind. Our home schooled children can be given a greater chance to make a diference in the world if the are leaders in mind, instead of following others blindly.
School Days - Top 10 Tips for Establishing a Good Routine
Teachers know that children thrive in an environment with routines, boundaries and rules. Unfortunately, parents often forget it! And yet by establishing good routines and encouraging children to help you maintain them, you have an opportunity to set a pattern and a discipline that will stay with your children for the rest of their lives.
Teenagers and Trouble - How Parents Can Keep their Teens Out of Trouble
Teenagers are a work-in-progress, and parenting teenagers can be tricky business. Many kids get into some kind of trouble at some point, and, although this can provide them a powerful learning opportunity, taking a "kids will be kids" attitude is downright irresponsible parenting.
Shopping with Children
Is your weekly shopping trip with the kids an absolute chore ! or are you happy to take them along?Lots of moms don't have any choice in the matter, if they don't own a car it can be sheer agony waiting at bus stops then struggling on and off buses with kids and a pushchair.Gone are the days when a helping hand was offered, and if the bus is full, no gallant young man will jump up and offer his seat to the harassed mom.
Summer Marks the Time to Remember Active Supervision Around Family Swimming Pools
LOS ANGELES (May 19, 2005) - With Memorial Day weekend, and summer fast approaching, EMS, first responders, and water safety advocates, are bracing for the unthinkable - the unfortunate drowning accidents in backyard swimming pools that annually claim the lives of nearly 500 children under the age of five, and an estimated 2,800 "near-drowning" incidents.1The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports, for every child who drowns, six more children are involved in "near-drowning" incidents - accidents that can lead to permanent neurological damage, life-long disabilities, and leaving the parents with catastrophic medical costs and years of recovery and therapy.
Teach Your Child About Money
What are we teaching our children about money? Hopefully something!I remember when I was growing up, our family did not discuss money. Money was a taboo subject, discussed by the parents and handled by the father.
Quality Time with Your Teen
It's sometimes difficult to find ways to be involved with your teen without totally intruding in his/her life. You want to talk to them, they don't want to talk to you (most of the time anyway).
Positive Parenting - Oops! I Really Lost My Temper With My Kids, What Now?
Ever blown your top to your children, only to regret it ten minutes later?Silly question, it happens to us all no matter how well-behaved our kids or placid and patient we are. At times the general strains and stresses of life wear us down so our emotional responses don't match children's behaviours.
Second Letter to My Daughter
Dear Camille,As I thumb through the photographs that I carry with me always in my briefcase, it's hard to fathom that the short haired, smiling baby holding a crawfish and wiggling its claws has turned into the beautiful goldilocks girl that demands the stage and wants so much to sing.I feel like such a cliché-all those veteran parents telling us how quickly you would grow up, how it would be over before we know it, how we had best pay attention before it all ended.
Renee's Mommy is Here
I still remember the scene vividly. I was getting out of my car at the baby-sitter's house and a little boy comes running out the door.
Helping Your Child Make and Keep Friends
What Children Look for in a Friend?Is this child fun to be with? Is this child trustworthy? Does this child help me achieve my goals? Does this child make me feel good about myself? Is this child similar to me?Social Tasks Involved in Peer RelationshipsJoining a group or activity Coping with success Dealing with conflict Defending self Coping with failure Staying involved Making a friend Sharing/cooperating Sticking up for a friend Coping with rejection Responding to requests Making requests Helping others Maintaining a conversation Coping with teasing Being supportive of othersAlthough rejected children differ in many ways, there does seem to be something they have in common:A large proportion of rejected children are lacking in positive interaction skills, such as being cooperative, helpful, refining non-verbal communication, timing, spatial awareness, verbal language appropriateness and inappropriate dress or poor personal hygiene. This suggests that it should be possible to help these children by teaching them positive ways to interact with others.
Home For The Holidays: Ask Yourself Some Questions
Annie easily slipped into becoming the sole caregiver of her parents. What started out as monthly grocery shopping for them, over the course of 2 years became a full time duty, an overwhelming burden and just about broke her emotionally and financially.
Co-Morbidity Rates: Other Problems That May Come With ADHD
Diagnosing children and teens with ADHD can be a challenge. Very often the child or teen that comes to the office will have both a neurologically based Attention Deficit Disorder, as well as some other clinical condition that requires treatment.
Unschooling - the Benefits of Home Based Education
Home schooling benefits children. As a parent, I feel it is important to provide the best opportunities available to my children.
Finding Out Your Child Has a Disability: Its Not the end of the World
Finding out that a child has been born with a disability, or that a previously healthy child has suffered an injury or disease that causes a disability can be the most traumatic moment in a parent's life. Shock is usually the first thing people experience.
The Better Behavior Wheel - A New Kind of Calm in the Family
There's a new kind of fun and calm out there in the name of the Better Behavior Wheel, invented by Julie Butler and her family in central British Columbia. In an interesting twist on charts and discipline, this versatile wheel can be hung on a wall or toted with you in the car and on vacations.
Paediatric Osteopathy
All babies cry, but if yours cries a lot, isn't sleeping or is just plain irritable, many parents have found that a paediatric osteopath can help, particularly if the birth was difficult.By gently touching a baby, an osteopath can use manipulation to ease the tension and help improve the way baby's body functions.
Top Three Ways To Communicate With Your Child
Although many parents become frustrated as they try to maintain an open line of communication between themselves and their children, regardless of age, there are three quite simple ways to attempt to achieve this goal effectively. 1 Talk to your kids.
Why Me?
Why Me?"We should certainly count our blessings, but we should also make our blessings count." --Neil MaxwellYesterday morning, my family and I got up at 5:30am in Mexico to begin our journey home from a holiday retreat.