Mothering

It’s Mothers’ Day and I am off to Italy to attend to my daughter’s birthing. I think by the time I arrive there with China I will hold baby Demetria in my arms. It’s sad that I couldn’t hold Mai-Mai’s tummy and kiss it like I’ve done with my other girls. Luckily, work distracts me, because my thoughts go back to labor pain! It’s very timely that my daughter Mai-Mai gives birth near the celebration of Mothers’ Day. She’ll be a mother too by then.

I remember pulling my hair during labor, but I never shouted like the woman next to me who screamed, “Ayoko na. Ayoko na!” Oh, yeah? And yet another birth for her.

I heard vindictive cries against husbands in the delivery room. On another year in the labor room I heard “Aray, aray.” “Please move me far away,” I asked a nurse, while I waited for my doctor. My husband couldn’t help me now! “Last time na ito,” a woman told her nurse. “Last last…” The nurse said, “Kayo ba rin yung nandito last year, ma’am? Ang bilis ninyo.”

Of the many gifts I have been blessed with in my life, nothing compares to the joys of having a child, or in my case, five — Liaa, Pin, Mikee, Mai-Mai and China — who have been and continue to be my great source of pride, just as any other mother feels about her children.

Even if I knew each pregnancy would lead me to the hospital or home to bed for the duration of eight or nine months, I still welcomed my huge tummy. Mike Wassmer, Liaa’s classmate in medical school, once said to her, upon seeing me in a wheelchair: “Your mother has been laying in bed five years of her life.” So true! And you’re so funny, Dr. Wassmer.

From the moment I found out I was pregnant to the day I gave birth, from each recital to each graduation day, from each birthday to each wedding, and from each pedia visit to my grandchildren’s births, I’ve come full circle, watching births and attending to seven grandchildren, five boys and only two girls. God’s sense of justice evens out the universe’s population. And yet I continue to evolve.

For young and first-time mothers, a smile, a coo or even a loud burp by a baby is reward enough. As the baby grows older, we appreciate the most innocent show of affection our child can give. And when they are as grown as my daughters are, I am grateful that I can share, laugh, and even be troubled with them. The tables have somewhat turned; they now take care of me as I did them when they were younger; sometimes they seem to know more than their parents; but the rewards are indeed wonderful.

Now another milestone awaits our family in Italy. Our world seems to be shrinking… the Filipino is too international now.

Andrea and Mai-Mai are having their first baby and we’re in jitters in Manila. I hardly slept last night; neither did Mai’s sister, Josephine. “It was a weird night,” Pin texted me. “I slept at 9 p.m. and was up at midnight. I couldn’t sleep again ‘til 4 a.m., certain Demi would be born last night. So much excitement, Mom!”

Families are known to be helpful in keeping first-time mothers calm when the labor pains start coming. Fathers are usually cursed to the ends of the earth, blamed as the “culprits,” as I heard said in birthing rooms. Mai’s not going to blame her husband, though. The two of them have long wanted a child. It’s been three years since their wedding and Demi’s finally arriving. Three now makes a family.

Motherhood is the most difficult job a woman can ever have yet many say “My mother is only a housewife.” I hate that word “only.” Motherhood is filled with 24/7 responsibilities, because children give us so much to worry about and bringing them up requires an insurmountable amount of patience, skill and wisdom. Mothering never stops.

It’s in our DNA to wear different hats. We are, among many other things, our children’s special nurses, teachers, lawyers, chefs and shrinks. We are there to kiss every boo-boo away and there to make sure that assignments are done and lunch is packed. We are at every recital and every PTA meeting. We are proud of their achievements and our hearts break whenever theirs do. Motherhood isn’t for everybody and those who are successful at it reap the greatest of rewards.

Being a young mother, I didn’t have much difficulty bonding with my daughters. When they were younger, our favorite thing was to chase each other around the garden, play hide and seek, and jump on the trampoline. I’d also attend children parties with my girls and swim in Luisita year in year out. On our out-of-town trips, we enjoyed Disneyland and filling buckets with ice from the hallway machines in the inns we stayed at. And surely shopping was a favorite bonding activity. Even Mikee, the one who hates to shop, tolerates her sister’s returns of merchandise and exchanges and comes along so we can spend the time together scrutinizing, laughing and talking.

I understand it’s “different strokes for different folks” and while we have different styles in rearing our children for mothers there are a few things we can do the same way.

I would tell new mothers like Mai-Mai, first and foremost, to use their instinct — the newly minted mother’s instinct. The mothering instinct paved the way for me and soon I realized where all the advice was coming from.

You won’t believe how strong mothers are connected to their kids. It’s pretty amazing. I remember a mother telling me how she always knew when her children were not where they were supposed to be or doing what they were not supposed to be doing at a particular time even when they were miles away. “When my daughter was in a dorm, I left her alone,” this mother told me. “I hardly called her so she would gain the independence she wanted. The only rule was, concentrate on school and don’t miss the dorm’s curfew.

“However, in the four years she was there, there were a couple of times I felt a nudge to call — the dorm landline, not her cell phone. And of course, she wouldn’t be in. My daughter was griping at how scary I was, knowing exactly when to call. I talked to the admin people of the dorm and they were also laughing at my daughter who they said was there 99 percent of the time but would be caught the few times she wasn’t.

“And then there was a time that my son asked permission to go out with friends but would have to go to a 2 p.m. class. Usually, I would trust him to do as agreed, but that particular day, I had the urge to call him in the school, again not on his cellphone. Lo and behold, he skipped class and the teacher vowed it was the first time he had. With these incidents, my kids believe their mother have eyes everywhere and have learned to put all things in the open.”

As mothers, we also need to reach out to our children to decrease the pressure of the age gap. Mothers should build memories with their children beginning at birth. They should sing to their babies, talk to them, read to their children, do chores together or whatever it takes to bond with their kids, even over nightly prayers. Children are what we call the “captive market” because they depend on you. Once they get to the teenage years and they’re not used to any bonding activity with parents, it’ll be too late.

This in mind, I remember some mothers saying that the hardest part of motherhood is defining the line between being a mother and being a friend. You’ll want to reach out to your child all right, and sometimes the line gets blurry. One mom relates that she and her husband decided early on to allow their children to speak their mind. Before long, they realized they gave their son too much freedom and that it was being abused. Fortunately, they were eventually able to deal with their problem before it was too late. Parenting is a real balancing act and no one ever said it was easy.

A final practical tip I can give Mai-Mai is this: Be a “Girl Scout” — laging handa, always prepared. You have to be prepared for anything. For babies especially, you should have their things within reach — a change of clothes if they throw up, prescribed ointments and medication and emergency contact numbers are on the top of the list. Many mothers have trained themselves to prepare their own emergency kits. They know anything can happen — a knee graze, an insect bite, a headache, or an allergy to something. This is why, even with grown-up daughters, you’ll probably find things like Band-Aids, paracetamol and hand sanitizers in their handbags.

When we become mothers, it is incumbent upon us to bring up our children to be good citizens of the world. We take on this responsibility as human beings. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis once said, “If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much.” She’s right.