From Caretaker to Creator-Rediscovering My Identity Beyond Motherhood
I Gave My Kids My Thirties. Why I’m Not Giving Them My Forties
After ferrying my eleven-year-old all over town last week, he told my husband, “Mom doesn’t really do anything for me. She just meets my needs by cooking and taking care of my diabetes stuff, but other than that, she doesn’t do anything for me.”
Hard observations to swallow especially since most mornings I forget to brush my teeth because I’m thinking of all the things I need to do for him and his siblings.
I don’t do anything for him? Is he absurd? I had my first son at thirty and spent the next ten years devoting my life to securing each rung of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, namely physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization, for my three offspring. I should print out the chart and go over each level with him so he can appreciate how his father and I have structured our lives to help him be his best self.
One day, he will be self-actualized, and I contributed to that by reading to him, waking nightly and running across the house to his room when he had nightmares or low blood sugar, getting him therapy to make sure he had an outlet to process his emotions, being there at every soccer game, cheering him on at every…
