EXPECTING
WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE A MOTHER?
I was having unexpected feelings around being 40 and not being a mama.
I’d always thought it didn’t matter.
And all of a sudden… this was a force to be reckoned with. MOTHERHOOD.
SO… I started asking.
What unexpected-s had happened to other women around pregnancy and motherhood?
this is what they said…
(They said a lot of things)
“I never imagined being a mother. The trade off of reward to sacrifice just didn’t seem like it would work for me. I couldn’t do it.”
“No one prepared me for how much I’d love digging boogies out of Iil duder’s nose!”
“I deeply love every one of my children, but if I wrote the book 'What NOT to Expect When You Are Expecting' population growth might come to a standstill. I am truly not sure I would do it all over again...”
“They are the arrow and you are the bow. If you do it right, they leave and don’t come back.”
“I find other ways to mother - to take care of people - in my god child, in friends, roommates and employees.”
“Motherhood is Hell”
this project encompasses over 30 women’s stories.
new moms. grandmas. first time pregnant moms. adoptive moms. single moms. two moms. widows.
women who can’t have children. who never wanted children.
who’ve always wanted children.
EXPECTING: a gallery
scroll through all the images in one place below.
OR … venture to the picture book/shop to see pictures with titles, to hear what they’re all about.
click an image to enlarge
Last Thoughts:
Our beliefs about ourselves run deep.
One of the big themes that rises to the top of all these conversations on motherhood is that acceptance is huge.
The struggle to understand what your life is … regardless of what you wanted at the outset… to acknowledge and accept what IS. The women who've made peace with what IS - be it infertility or dragon babies or the world's criticisms of their choice to be child-free … to carry what is, to be able to laugh about it, to dispense that same grace to someone else in the face of their hard. I think that's the ultimate goal.
