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Finding The Tickles In Being A Mother

Feb 3rd, 2008

By Marsha Maung

I hate to say this but when I look at others, albeit those who are single, out, looking, free and pretty much with nothing bogging them down, I envy them. I want to be single, care-free and not a mother. Motherhood is one big friggin’ unenviable job! It sucks the life out of you, is degrading because people think it’s easy, suppressive because you don’t get to go shopping when there’s a sale, restrictive because you can’t just hop on a plane and go visit the country of your choice any time you want!

I don’t know why so many people are vying for this position. I mean, let’s look at it this way….some women/men are paying doctors millions of dollars just to be a mother. I wanna shout to them, “Here, you can bloody have mine free of charge!” I want your life!

But hang on a minute there. Rewind. Stop. Let’s stop that rant at the first ‘I’ I wrote up there. The first paragraph. I didn’t really mean that. I didn’t really mean the whole first paragraph either. Heck, I didn’t mean the second paragraph either.

Here’s my point.

Being a mother is an energy-zapping job….it’s the kind of job you want to have when you don’t have it and when you do, you wish you didn’t. Well, at least for a while. Being a mother means that you don’t get a break. It’s worse when you’re working from home like me! Trust me, it gets to even the best mother in the world. I want to take a look at what would happen if we (me) had my wish granted. If I am not a mother to my two beautiful angel (monster) boys today.

• I wouldn’t know how to cook. I love cooking now. Scrap that….I think cooking is therapy! If I didn’t have my kids, I would be chowing down on a McD right now at this moment.
  
  
• I would never have known how to burp a baby. You’re thinking, “Where’s the joy in doing that?” That’s right….because you’re not a mother. You see, a burp is something very elusive. You know the baby needs to be burped and there’s air in there but you go on patting and patting and patting, waiting patiently, then is in danger of nodding off, waiting for the burp, wonder if you missed the burped, change your position, change the baby’s position and then…..BURP! a little bit of ‘burp juice’ lands on your shoulder but you go “YEAH, Baybee!!! That’s the way to go. We did it, we FINALLY did it!”
  
  
• I would never have known what impromptu hugs and kisses felt like. The strange thing is that you don't even realize you needed it! Amazing, isn’t it? But your kids knew. Your kids KNEW as positively as they knew how to play their Nintendos that you needed a hug and a kiss at that precise moment. It’s magical….
  
  
• I wouldn’t have known how to treasure every single spare moment I have on the throne on my own. Every second you have counts and you’ll completely take it in!
  
  
• I wouldn’t have gotten free exercise sessions from running after my cheeky naked kids after a shower as they outrun me, topple me over when I am trying to dress them up.
  
  
• I wouldn’t have heightened senses. I mean it. How else can you explain why a mother can spot her own kid out of a sea of kids wearing the same clothes, with the same hairstyle? Mothers can also hear their own baby in a room full of crying babies. Mothers can smell their kids coming in through the door with her eyes closed.
  
  
• Non-mothers will never know how befuddling the feeling is to hold a TINY small hand in hers, knowing that it came from her own body.
  
  
• Non-mothers will never know how to enjoy simple things in life when they’re taking life too seriously. I mean, I’ve learned a lot from my kids. Simple things like sticking French Fries up their noses, farting in each other’s faces. When life becomes too stressful, all you have to do is to ask your kids to teach you something that they enjoy doing or something they do when they’re bored.

So, with that said….I digress. I think being a mother ain’t such a bad job after all. In fact, I would go as far as to say that being a mother is an enlightening experience....

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marsha Maung is a mother to two wonderfully beautiful kids, Joshua & Jared. She spends her time battling the clock whizzing through the day between her job as a parent and her job as a freelance writer, designer & voice-over talent. For more information about her work, visit her website at http://www.marshamaung.com. For insider scoop into how chaotic her life can be, visit her blog at http://www.marshamaung.blogspot.com.