Don’t drop the baby!
I have birthed three children of my own. Been witness to at least a dozen more. Yet, as she walks by, my daughter softly adjusts my new grandson’s head in the crook of my elbow. As if I’d drop this precious baby!
I lovingly mock this small action. Knowing that it is done out of the worries of a new mom, entrusted with protecting a being she is just learning to care for.
Yet this action truly speaks volumes. Not of my aptitude for clumsiness, though I am less than graceful on any given day. It speaks of the shift that has just occurred. The silent quake beneath the surface of our dynamic with one another.
Of course there are many requests for advice in these early moments. But soon, too soon, what has started beneath the surface will come to ground. Her ways will become THE ways. As they should. You raise your children the best way you know how. As the older generations shift upward, they let go of the reigns to follow the new path. The new ways. The ways of the new ‘mothers’.
The new mothers who skip the naps to make sure grandmas are towing the line with their precious bundle. The new mothers who push themselves to prove they are worthy. The new mothers who wake the baby to see if they are still breathing.
The new mothers who need only remember they were raised by strong, yet fearful, new mothers themselves.
And that they survived.
They were not dropped. (at least not much)
