When a girl is born, they are prepped early for life ahead. They play pretend; who will they marry (donning veils, shoes and dresses of various sizes and colors), how many children (represented by various toys or baby dolls) will they have and what their children will become once they have grown. Sometimes the reality happens way too soon.
The girl grows, marries, has her babies and they, too, grow and are ready to go out on their own. It is now time to let go. How exactly is a mother supposed to do that when their entire world has always centered around this same scenario?
For many women the fact that their children are grown and ready to move on causes them great distress. How does she get past her insecurities and look forward to what life has to offer her beyond what she has always known to be a truism?
Women are a lot of things, but mostly they are caregivers. They are prepped for this basically from the moment that they take their first breath. The next step is scary. No one plays pretend ‘middle-age’ or ‘elderly’ individual. What fun would there be in that?
Women need to know that there is life beyond being the mother of a young child and that once her children are grown that there is still a lot of life to live. A mother is still a mother, just not on a daily basis. It is now time to refocus.
Preparing for the inevitable may be difficult to think about but it is something well worth consideration. It is finally time to focus on you and your goals and dreams. Besides being a mother, what else exactly do you see yourself becoming? There is a long list of possibilities to explore; more pretend – and real life – to live.
It is too bad that society does not realize the mess that becomes living. Individuals are placed in scenarios based on their gender, then once a specific aspect of the scenario is achieved, the individual no longer seems to belong. Society does not allow them to evolve. ‘You were born to be this but once that part is over it is anybody’s guess where it is you should go next.’
It is no wonder that letting go is so difficult for a mother to deal with. It takes a very strong, self-assured woman to know what her life is about and be willing to search for new reasons to be. If only women were taught that there is life after the pretend.
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