07/18/2025
Motherhood, the short answer.
As a woman, I’ve been asked to talk or write on this topic a few times in my life and what motherhood means to me. Going back and reflecting, that answer was always changing a little.
We are one half of society and birth the other half so it is as if we are the whole society.
This is an amazing honor and so significant. I did not have the capacity to understand this at the time when I became a mother. I saw my mother bury her child when I was 6, while still having to raise 5 little girls. She would later be forced to raise and support those girls alone after being a housewife of twenty years. I was a mom before I was a woman and experiencing both of those at such a young age, would really put me on a unique path as a mother. Those two things alone really have such a toll on a woman, much less a young girl. They are both different types of hardship, in my opinion and some don’t always heal from either one. Being a young mother at 17, my daughter had a friend when she needed a mother and I got a best friend at the cost of her childhood. Understanding that was a hard pill to swallow once I became a woman. I’ve worked very hard to be there as a mom, nourish her and support her today. That didn’t start until I began to break a cycle, do my own healing and becoming a woman and a mother that would be able to be emotionally available for her and others. We are best friends today, at no cost to anyone’s pain but love and support for each other. Motherhood is not always easy, honestly in my opinion it’s one of the hardest jobs, we are responsible for loving, caring and raising human beings regardless of what is going on in our day to day lives. Our self care and self love is necessary to produce and raise healthy- not only physically, but mentally and emotionally healthy humans- men & women.
This is a super power as I always tell my son, ( when he asks if I have super powers) women really need to understand this. Being a single mom is different, for me it was a catapult to rise above what I knew and never stop reaching and growing for my kids. I realized I needed to be a role model with my daughter, kids really do what you do not so much as to what you say. I realized just how much I needed to love my son after loving broken men. Knowing how I would give and receive love as a mom and woman were crucial to their upbringing and still are as my daughter becomes a woman and my son into a young boy. A women’s strength really is like water. We can drown and yet hydrate a life depending on how we choose to use our power.
Being divorced to my first husband, really opened my eyes to how young boys who grow up without the love, support and nourishment that they need, turn into unhealed men. Now, I focus on understanding how to love my boy into becoming a functioning man. So he can go out into the world and be a good brother, husband and father one day. Breaking cycles.
Motherhood is ever evolving and we as women need to really embrace that. Listen to our bodies, trust our intuitions, these are gods gifts to us. It’s powerful and that’s why we are given the job of birthing human life. It’s that deep, so don’t take it lightly. It quite literally breaks my heart now when I see unhealed women raising kids. I have both empathy and compassion, as I understand it all now. The ripple effect of that can be catastrophic.
I absolutely love being a mother, it literally save my life and made my switch paths. I have always enjoyed from the first second, even with the biggest challenges. In another lifetime, I would have had a village of kids. I’m grateful for the honor I’ve been given to be called mom.
- Arrica
(Spent the morning in her Houston backyard surrounded by an urban farm paradise with her children—how lucky can I get?)
Full Post: https://www.instagram.com/p/DMItpO0g7wN/?img_index=1
