Growing up in modern-day Papua New Guinea, after the influence of colonization, the opportunities that I have for going to school and choosing the career of my choice are more realistic than those of my mother. I also have an awareness of the world beyond the small town street that I grew up on. I witnessed the dreams of people who looked like me becoming reality and knew that I could also achieve the same. And so I dreamed. I fantasized about a life like Jenna from 13 Going 30 and Elle Woods from Legally Blonde. However, when the magic dust settled, there was another fantasy that I saw myself living in. This time, I was a mother, the kind that my son would look at and be like. I have the coolest mom who is showing me I can achieve all my dreams. The best part about these dreams is knowing that I could live every one of them. And that was how my parents raised us. No dream is too far beyond achieving.
Life unfolds in phases, like a child that grows from an infant to a young child, to a teenager, and eventually into an adult. And to live is to be fully present at every stage of our lives, so we can grow through the challenges and celebrate the victories. Each stage is a prerequisite to the next, and by being present, we can appreciate all its nuances. The only difference between the way life unfolds for a growing human being is that, for life, we can choose which phase we would like to live in and when. Unfortunately, not everyone is wise enough to consciously make that decision, and so often we find ourselves in places we don’t like. Nevertheless, the beauty of life is that tomorrow presents itself with new opportunities, so we can always learn from our mistakes, adjust our sails, and continue on a better path.
One of the most beautiful stages of life for a woman is becoming a mother. Motherhood is one of the greatest blessings that God has given to women. Motherhood is the experience of unconditional love that women can have on earth. I believe God allowed us a glimpse of this kind of love because it is the only kind that can save us from the challenges we face as mothers. I believe every mother will tell you how their child has saved them at some point in their life. And so, when I had the opportunity to either live the life of Jenna Rink at 30 years old or become a mom at the same time, I decided to only do motherhood. This stage in my life has taught me the importance of being present and has awakened resilience in me like I’ve never known.
I believe in the notion that we can have everything we want, but not all of it at the same time. Quoting from the book titled “Ikigai by Hector Garcia, “Concentrating on one thing at a time may be the single most important factor in achieving flow.” This idea leads me to the realization that motherhood has different stages as well, in relation to my growing child. The part of motherhood in which I would give my full concentration to building a happy and healthy foundation is my child’s younger years. Despite the gap years etched on my resume, I knew the importance of being present in my child’s primary developmental stage, outweighed my desire to build a good career path at this stage in my life.
A lesson that life has taught me when making decisions is that I must choose the option that will produce the least amount of negative effects on my life and those who are important to me. I also discovered that I may have better opportunities to make something of myself compared to the opportunities available to my mother in her time. Even so, my mother had a better village available to her to help her raise her children than I do. Raising a happy and healthy child requires a mother to be surrounded by a supportive village. During the time of my grandparents, when they were raising my parents, they lived in communities surrounded by their extended families. Everyone contributed to raising each other’s children, and this was the simple yet important way of life in the village. Today, choosing to be a stay-at-home mother is weighed against the responsibilities a woman has in her life. Either she is financially supporting her family, a single parent, or she would like to continue on her career path as well.
For that reason, it is respectfully a woman’s personal choice in how she decides to raise her family. Despite how a mother decides to raise her family, I have learned that having a supportive village around her is so important to her and her family’s well-being. Motherhood is a life-changing experience for any woman to go through, and it is a stage of life that is worth being fully present in. That unconditional love between a mother and a child is powerful enough to sustain a soul that is about to lose hope. Often, we think we are the ones going to teach our children how to live. Which is true, but if we pay attention well enough, they help us heal parts of ourselves that were never given much attention and nurturing when we were growing up. It is a remarkable exchange of healing one to guide the other well in this life. So, at the crossroads of pursuing my career and being a present mother, I am able to choose to be a stay-at-home mom. I am grateful that I have a supportive partner and family that have contributed in so many ways. In doing so, they have enabled me to live one of my goal of being a present mom during my child’s younger years.