Wordy Wednesday

Fortitude is a word often used to describe something big...a battle fought, a peak scaled, a disaster survived.

But when it comes to motherhood, I think fortitude is simpler, quiet, more constant.  I think it is the perfect word to describe an essential trait when mothering many different ages, stages and personalities.

It's knowing that some things should never change...the respect and unconditional love shown to children even when they are unlovable, the values we wish to teach our children in the short years we have them with us, a constant spirit in our homes that is created by us, and the consistency in our messages that need to be heard again and again.

Fortitude is defined as mental and physical strength and resolute endurance.  If we are to be the rock our children lean on, the eye of the storm they seek refuge in, the emotional center of our homes they come back to, the constant source of love they yearn for, the sounding board they spring from, the push they need to jump into life with strength and joy, then we must possess fortitude.

There is no doubt that mental and physical strength and endurance requires self-maintenance.

We have all heard that we need to take care of ourselves.  In fact, I think it's overstated and often misinterpreted, and more annoyingly,  I think, it's turned into something shallow and false.  A manicure, a shopping trip with friends, a night out.  Mommy makeover, mommy spa treatments, mommy's weekend away. There is nothing wrong with those of course, but I feel it's a perfect example of our culture's turn to a quick fix, a Pavlov's way of dealing with something quickly on the surface, and  never looking deeper.  Those things all help in the moment, and the recharge lasts for a moment, an hour, a day.  They won't sustain us.


Motherhood lasts forever and takes us up hills and down valleys, and sure there are those beautiful meadows, where as soon as we think we get it all figured out, we are shown otherwise.  We meet with unchartered territory and we are filled with doubts and worries and frustration.

Manicures on the other hand, hardly make it through the dinner dishes.   A shopping trip, a night out, have always seemed to me like coming up for sweet air, with just a gasp of breath allowed before we go back under and must begin to swim again.

Perhaps we are looking in the wrong places.  Perhaps our recharge is not "out there".  Perhaps it cannot be bought, or stolen, or compacted into minutes, or hours or a few short days.

Perhaps it must be constant and is only found inside of us.  A daily commitment to find a moment of solitude, to let our hearts and minds be still. 


A daily commitment to remind ourselves of what kind of mothers we intend to be for our children.