Becoming Mom

Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I'm amazed to find a 36-year-old woman staring back at me and not the five-year-old, who so recently mastered the art of colouring inside the lines; not the nine-year-old, who turned cartwheels as much as she walked; not even the 17-year-old, who wondered how to handle a flirtatious teacher. Instead, I face the reflection of a moth-eaten, weather-beaten traveller at least a third of her way into the journey.

And the most extraordinary revelation of that exercise in reflection is that I'm a mother to four little cartwheelers of my own.

The feminine authority figure
Almost two dozen Christmases ago, I got my mom a badge with "Because I'm the mother" printed on it. Since then, that pin has somehow ended up in my cutlery drawer. I caught sight of it recently, and shuddered with the realization that I could wear the thing now — if I so chose.

It's the same dawning horror that regularly washes over me when Kenya has a buddy over and I am forced into the role of "the friend's mother." The wise figure of feminine authority who bustles in the kitchen while children spin around her like tops, and who only occasionally interrupts them to stick her head into the parlour and ask if anyone needs more sarsaparilla. No one ever asks the friend's mother to play.

It's not that I particularly want to be a kid again. I like late-night television too much. But I will always struggle with the way time screams by faster with each passing year. I cannot believe I am the one signing the permission forms and enforcing homework rules now. And how can I be trusted to dole out reasonable advice to a broken-hearted little girl who's been looked over by a classmate throwing a party, when I can still remember the same sting of being snubbed myself?

Mysterious Mom
When I was younger, I didn't think about my mother's existence much. She was just there: pouring my milk, running my baths, tucking me in. But if I ever stopped to consider her, there was never a doubt that she was The Adult.

She was the big person to the littler version of me…almost a different species. She laughed at different jokes, wore different clothes and only God knew what she did after the kids went to bed. Hers was a mysterious reality that could not be more removed from mine.

The ever-present child inside
But now here I am, three decades later, and time has transformed me into The Adult. The thing is, though, it's still the other me under all of this bad hair and too-many-summers-in-the-sun baked skin. I'm still the little kid with the crayon in her hand. Which explains why I feel like such a fraud when I'm telling my kids "because I said so" or "don't stand up in the bath."

Was my own mother faking it too, or did she actually make the transition into adulthood successfully? Do other women feel the same way, or am I an emotionally retarded aberration? I don't suppose I will ever know.