Many of us are in the phase of letting go. One of the first and most difficult we face is that of letting go of our role as mothers. We understand that we must allow our children to be independent and make their own decisions, but this conflicts with the powerful urge to protect, guide and love. It hurst when our children cut the strings and pull away. We feel the loss acutely, and yet, it is our job to let them go. We must set them free to make their own mistakes just as we have made our own.
“The mother-child relationship is paradoxical and, in a sense, tragic. It requires the most intense love on the mother’s side, yet this very love must help the child grow away from the mother, and to become fully independent.”
~ Erich Fromm
NEVER FORGET
As mothers letting go we must never forget that our adult children will always need the love and acceptance of a mother’s love. When we are an example of unconditional love, they develop the ability to care for themselves, to love themselves. This carries them far beyond the length of our years in proximity to them. Our presence in their lives is more in them than before them. Holding them loosely in our hearts through the years of growing independence gives them a safe haven in a storm while allowing them to grow into the adults we and they want them to become.
When our children no longer needs us, we must grieve the loss of the child that is no more. Still, we need never stop sharing our mother love. To do so we can turn our attention elsewhere. Children in need of love spill out of every crack and crevice the world over. When we look, we will see the unloved child in the cashier at the grocery store, the grumpy mailman that always messes up our mail, the young woman whose husband abuses her, the little boy acting up in church, and in face after face of those we encounter. The wounded children of the world need the love of a mother in order to grow strong and whole. If your heart is full of mother love and your children no longer need it, let it spill over into the world around you.
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Dorothy this is a beautiful and fitting post for Mother’s Day. There is nothing more comforting than having a mother’s love, whether physically needed, or just knowing we are loved unconditionally. Many like I, didn’t have that opportunity to be loved in that way. But we always have the possibility to grow, accept, and forgive, and to become better mothers; despite our own childhood experiences.
Thanks so kindly for offering your book. Serendipity! I had meant to buy your book when I next went to Amazon, and you are kindly offering it here today, so I took the opportunity. I will also share this on my FB page. 🙂
Thank you, Debby! Enjoy!