I think.
Like, a lot.
I think ahead and in retrospect and on more than one subject at once and odds are if I’m talking to you, I’ve thought my words through before I’ve said them. I’m thinking about what you’re saying back to me and I’m thinking about what I’m going to say next.

And as a single, 30-year-old woman I’m not ashamed to say that I think about motherhood no matter how stereotypical it sounds. Life is pretty stereotypical anyway, I’ve come to believe.

I sit in awe of motherhood when I’m surrounded by it. Mothers who wipe peanut butter and jelly off of chubby little cheeks with a wet paper towel or trudge out to a baseball field on a Saturday morning armed with string cheese or whatever kind of snacks kids eat these days.
I think about the contrasts. The photos of my grandmother’s 15 children lined up at a table, spoons in hand eating up, smiling with their mouths full and their eyes scrunched. Pictures of my mother carrying, at one time or another, my brothers and I in her arms, knowing she’d take on the hardest job in the world without looking back when we were introduced to single parent homes.

And I wonder about it in relation to myself. Mostly because if I found out that an elbow was growing where my morning bagel ought to be, I would probably flip out.

Faint and then flip out.

I’m awed by mothers mostly because of the childbirth aspect, something I have no desire to experience whatsoever.

And to be honest, lately, as I watch just about everyone I know with one of those little things running around, I wonder if my aversion to childbirth makes me any less of a woman.

It’s probably a pretty reasonable thing to wonder. I mean, women have been having babies forever. It’s supposedly a natural thing so one might assume if one is not quite all about the childbirth stuff that something might be wrong with one.

And I probably wouldn’t discuss this sort of thing in print but I can’t help but think it’s an interesting conversation to have.

I don’t feel drawn to childbirth, even after witnessing it in the moment, a baby coming out of another human being and taking its first fresh breath. I can’t say it was a moment that jump started the proverbial biological clock. But the scalpels were cool.

As I put my mind to thinking about mothers and motherhood, babies and birthing classes, I thought about how some people get a rush out of pink and blue baby bibs and pacifiers.
I get a rush out of the thought of getting to the office that overlooks the city and the desk lamp that gives a soft glow as I work late into the night.

The thing is, the beauty of motherhood isn’t in the delivery room. Our bodies may have been designed to house a human (figure that one out) and never having experienced it, maybe in those nine months something happens that makes somebody a mom.

But I’m going to go ahead with the belief that motherhood is un-tethered. Because there are women out there who, like me, knows what it means to connect with a child even when it’s not of their own insides. And there are women out there yet to build a family who can cure everything from a skinned knee on a niece or a nephew to a broken heart of a best friend.
Motherhood, in its essence, knows no age, no limit, no failure.

So this Mother’s Day, as I ponder all about the bibs and the babies and what we all grow up to be, I want to make sure to say two things.

One: our natural instincts to mother can be built upon into the most potent form of advocacy. Whether you’re a mom, a sister, an aunt, a friend or a single girl of 30 who is still figuring out her place in life, there’s a child out there who – as a little person – can’t stand up for themselves. If you know of one, whose parents are divorcing or maybe gets teased in school, who seems a little shy or scared or unsure or who is perfectly happy with extraordinary talent just waiting to be harnessed – be an advocate. Advocate for those little people because they need you. Take interest, encourage, do whatever. They need you.

And two: here’s to all the mothers. The ones who’ve had 15 kids and raised them into extraordinary human beings and the ones who have faced the trials and tribulations as a single parent. To the adoptive mothers, whom I have enormous respect for, to foster mothers and birth mothers and surrogate mothers, recognition is deserved.

And to the sisters, the aunts, the friends who have the beautiful ability to help us all grow – mother is not a title you necessarily have to achieve.
It’s an ability you already have.

Jessica Sieff is a reporter for the Niles Daily Star. Reach her at
jessica.sieff@leaderpub.com.