Love them.

Recently, I put together a book for my pregnant daughter. I reached out to a lot of women, more than 90 of whom were gracious enough to share their parenting wisdom with me and with Natalie. 

I was pretty specific in my reasons for wanting to write this book. I lost my Mom at a young age, well before we welcomed home our first child. Her absence had a huge impact on my life and in particular on the way I raised our children. There were (and are) many times during my life that I needed her support and her advice, times when reaching out to anyone else seemed impossible. And so I didn’t, and I felt the impact of isolation in raising our children through some of the more challenging times.

In thinking about my daughter and motherhood, I realized that I wanted to make sure that Natalie has somewhere to turn (in addition to her wonderful aunts, both family and chosen), for inspiration and guidance, but also for solace, just in case I’m not around. I asked the Moms in my life to take a few minutes to think of one piece of advice or inspiration that they’d like to give their younger mom self, or perhaps their own daughter, and email it to me. I told them it could be just about anything – funny or serious, practical or ‘extra’, for big kids or littles, about them as a mom or a woman or about raising our kids. 

The resulting book came in at more than 25,000 words, and both she and I love it. I’m now working on finding a publisher for a more universal version of the book.

Well, at the end of Natalie’s pregnancy last spring and just days before she went out on maternity leave, one of Natalie’s wonderful co-workers handed her a book containing Baby Advice from Natalie’s own 4th grade students. The book was handmade, and the responses were prompted with cue sheets. Lots of great advice was included in this book, important reminders to feed your baby, spend time with your baby, and make sure to change your baby’s diapers. One particular student’’s advice stood out to me, honestly over and above all of the advice from the intelligent, thoughtful, wonderful Moms I reached out to. The advice of one of Natalie’s 4th graders was simple. He wrote, “…to be a good Mom you must take care of your baby.” That same kid also said, “The most important thing to remember about babies is they always love you no matter what.” Truth. 

For better or for worse, all of the little things we worry about come down to one thing, taking care of our children, and remembering that even when it doesn’t really seem so, our children do always love us and need us to love them. 

Love. I still feel my Mom’s. Make sure our children know love and things will be ok.