I have known for a while, probably about the time when my Mum was breastfeeding my little brother and I sat right next to her trying to breastfeed my cabbage patch kid (I was two), that I wanted to be a mother. There is not a more devoted Mother out there than mine. I grew up with a great example and parents that always really instilled that being a full time mother was a privilege. I had a Father who "rose up and called my Mother blessed" for the role that she undertook in our home. My greatest dream for myself was to have my own family and to be able to raise them also in that same kind of environment.

Somewhere along the way through teenage mishaps and an influential mind I learned that it really wasn't that "cool" to have raising a family at the top of your dreams. I have been told by society for so long that I need to have a career, that I don't need a man to fulfill my dreams, that I need to live my life and have fun before I get married and have children. If I really wanted to be a free thinking independent woman then I should pursue these things first. Not stay at home and have my dreams squashed by taking care of a home and raising children. The fact is I have never been a very career oriented woman. This does not mean I'm not passionate or that I don't have goals, but my greatest passion is to love.  I have a passion to love. I have a passion to be a Mom and for the reasons listed above I tried to convince myself that I needed to have more "empowered woman" goals.

After marrying Johan and moving to the Netherlands I really had second guessed my desire to be a mother. Here in the Netherlands most women don't begin having children until their 30's, and once they do have children the vast majority continue to work. At least from the mothers I have talked to (in America as well) it's almost viewed as lazy to be a stay at home Mom. There is a pressure here for the women to be everything. Most mothers I see are worn out and frankly don't seem to be really enjoying their kids so much.  It is so different from how I had grown up and how much I loved my Mother always being there for us (don't get me wrong my Mother was constantly involved in many many things, but she made her family the priority). And I knew that if I were to be a mother I would also like to be there for my family in the same way. I felt in my own heart weak and naive because I didn't have more extravagant dreams career wise

I guess I wanted to write this, because I have always had a lot of pride in the fact that I'm a free thinker and I'm going to do my own thing. That I'm an adventurer and that even though I'm a mother I can still do my own thing and be wild and crazy. I am so blessed to have a relationship with a God who loves this about me and who cherishes my strengths and doesn't want to see them squashed but for them to be strengthened in a humble selfless way. So two weeks ago I got dreads and I really loved them (and frankly I rocked them) and when people asked me why I did it, I responded, I needed to feel like me again. I needed to do something that was out of the ordinary (because I like that). But over the past two weeks I realized I didn't feel more like me. I loved them, but I was really missing something and it was really bringing me down. Want to know what that was?  I couldn't sit under the shower with Shakinah (as is our  nearly every nightly ritual) and play and read her water proof books. And when I was giving Shakinah a shower every time she would try to get me to come in too. So yesterday I took them out, and the first thing I did this morning was take a shower with my daughters and we had a blast! And I was so joyful.

I see this dread lock thing as a metaphor for this journey I have been on. As I was taking out every dread lock,I was thinking about how motherhood has changed me. I am an empowered woman. I am a free thinker. I am an adventurer. I am educated. But I want to be right here...sitting under the shower playing with creepy little rubber duckies with my 20 month old. I have never felt more fulfilled doing what I am doing and maybe I didn't get to have an extra ten years vacationing with Johan or staying out all night dancing, but I get to love two little women who desperately need to be loved....every. single. day. And since that was always my passion then I guess I'm living the dream.


This is a total personal account...I am not bashing women that work or who have children late or who send their children to daycare or who have dreadlocks :)