On Mothering

Several months ago, I realized that I may never be good at managing the overwhelming number of photos on my iPhone. There are tens of thousands of photos and videos. If you scroll through, you will see no longer needed screenshots, too many multiples of the same photos, and hundreds of pictures of my 5-year-old daughter’s forehead as she learned to take a selfie.

I had given up on ever being able to manage it well until I was influenced by one of my favorite content creators on Instagram. She described how each day she goes into her photos app and types in the day’s date, and it will display every photo ever taken on that day. She can easily manage the sorting, sifting, and deleting one day at a time and has been able to get her photos under control. “Brilliant!” I thought. And I embarked on her process that very day.

I am two months into this habit and proud to say my photos app is looking much better. I have begun the long process of eliminating all the unnecessary extras. But I have also had a daily reminder of how fleeting time is. Each day I peer into small squares that show me cherished memories of my children as they have grown. I’ve been struck by how quickly my job of mothering them has passed.

On any given day, there will be pictures of small toothless boys riding bikes in the cul-de-sac at our old house, videos of their first baseball games, photos of them with our old beloved goldendoodle Meg, and snapshots of family adventures from long ago. I revel in each memory but nearly gasp at times at how those days have seemingly evaporated.

Mothering looks very different now that they are teenagers. Gone are the days when I tied their shoes, read them bedtime stories, supervised water balloons in the front yard, and managed school lunches and homework calendars. Today’s mothering centers around setting expectations, helping them navigate new systems, reveling in their hobbies and activities, and being available at all hours of the day and night when they need me.

The physical act of mothering is finite. They won’t forever be living in my house and needing their mom in these ways, so I find myself leaning into acts of service that I know matter to them. My oldest loves to have his bed made but will rarely take the time to do it before dashing out the door to high school. A few minutes spent each day making his bed is a gift to him and also a gift to myself because he won’t forever be here for me to physically mother. My middle son often appears out of nowhere to hunt around the kitchen for food. Being present in that space with him while he makes eggs or Dino nuggets, just talking, acting as his sous chef, or serving as chief dishwasher, makes me feel connected to him in a way not much else does.

Someday soon, these two man-sized children will be off on their next adventure and most of my role of mothering them in a physical sense will have ended. It has been a gift, and one I haven’t taken lightly or wished away. Mothering them has been an experience I could never have imagined the depth of before they were born.

It is not lost on me that I am writing this column from my mother’s bedside at the Simon Cancer Center in Indianapolis as she undergoes a stem cell transplant for multiple myeloma. Mothering comes in all forms. The person that mothered me needs me to be the caregiver now, and I am honored to be here. And while I am here, my 5-year-old daughter is with my sister for a week, being mothered by an aunt that loves her dearly. My husband is at home caring for the teenagers.

And next year when I look back at my photos app from this week, it will show snapshots of my daughter at Disney World with my sister, pictures of me at the hospital with my mother, and the videos my husband sent me from the boys’ baseball games. Everyone being cared for, delighted in, and loved.

Meredith Browand is a mother and activist who lives in Purdy.