A million years ago, before I became a parent, I was a parent educator.  “Never mind that I had no children of my own”, I’d say, “I have taught and raised hundreds of children”.  “In fact”, I’d go on to assert, “I’m probably a better parent than some who come to my classes because I’ve already tried my hand at more issues than the first-time parent is even aware of yet!!

I am now twelve years into parenting and still haven’t made all the apologies I need to make to the parents I ‘taught’ back then.  Sure, my years studying child development and education pedagogy have given me a solid footing for understanding what children need and some of the ways they learn and grow best.  But nothing prepared me for the lessons I could only learn by being a mother.

Nowhere in the fine print from the hospital or adoption agency, for instance, will you find instructions for how to remove Playdough from the sinus canal of a two year old. Or a bean from the ear of a 5 year old.  Or how to unstick a harmonica which has been crazy glued to one’s backside (Don’t ask, no answer will satisfy you).

While it is surely the most rewarding job I have ever undertaken, being a mother may also be the most impossible one.    The pay is terrible, the job description changes hourly and no matter what I accomplish, it never seems to match the expectations of my relatives, friends and neighbors. In fact every small achievement I might consider celebrating is debated by theorists and judged by other mothers also trying to find their way to perfection.

It’s beginning to sound a lot like the job of a teacher! And like most teachers, I’m not in this mothering job for the fame, wealth or power.  I do it because I can’t imagine not.  Because it is at the core of who I am. Because even at the end of the most hair-tearing days of complete exhaustion I know I have mattered to someone.

So to all the mothers and teachers who are mothers, this Sunday, after you’ve eaten the soggy toast and warm orange juice that might have been brought to your bed, and cleaned up the kitchen where it was made, take a moment and congratulate yourselves on a job well done. We are the doers of the impossible.