No kids but I'm a mom to many. You are too

Mother's Day. What a wonderful way to celebrate the all the moms — official and unofficial in title — in our lives.

I’m an unofficial mom. I had hoped to be an official mom with a family of my own but that wasn’t what life had mapped out for me. And that’s OK. 

When My Favourite Husband and I got married, we were a bit older and my biological clock was not only ticking, it was chiming like a grandfather clock. The window of opportunity to have children was small and we wanted a family, so we began trying immediately. Nothing seemed to work, however, so we ended up seeing a fertility specialist. We tried all kinds of things to no avail. We then looked into adoption but that route (private and public) wasn’t successful. So we talked about how much more time and money we could afford to try and be parents, how much more strain our marriage could take, and decided what we had going on was a good thing and we would be content to navigate life just the two of us. 

Besides, even though we didn’t have children of our own, we had a plethora of nieces and nephews, so we had kids in our lives. 

Still, for many years, Mother's Day would roll around and I’d feel the sting of embarrassment that we weren’t able to have kids of our own. That I wasn’t a mom. It took awhile and a concerted flipping of the lens to see that, for me, being a mom was more about the relationship rather than the title. Once I figured that out — and accepted that this is how it would be in my world — I realized that I was a mom to different people at different times in my life.

In the workplace, I’ve given advice, a shoulder to cry on, a swift kick in the butt. As the oldest sibling, I’ve kept secrets, bailed my brothers out of tricky situations, been a dependable constant in their lives. As the favourite aunty to one of my nieces, I’ve been a safe ear for her to talk to, a mentor who makes her laugh, a loving hand to wipe away tears. 

My own Mom has done all of those things and more. She is the right amount of sass and sweet of grit and grace. She’s a mixture of smart and funny of restraint and adventure. She’s strong and soft and knows it isn’t a sign of weakness to give or ask for help.

She uses all of these attributes and more to build mentoring relationships with the people in her life who matter. I use my same gifts to build bonds and to show up and be present in the lives who matter to me. In that way, we both mother. 

My point is this: you don’t have to be a mom to celebrate Mother's Day. You can be a role model, a mentor, a friend, a favourite aunt. 

Happy Mother's Day to all of the amazing women reading this; who share love and make a difference in the lives of others.