![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I find myself mothering my friends, almost as if by force of habit. It's as if at some point mommying became a complete way of life, a piece of my entire identity, rather than a role played. It was happening quite a bit at FC, where presumably I was suffering a bit of withdrawal from being away from my kids. While out at restaurants, I would take people's drinks to be refilled, give everyone extra napkins, and check to make sure that the orders were done correctly. I remember ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shaterri giggling once when I started to wipe down a counter.
Even in my daily life, I find myself asking my friends to follow up on doctor's appointments, to take their vitamins, and to eat nutritiously. Right now, with a rash of friends falling upon Hard Times, I find myself checking in a lot. Doing the mother equivalent of 'calling just to say hi.'
I was wondering if there's something...a tiny bit pathological about this? The fact that I'm having trouble treating my adult friends as independent, as grown, could be annoying as hell, frankly. I've been apologizing, saying, 'oops, sorry, it's that mom thing again.'
What I'm realizing, though, lately, is that I really like it when people express that kind of concern toward me. Knowing that there are people who actually care if I take my medication or get a full night's sleep, if I'm happy or sad, is comforting more than smothering, most of the time. My friends who mother me fill me back up, enable me to give more to those little people I'm actually in charge of caring for as part of my day (and night) job.
Mothering isn't strictly relegated to mommy friends, or female friends, regardless of what lots of mass emails would have me believe. Some of my very best surrogate mothers are men without children, and I thank them so much for teaching me (more than they would ever believe they could know) about the whole endeavor.
No, it's not May yet, but I'm still thankful for all of you for being in my life with a caring, supportive energy, and for allowing me into yours as well.
So go ahead - make that doctor's appointment you've been postponing, eat more vegetables...and really, would it kill you to call once in a while? ;-)
shaterri giggling once when I started to wipe down a counter. Even in my daily life, I find myself asking my friends to follow up on doctor's appointments, to take their vitamins, and to eat nutritiously. Right now, with a rash of friends falling upon Hard Times, I find myself checking in a lot. Doing the mother equivalent of 'calling just to say hi.'
I was wondering if there's something...a tiny bit pathological about this? The fact that I'm having trouble treating my adult friends as independent, as grown, could be annoying as hell, frankly. I've been apologizing, saying, 'oops, sorry, it's that mom thing again.'
What I'm realizing, though, lately, is that I really like it when people express that kind of concern toward me. Knowing that there are people who actually care if I take my medication or get a full night's sleep, if I'm happy or sad, is comforting more than smothering, most of the time. My friends who mother me fill me back up, enable me to give more to those little people I'm actually in charge of caring for as part of my day (and night) job.
Mothering isn't strictly relegated to mommy friends, or female friends, regardless of what lots of mass emails would have me believe. Some of my very best surrogate mothers are men without children, and I thank them so much for teaching me (more than they would ever believe they could know) about the whole endeavor.
No, it's not May yet, but I'm still thankful for all of you for being in my life with a caring, supportive energy, and for allowing me into yours as well.
So go ahead - make that doctor's appointment you've been postponing, eat more vegetables...and really, would it kill you to call once in a while? ;-)