What My 9-Year-Old Said About Motherhood Stopped Me In My Tracks

But it’s been weighing on me these last few days, the need to engage these babes in some dialogue about this, while at the same time trying not to scare the crap out of them. Finally – standing there in the kitchen – I figured out my angle.

“You know what this is?” I asked Maria, gesturing towards the radio the same way she had gestured towards her little brother and sister. “This is your revolution.“

She nodded, thought for a minute, recognizing with solemnity the weight of the responsibility. Her shoulders are young, broad. She has room on them for this.

“Things are changing,” I went on, encouraged. “They are. This is how change happens…first the darkness that is so deep and startling that it’s hard to breathe and you feel helpless, and just when you think you’re going under – there comes the light.”

I looked at her, wondered if she got me.

“I don’t think it’s gonna be that hard,” she said. “It’s just love.”

She got me.

She is the one that’s going to change the world, the girl who is cutting enough strawberries to feed her little brother and sister even though she doesn’t have to and even though they won’t stop wailing long enough for us to even have this discussion.

It will be her, and her big brother who feels all the things, and her little sister who does all the things, and her littlest brother who pees on all the things. It will be them and all the other babies we are raising and cleaning and feeding and generally just trying to keep alive.

They are the revolution.

It’s harder to feel powerless when we stop looking at the world out there and look instead at the world in here: in our kitchens and in our family rooms and in our beds. We are raising the revolution, and all we have to do to make it work, I think, is teach them not to hate.8

They don’t have to learn tolerance and love and empathy and compassion and kindness. They know those already.

They came out that way.

And they’re gonna win.

***

This article originally appeared at Parent.co. Used with permission.


Liz Petrone
Liz Petrone
Liz is a mama, yogi, writer, warrior, wanderer, dreamer, doubter, and hot mess. She lives in a creaky old house in Central New York with her ever-patient husband, their four babies, and an excitable dog named Boss, and shares her stories on her website lizpetrone.com and all over the internet. You can also find her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Related Posts

Comments

Recent Stories