I was a mother for four years. Mom, I'm hungry, Mom, help me, Mom, take me to play with my friends. Mom, my brother bit me, Mom, don't go, Mom, stay. Mom, I feel sick, Mom, I'm bored, Mom, can I watch TV?

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My children, when they were little, were four to one. Do your homework, take a bath, eat all your food, go to bed, it's late.

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I was a mom, don't throw away your toys, tidy up a bit, don't fight. I was a full-time mom twenty-four hours a day, and it wasn't enough. Mom, don't be mean, Mom, buy me some, Mom, I want some water.

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I was a mother for four years, but soon she began to see her body crumble under the pressure of her children's merciless demands. "Mom, I want arms," ​​said the baby who already weighed thirty pounds. "Mom, I want your legs so I can race you." "Mom, I want your time so I can play with dolls." And time is something that isn't abundant when you want, in addition to being a mother and caring for your children as the most precious possessions in the universe, to also be a person, to be a woman, for example.

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I am a woman for one, and that is a problem because one for one always gives one, and

When you divide by four, you're left with only quarters. But it was in those small quarters of my time as a full-time mom that I found myself and was happy to see myself almost whole. Because children take away, but they also give back. If one of them took my arms because I didn't want to walk through the mall, they would soon return them to me, more than whole, in a grateful hug.

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I'm no longer a full-time mom. Now I'm simply a mom. If everyone took my young, athletic body, now they come to embrace me between the excess folds and smooth my wrinkles with loving kisses, so that nothing is too noticeable, and having them fills me with a joy worth more than any cosmetic surgery. Those bear hugs that are twice my size when before I was the one who bent down to cuddle them give me back, more than firm, smooth skin, a full heart.

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Being a mother is hard work. Whether it's one, two, or four, children grow up, they leave, and you begin to look older. The signs of aging, once incipient, now seem to want to stay there forever. It's also costly, because children, as I said before, rob you of your youth, and even the peace of life.

 

The point is that I, a mother of four, happily pay the price, because they have given me in return the most precious moments of happiness, seeing them grow, seeing them smile, saying goodnight and receiving a big hug, when in a language that could be guessed they would say to me “I love you, Mom.”

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This May, I want to wish all mothers a more than happy day, and hope they enjoy their children, whether they're babies or grown-ups, because time flies, perhaps too fast.

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Mercedes Soledad Moresco, Writer and Educator