Why Being a Mother is the Most Rewarding Thing in the World

…And the most difficult

“Mama”

Who would’ve thought those two syllables and four letters would ever mean the world to the planet of women?

You’d think “I love you” or “Will you marry me” would fall under the same category and have at least an equal emotional value, but they never even stood a chance.

So when my eight-month-old son looked at me and said “mama” one morning, the memories of painful labor and the 3x nausea of pregnancy came tumbling down and were replaced by a beautiful face and a voice addressed to me — “mama.”

That’s all it took for me to forget throwing up during pregnancy, the swearing during labor, and the very painful trips to the bathroom with stitches.

When I first became pregnant, I got many warnings. They almost felt like little fires that needed to be extinguished:

“Girl, enjoy your sleep as much as you can before the little one comes out!”

“Better go on that trip you planned before the baby is born.”

…and even before I was pregnant…

“Make sure you’ve accomplished at least half of your career goals before you have kids”

“Don’t even think about having kids if you want to start your own business.”

“Diapers are expensive as f*ck.”

The one thing I realized with all of these nonchalantly-thrown advisories were that women were constantly judged and always needed to be a certain way at a certain stage in their lives.

Not pregnant yet? There were rules.

Pregnant? There were rules.

Post-pregnancy? There were rules.

I always thought rules were a common civilized good — crossing the boundaries would always come at a cost and rules kept us tamed from risking our lives, from changing in the worst of ways and turning into beasts we’d be afraid of.