Notes to Myself: On Perspective

Before I had my children, I thought I knew a lot about the world. I loved to travel, had lived on three continents, spoke three languages, and used my job as an English Language teacher to talk to people from all over the world about their lives. I had two nationalities, and married a man with a third, making my family legitimately multi-cultural. My friends had different religions, different ideals, different coloured skin. I relished in learning about different traditions, different belief systems, different ways of life. I sought the different in every country I visited, every person I met.

Since becoming a mother, I've started seeing a lot more similarities than differences.

I look at the faces of other parents in the park, and though we are all individuals, our exhaustion, written in bags under our eyes, is the same. No matter where I am in the world, when my children scream in public, I can be sure to see another parent smiling in sympathy. They've lived this moment, too. I watch documentaries about expectant mothers and though they may not look or talk like me, or come from a remotely similar background, in the moment of their labour I watch them and think I know you. I have felt your pain.

Last week I spoke to a Middle Eastern man out shopping with his daughter. Our children became instant friends in the way that only toddlers can, while he and I stumbled through a conversation in broken German – the only language we shared. He and I were different in every way imaginable; he even showed me a picture of his wife and though we are both women and mothers we looked nothing alike. But as he was leaving he said something that struck a chord with me. He said, “may Allah bless all children”. Our beliefs may be different, but thanks to my daughters, I understood him perfectly. He was saying that he loves his child, more than anything. And in that, we are exactly the same.

This piece was originally written as an entry for the Sakura Bloom Ring Diaries.