Becoming a mom is, yes, a beautiful thing, but it can also be a terrifying thing. When you realize that suddenly you are fully responsible for a life, and you just want to raise a happy and healthy kid, it can be daunting!
For most moms, as time goes on, you start to get the hang of things and it can feel like you got this! And the fear goes away.
For Caterina Scorsone from Grey's Anatomy, her perspective on motherhood changed drastically when her younger daughter, Paloma Michaela, who she calls Pippa, was diagnosed with Down Syndrome.
Caterina talked about her motherhood experience on the Motherly podcast, talking about life as a mom with her oldest daughter Eliza, who is now 6 and a half, and how it all changed with her second child.
“What I unconsciously thought about my job as a mother was that I was supposed to equip her to survive in a competitive world."
She admitted that she was sent into a tailspin when she realized Paloma would "have some physical differences and some cognitive differences.”
But, one day things just clicked for her as a mom, and it changed everything.
“This simple voice came to me where I was like, ‘I don’t know what to do — oh, I’m supposed to keep her safe and I’m supposed to make her feel loved,’... And suddenly my understanding of my job as a mother completely distilled and opened.”
I think mothers everywhere can relate to that simple idea: keep them safe and make them feel loved. If we are doing nothing else, at least we are doing that, right?
Paloma's diagnosis not only changed how Caterina parented her, but it also changed how she parented Eliza.
“I saw how I was loving my first daughter, Eliza, for her qualities... I loved Eliza so much because she was so clever, and she was so beautiful and she was so funny … but all those things were external qualities.”
She worried about if Pippa would be "clever" and "funny" until she learned more about Down Syndrome and realized that she was thinking about it all wrong.
“Now that I know more about Down syndrome, I’m like, ‘Oh, what a stupid thought I had,’... But I didn’t know, and it forced me to realize that I was loving my other daughter and everyone, including myself, for absolutely the wrong reason. I was loving people for their external qualities and not for their essence.”
Wow. I love her words and I think we can all take something from this. Thank you for sharing your story, Caterina!
Get more from Sisanie here!
Photo: Getty Images