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May 2019
How has being a mother enriched your life?

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Pamela Ramadei

     It’s been some of my greatest joys and greatest challenges. I had a wonderful mother. She listened to me and I strive to do the same for my two daughters, to give them a sense of belonging, capability, innate trust in self and confidence to take on life’s tasks, to take responsibility for the quality of their lives, to own that.
    I studied parenting because I felt like I didn't know how to do what my mother had given me, so I understand the Adlerian approach to parenting. It's quite a challenging family process. Everybody's involved. Everybody's got their part and their place. It's been a lifelong endeavor to raise daughters and a granddaughter, while also building community, so they have a sense of belonging to family and community. That expands into a social consciousness, awareness of how they can make our world a better place. Of course, that’s based on interpersonal relationships skills, so I'm always reflecting, looking at how I can be a better influence, not only to our own offspring, but also within the community.  I love being "Grammy Pammy" and am about to have a new grandson, which will give me a chance to be Grammy Pammy to a whole ‘nother generation in Crestone! That's a privilege I take seriously. I know I have an influence on the kids even when I just stop, say hello and remember their names. And we hired a lot of teens to help us build our addition. That's important to me.

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Stephanie Long

     Being a mother has enriched my life by enabling me to be more compassionate and have more empathy for things I took for granted, things that came naturally to me.  And having that inner discipline to do some soul searching for the greater good of someone other than myself has really been inspiring.
    My oldest is 19 and my youngest is going to be 7 next week, so that big difference in ages has really challenged me to be a better listener and to plug into what's important in life.  We’ve learned how to work out things that may be hard for a blended family like ours; some challenges that really have enriched our lives, finding the good in situations that could’ve otherwise turned bad. Also, just humbling myself, putting myself in someone else's shoes and walk a little bit in the experiences they’re enduring. Although I may not always fully understand, I feel it’s so important to listen and really put their needs first and foremost. It is true joy and love being a mother! My life is fulfilled and complete.

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Marita Peak

     It's completely shifted. It was like the Continental Divide of life. There’s before motherhood and then there's after motherhood! My daughter was born with bad birth trauma, so I was plunged into a really deep journey. It started my spiritual practice and everything. I think before you have kids, in our culture at least, you're so self-involved. Your whole life revolves around you and your needs and your wants and then everything changes. You're pushed off to the side and you have to create this new person, Mom, which was pretty intense for me. It was a big struggle with my first baby because I was this "career woman," then all of a sudden I’m "Mom," especially to a troubled kid like my daughter was.  By the time the second baby came along, it's like, "Well, I'm already completely immerged in this mother persona, mother role, or whatever it is," so it's all cool and I was just in that place. All these deeper levels of life came to the fore.  I was either pregnant or nursing for six years and it was the most astonishing time of my life. I was very sad when my son turned three and I was no longer the center of his life, and I'm like, "Wow, I'm a person! Oh, yeah, right, OK - I guess I'll figure that out again!" (laughing)

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Sasha Lovelace

     I treasure my children. I'm not just their mother. We're best friends forever. When I was young, I was shy and a loner. I got pregnant at 18 and my 3 girls are one year, one month, one day apart. So, for a little over three years, I was pregnant. It was kind of a shock to me to suddenly have real, sole responsibility for a human being, for another person. I was usually just concerned for myself as a teenager.  Having children brought me out, really made me engage with the world. Being a loner, I was happy doing whatever I did. But suddenly I was responsible for THREE human beings!  I became a teacher, counselor, friend, parent - whatever that entails. All of these things came out of me that I didn't even know were in there.  And I grew into a person that was more of what I could be. Now, the thing is, it hasn't stopped! Being a parent never stops. And since I've got three individual souls coming at me from three different directions, I am always learning something new, opening up to something new. If I had had no children, I still would have been in my little "cocoon," so to speak, and wouldn’t have developed like I did. I think that women have it really, really lucky because we're thrown into this situation and we think we know what it's like to have a child, but - poof! - it's not.  We learn in our 20s what it takes a lot of men to learn in their 40s and 50s, and sometimes they never learn it. Generosity, kindness, loving, compassion: all these things came through in my being, and I've been richer all of my life because of it.

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Aoife Kelly Tate

     Being a mom is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. It's just made me a better person, like my heart grew so much the second I became a mom and it's just kept on growing. It makes me want to be the best person I can be for the kids every day.  I've got a 6 year old and a 3 year old and I'm really lucky because I get to stay at home with the kids all day (thanks to my amazing husband!) and my days are really busy and exciting. And I love being with them all the time. They keep my life really interesting and amazing, and really they're the biggest teachers I could have in life. I feel like they teach me every day:  more patience, more kindness, and just to be a better person and to live in the moment. I feel like we've got a lot that we can learn from kids, especially at that age. They're so pure and amazing. I feel like they live life in a really inspiring way. So, I'm enjoying having them as my teachers.  I'm glad they picked me as their mom and they're just the best things that ever happened in my life; and I'm grateful, so grateful for them and for being a mom.

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Lisa Meri (Beaubien)

     Our children are our biggest teachers. I married at 20, went through massage school, and had my son (now 28) at 25 and my daughter 3 years later. I was still a kid myself and just having children was such a growing up experience for me.  I remembered the wonder of being a child, through their eyes.  I’d kind of missed that part, being the youngest of five.  My older siblings always did stuff for me, talked for me, etc.  It was a great learning experience to be able to grow with my kids, experience their hardships through my hardships and vice versa; to give them unconditional love for wherever they were, realizing no human is perfect.  We're all here for this big school, this big life lesson, and the more we learn from our children, and the more we give them unconditional love and respect, the more they give that back to us. All they want is your unconditional love and to be OK with who they are, in their anger, sadness, tribulations and trials; to really be there for them; to just say, "All is well. Everything's going to be OK. Keep letting those emotions come through. Don't hold on to anything.  Life is so temporary."  We need to help our children in these next few generations to really heal: heal the Earth and heal ourselves through unconditional love. I now have a 1 year-old grandson with another grandchild on the way!

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