#Mothers and the Future by Diane Burton

Happy Mother’s Day to all you mothers and to all the mothers you know!

Mothers come in all shapes, sizes, and ages. There are mothers who gave birth and mothers of the heart. I’m fortunate to have had a wonderful mother and a terrific mother-in-law. I’m doubly fortunate to be mother to two great adult children and to their spouses who call me Mom.

I’m sure we all know couples who long for children but physically cannot have them. Some will go through expensive procedures to have a child from in vitro fertilization to surrogate motherhood. Some couples adopt.

Motherhood is not for the faint of heart. Starting with conception, we have worries and physical pain. The older we are the higher the risks. Two of my grandchildren were lost in miscarriages. The emotional pain expectant mothers go through upon that loss is immeasurable. Childbirth is no picnic, either. In my mother’s day, doctors slapped chloroform on a woman, and the next thing she knew she had a baby. I come from the generation that wanted everything natural. No drugs. We were tough. 😊 And, of course, the father would be in the delivery room instead of pacing the waiting room or off fishing.

Giving birth does not equal motherhood. Raising a child is a lifelong occupation. It’s a good thing we didn’t realize what we were in for when we longed for a child. Worry didn’t end with the pregnancy but exploded as the child grew. And let’s not even go into the expense of raising that child.

Advances in medicine (and attitude) are growing all the time. Think about the advances in your lifetime. What about the future? As a science fiction writer, my imagination can come up with many scenarios. My colleagues imagine even more. We writers play the “what if” game.

What if everyone who wanted a child could have one? What if a woman didn’t have to carry her child? Extend fertilization outside the mother’s body so the whole gestational period was also outside. No inconvenience of frequent trips to the bathroom, gestational diabetes, exhaustion, plus the expense of a new wardrobe. You carried on with your life and popped into the lab occasionally to watch the fetus mature. No waiting for an ultrasound to show what s/he looked like. Also, no pain of childbirth. No drugs, either. You get a call from the lab saying your baby is ready to be picked up. Sort of like a car from the dealership.

Whatever the future brings, our future as humans depends on mothers. 

Motherhood is my greatest accomplishment, my greatest pleasure. Grandmotherhood is even better. 😊