I tell people I'm an Earth Momma. I've never birthed anyone from my body. I've never incubated life. No one's daily breath and nourishment have truly relied solely on me and my good sense like these heroes we call mothers. But that doesn't mean that I'm not connected. Often, even today, women get lightly brushed off by some if we haven't birthed. I think - now at nearly 43 - that I am contentedly "over" that weird feeling when someone does it. And I do answer the odd question people pose about what it means that I think I'm an Earth Momma. It means this: It means that I take responsibility. I may have known your child or this child in front of me - whom no one truly owns - for mere seconds to years to decades, but I will take responsibility. That's for safety and love and support. It's whatever the child needs. It means that some weeks, I'm crushed to tears to know what my nieces, nephews and former students are enduring. And many of my students are in their 20s now!!!
Here's the thing: I want to take away their pain. I want to part the wrongdoings of the world for them like the Red Sea so that they may walk dry-footed. I can't have this. I can't do this thing. And I suffer for it. I suffer for the desire to. But that's what makes me happy. I want to want a best life for our youth. I want these kids, these people, these heroes to be well. Maybe everyone wants that. But that is why I call myself an Earth Momma.
