All I Ever Need to Know About Mothering I Learned From A Duck

This is an old duck picture that my grandpa sent me. I love it & think it's funny. And it may or may not be the only duck picture on my computer. But this mother duck was not the one I met, ahem, briefly, and who changed my attitude on mothering quite profoundly.

So, to the brief acquaintance part. (Not for the faint-of-heart - reader discretion advised) I was driving my Suburban full of my children from Utah to Washington this summer on the way to Jillian's graduation. It was a pleasant sort of trip; quiet thanks to the in-deck DVD player - in my opinion, the greatest gift to parents everywhere. I was driving the way my dad taught me to drive; 7 above the speed limit. Knock on wood, I've never been ticketed at this speed and since my dad taught me this technique, I do not question its wisdom. I was passing a semi-truck when it suddenly hit the brakes. I had but a moment to wonder why it would be hitting the brakes, when I saw her. A mother duck, waddling quickly across the Idaho freeway with her six little ducklings in tow. There was nothing I could have done short of rolling my vehicle and maiming/killing my children. The mother duck was a loud bump under the car.

I was horrified. Some animals you don't really care if you hit. A skunk is unpleasant because of the smell. A rat or mouse should earn you points for ridding the world of vermin. But not a mother duck. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the sweet little ducklings stopped for want of a mother to show them where to go. I had not only killed the mother, but by extension, each of her 6 little ones. I looked at my little ones, happily watching their DVD, and began a long bawl session.

The kids heard and felt the bump, saw me crying, figured out what had happened and began crying themselves. It was an insane emotional outburst in that car of which I've never seen equal. Mere minutes later, there was a pair of grown ducks waddling across the freeway. I would be darned if I was going to slaughter any more innocent wild-fowl. But they both suddenly took wing and flew off well before I got to them. I angrily thought, "Why couldn't that other duck have flown off and saved me the grief and general vehicular mayhem of hysterical children?"

And then it hit me. The mother duck didn't fly because she was not going to leave her children. She would die herself before she left her babies to face danger alone. Safe to say, this only increased my emotional outburst.

But it also got me thinking.

As a mother, my instincts are the same as the duck's. I would (and do) do anything to protect my children. I swallow my pride and take my little ducklings all over kingdom-come with me. I put them in the proper carseats, feed them the healthiest food I can, try to make sure I know where they are and who they're with, and do my best to make sure they're all moving in the right direction. Sometimes it's more like herding cats rather than guiding ducks. My little ones like to mew, crawl out of the box they're supposed to be in, etc. And like the little ducklings, they rarely march in a straight line. But I would do anything to care for and protect them.

Now I don't expect to ever physically be hit by a speeding (only slightly) Suburban in the process of protecting my little brood. But I have sacrificed everything else. Sometimes a quick death seems preferable to the long, slow drag that motherhood sometimes is. I've sacrificed my body (sagginess has never looked so good), I've sacrificed all hobbies, out-of-the home career & dreams of law school, and pretty much everything 'me' related.

But that's the choice I made when I chose to be a mother. I get so tired of mothers complaining about losing themselves because of their children. I don't feel like I've lost myself as much as I've grown and changed. I'm so grateful I'm not the same as I was before I had children. I never knew what it was to love unconditionally or to see the world brightened because of a person I brought into the world with my sweet husband and have raised to be a good person.

So to all the mother ducks out there, keep waddling on, keeping your little ducklings in a row and doing your best. Hopefully the speeding Suburbans will be few and far between. And it's a comforting thought to know that all mother ducks go to heaven (and hopefully all mothers).