This ain’t no Hallmark Motherhood: Mother's Day Reflections on PDA Parenting

I am fiercely neurodivergent-affirming. I celebrate who I am and who my kiddo is. And it is also so hard.

On American Mother's Day this year, I let the grief course through me and wrote this piece.

Writing is medicine for me. I hope reading it supports you.

This ain’t no Hallmark motherhood, this journey that I’m on.

It’s more like a ride on a rickety coaster, with some breathtaking views at the top of the climb...then screams tearing out of my lungs on the way down.

It’s more like when my dog grabs a stuffie, bites its ear hard, then shakes to break its neck, only I’m the stuffie, and life is the dog.

When I was pregnant I drew a Tarot card for my son. The Fool. We laughed, and I gently touched my belly. That’s my boy, I thought. He will be the jester who always knows his own truth. The dancer in the storm, turning cartwheels in the face of the King.

But this ain’t no Hallmark motherhood, this journey that I’m on. Because I drew another card, this one for parenting, and my husband and I froze.

The Tower.

In The Tower card, people jump from a burning building in a scene of total destruction.

The Tower says: Be ready. Everything false is about to burn away.

And it has. My sweet PDA Fool has burned away everything false in my life. He burned away my mask. He burned away the hook I held myself on. He burned away my misconceptions about who and what I actually am. He burned away what had never worked about my marriage, and allowed me and my husband to heal.

But being a good enough mother for him has also burned away the life I dreamed of - one filled with friends, family, and music. It has burned away time with my husband. The ability to travel. To leave my child in someone else’s care for more than an hour. To feel part of the normative world.

This ain’t no Hallmark motherhood, this journey that I’m on.

Instead, it’s a reeling realization that the fast-paced road I once traveled was never sustainable for me, even if I hadn’t become a mom. It’s making a new-old way for a brain like mine to thrive when our culture has no map for my thriving.

This ain’t no Hallmark motherhood, this journey that I’m on.

It’s a radical rising up from a society so sick that disabled kids are burning out, unable to eat, or sleep, or leave the house by the age of 5.

It’s a courageous burning up of the idea that controlling children’s bodies and attention is a form of care, that ignoring our own bodies is the road to success.

My motherhood is a sometimes-wrenching grief for the life I wanted.. and tender, soft gratitude for the life I have.

It's the courage to allow my child to thrive in a way that works for him, which looks totally different than what I thought thriving looks like. It’s the courage to learn by his side what sustainable thriving looks like for me.

Whatever your journey is, the ins and outs of gratitude and grief, the pain and the blessing, you're not alone.

Whether inside The PDA Safe Circle™ community or just through these posts, I'm glad to reach out a genuine human heart to yours.