Mother: feed yourself first
A good meal is like oxygen. You can’t nourish others if you aren’t nourished.
I birthed two babies and breastfed them for a combined total of almost 7 years. Between their birth and their first birthday, they roughly tripled their weight. That growth was the near-exclusive result of food provided by me, made inside my body. Isn’t that amazing? Since part of the nutrition I ingested daily was converted into milk for my babies, I was extra mindful of getting enough food (boy! was I hungry in those days), and food of the best quality I could.
After that first year, over time, the proportion of nutrients that were direct products of my body decreased, eventually hitting zero, while the nutrients that I prepared, in the shape of meals and snacks, increased.
That is to say that, all along, since conception, feeding my children’s growing bodies has been nearly fully dependent on my own energy and effort.
We easily understand how developing fetuses rely on their mothers’ bodies for nutrition, and bestow special attention and care to pregnant mothers accordingly. After babies are born and the cord is cut, in theory, a broader range of adults gains the ability to care for them, but in practice it is often the case that one person (often but not always the biological mother) takes on mothering. A core task of mothering is feeding the child. Now, just because the food isn’t (necessarily) made in the mother’s body, it doesn’t mean that the mother can make it appear without having been properly nourished herself.
I should perhaps write here that much of the village that it takes to raise a child should in fact be preoccupied with nurturing and nourishing the mother, but I’ll cut short to real-life contemporary reality. Mothers have to remember to take good care of themselves, in addition to caring for their children, because there’s no guarantee that someone else will take care of them. This is true in the children’s infancy and it continues as they grow into young adults, and quite likely beyond. If we, as mothering persons, want to maintain the ability to nourish our beloved children, we cannot neglect nourishing our selves.
Every week I chat with mothers about their cooking habits, and their loved ones’ eating patterns, because that’s a big part of being a vegan food educator who helps people eat more healthy home-cooked plant-based meals. The moms tell me all about their oldest child’s singular tastes (a.k.a., pickiness) or their youngest’s allergies, and sometimes about their partners’ culinary preferences too. They ask me: “What do you think I could make that would please everyone?” So then I reply: “What would you like to have for dinner?”
Almost inevitably, my question is met with a blank stare.
They don’t know! They haven’t thought about their own needs and, heaven forbid, preferences in years, sometimes more than a decade.
Mothers, can we change that? Listen to your own body and soul for a moment: what do you need to feel really nourished?
Only when we know what you need can we figure out how to make it happen. It’s not just in your personal best interest, but also in that of your whole family and community.
Brigitte Gemme is a vegan food educator, meal planner, and coach. After a PhD in sociology of higher education and a 15-year career in research management, she got impatient with the slow pace of planet-friendly change and decided to help individuals live a gentler life. If you need help deciding what’s for dinner, check out her meal plans at VeganFamilyKitchen.com. If you need personal guidance and accountability to embrace a gentler lifestyle, consider signing up for a free week with her on coach.me using coupon code BRIGITTEWEEK. Brigitte loves nothing more than helping more people eat more plants.
