purpose
noun
1a: something set up as an object or end to be attained : intention
b: resolution, determination
2: a subject under discussion or an action in course of execution
on purpose: by intent : intentionally
object
noun
3a: the goal or end of an effort or activity : purpose, objective
Motherhood is not my purpose. It was not the goal of my life. It will not be the end result of my life’s efforts or activities.
I can remember being eleven and twelve years old, filling notebook pages with plans that had nothing to do with cribs or bottles or bedtime routines. At that age, I was already naming books I wanted to write, the kind of woman I wanted to become, and the ways I wanted to leave the world better than I found it. That was purpose taking root, before anyone had the chance to tell me motherhood was supposed to be the end point.
Motherhood is continuity.
Continuity not just of bloodline, but of story. Of legacy. Of struggle and resilience. It is a thread that connects me backward to those who mothered me—flawed, fumbling, or fierce—and forward to a child whose life will stretch far beyond my own.
It is work. Meaningful work. Yes. Good work. Yes. Hard work. Yes. Rewarding work. Yes—all of that.
But work, nonetheless. The kind of work that demands both devotion and depletion. The kind that requires clocking in when your body wants to quit, and clocking out only when sleep claims you by force. The kind of work that reshapes a person while never quite paying them what they’re worth.
While motherhood shifted my identity in ways that are beautiful, brutal, expansive, and territorial, it did not shift my purpose. It did not change that intrinsic thing woven in me when I was knitted together in my mother's womb. Wow. My purpose holds all my roles without collapsing into any of them.
That is miraculous.
Because society loves collapse. Woman into wife. Mother into martyr. Blackness into burden. We are asked to become one thing when we were born as many. Refusing collapse is itself an act of resistance.
Motherhood is equal parts refinement and detriment to my purpose. Because motherhood is an unquenchable fire. From MJ’s first breath and beyond my last, I work in service of him and the purpose that is a seed within him.
The fire refines: it burns away self-deception; it forces clarity; it teaches endurance. But the fire also scorches: it leaves ashes where dreams once lived; it exhaust; it threatens to consume the very person who feeds it. Both are true at once.
If I can pass through the fire and still water the seed and his seeds, I know without a doubt that I am capable of accessing my own unique purpose.
No, I wasn’t born to be a mother. I choose it. Every day. Multiple times a day.
And I water myself in the process. Motherhood is connected to a renewable well, and I water the seeds within all of us. But make no mistake, being a nurturer isn’t my purpose any more than being a woman, Black, American, etcetera.
It is one facet of my identity and womanhood. Not a requirement. Not a destination.
