Sonia M. Rompoti, MSc, Bsc

For Mother’s Day, let’s discuss women who give everything and still deserve more.

Motherhood is often spoken about in extremes. It is either presented as saintly self-sacrifice wrapped in soft lighting, or as chaos served cold with laundry on the side. Real mothers know the truth lives somewhere in the middle. It is devotion and boredom, tenderness and rage, laughter and exhaustion, identity and disappearance wrestling in the same kitchen before 8 a.m.

And yet, when stories talk about mothers, something curious often happens.

They vanish.

Not literally, though fiction has certainly tried that too. More often they disappear symbolically. The mother becomes background support, emotional furniture, moral lesson, comic relief, logistical manager, snack provider, wise side character, exhausted cautionary tale, or a woman whose personal desires were quietly buried under everyone else’s schedules. She exists for the plot, but not as one.

A tragic waste of material, frankly.

Because mothers are not the end of the story. They are some of the richest protagonists we have.

The problem many women face, especially mothers, is not only exhaustion. It is the slow erosion of self. You become needed by everyone and known by no one. Your labor becomes expected. Your preferences become negotiable. Your body becomes discussed territory. Your time becomes public property. Even your rest can feel like something that must be earned through visible depletion.

Then one day you look up and realize you are functioning, but not fully present in your own life.

This is why stories matter.

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When we write mothers as full main characters, we return something valuable. We show that caregiving and desire can coexist. That responsibility does not cancel sensuality. That maturity does not end adventure. That women can nurture others and still hunger for more. That love for children does not erase ambition, creativity, grief, sexuality, humor, or reinvention.

A mother can be wise and still lost. Loving and still lonely. Capable and still aching. Devoted and still ready for change.

That is not contradiction. That is personhood.

In romance especially, mothers deserve better than being treated as women whose meaningful chapters are behind them. Some of the most compelling love stories begin after life has already happened. After heartbreak. After betrayal. After children. After loss. After the body has changed. After certainty has collapsed. Love found then can be deeper because it is chosen with knowledge, not fantasy.

That spirit lives inside stories like The Widow’s Curse, where healing and identity matter as much as attraction. It lives in heroines who have been through fire and still allow themselves another beginning. It lives in women who are not “starting over” because they failed, but because they are still alive.

A radical concept, somehow.

And there is magic in that.

Not only candles-and-moonlight magic, though I remain open to theatrics. The deeper magic is reclamation. The moment a woman remembers she is not only what she gives. The moment she stops apologizing for wanting rest, pleasure, solitude, purpose, art, passion, or partnership. The moment she understands that being needed and being fulfilled are not identical things.

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Many mothers carry guilt when they begin reaching for more. More time alone. More support. More creativity. More intimacy. More work that belongs to them. More joy that is not child-centered. But guilt is not always a moral signal. Sometimes it is simply the feeling that appears when you break an old pattern.

What should mothers not do if they feel themselves disappearing?

Do not wait until burnout becomes your only teacher. Do not romanticize depletion as proof of love. Do not believe that martyrdom is the highest form of motherhood. Children need care, yes. They also need to witness adulthood with boundaries, identity, and self-respect. They learn what womanhood is partly by watching how you treat your own life.

Do not accept stories that flatten you into one role.

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What should you do instead?

Name what is missing without shaming yourself for missing it. Ask where you feel most absent. Is it creativity? Friendship? Sensuality? Rest? Meaningful work? Play? Then begin small and concretely. Ten minutes of writing. A walk alone. Asking for help without a speech defending your humanity first. Buying the course. Taking the class. Saying no sooner. Saying yes to yourself before resentment has to scream.

If you are a writer, write mothers with depth. Let them flirt badly. Let them desire. Let them fail. Let them rage. Let them laugh. Let them rebuild careers, cast spells, fall in love, make mistakes, want silence, dance in kitchens, and choose themselves without becoming villains.

That is how culture shifts. One honest story at a time.

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To maintain this reclaimed self, return regularly to what belongs only to you. Protect private interests. Keep adult friendships alive. Create something. Learn something. Move your body because it is yours, not because it must be corrected. Let pleasure exist without justification. Let motherhood be part of your identity, not the graveyard of it.

This Mother’s Day, celebrate mothers fully.

Not only for what they carry.

For who they still are.