My Daughter’s Hunger, My Healing

On recovery, the ministry of conscious motherhood, and an unspoken vow behind every bedtime snack.

Us. The ministry of presence. The fullness of now.

“Mommy, I’m starrrrrrrving.”

She may be four, but her palate is already bold. She orders salmon lox and roe for breakfast, tosses around words like exquisite and delectable, and turns her nose up at anything too ordinary.

Ember acts three times her age, never mind the pink bedazzled cape that’s fastened to the nape of her neck more often than not.

I watch her with quiet awe; how easily she claims her appetite, how freely she makes space for her hunger.

When I hear this at 3:00 PM, I smile and take her order. An elaborate snack plate is quickly assembled and served to her majesty.

But it’s 8:00 PM and I’m exhausted. I shuffle to the foot of her bed, too tired to pick my feet off the floor. She’s tucked between three pillows and five stuffed animals. The curtains have been drawn and the sound machine is already abuzz with white noise. It’s a cozy den, and yet the very last place she wants to be.

In the next room, her brother is finally asleep after three attempts and thirty minutes of bouncing on an exercise ball. His congestion has made an enemy of deep sleep, and his frequent nighttime wakings have meant little rest for me.

I close my eyes and silently count to ten, wishing for just one easy bedtime.

“The kitchen is closed, babe. We have to remember to fill up our tummies at dinner. Now, it’s time for your body to sleep.”

Immediately, my stomach twists itself into a knot. It rises, thick and heavy, like trying to speak with a stone lodged in my throat. I can hear the rationality in my response, but it’s one that belongs to another parent. Not to me, not to the mother in recovery.

For me, it’s a broken promise. A missed opportunity. And I am principally allergic.

God taps his big, almighty forefinger on my right shoulder and I slump forward.

As my daughter’s favorite author says, tired is way too plain for how I feel. But I have chosen the ministry of conscious motherhood, and in this moment my need for sleep does not outweigh her need for food.

Maybe it’s yogurt that she needs. Or maybe it’s ten more minutes of undivided attention, after a day spent selflessly sharing her parents’ love. Perhaps it’s conversations and questions, this girl after my own heart.

Before giving birth to Ember, I made an oath to protect her hunger, in the most literal and the most figurative sense. I vowed to allow it, stoke it, and care for it. I decided that our home would be a refuge and radical adversary against the criticism and minimization of a girl’s appetite.

Because hunger, for girls like me, was always a negotiation.

The pledge wasn’t conditional. It was not contextual. It didn’t shed importance depending on our schedule’s busyness or my restfulness. No, it was meant to be static, sturdy, and unyielding.

My daughter will know my story, but she will not live my story.

I open my eyes to find Ember wriggling and rolling in bed, her little limbs tangled in the loose sheets. Her eyes are wide, waiting.

“Please, just one more snack, momma.”

I sit on the edge of her bed, and she crawls closer. The knot in my stomach softens. I pause for 1…2…3… Long enough to see the innocence and self-assurance of a toddler who is ravenous and persistent.

There is no effort, let alone thought, to censor her urges. She expresses her wants and desires without the complexities of shame. It’s just…hunger; without society’s sharpest edges attached to it.

“You’re hungry, and it’s important to me that your belly feels full…”

Before I can finish my sentence, Ember is leaping into the air. Arms and legs flailing, the winner of a lottery.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, mommy!”

Within thirty seconds, we’re padding downstairs with bare feet and our hands tightly clasped together. She climbs into her favorite chair and waits with a grin, still proud of her victory.

Light spills across the kitchen floor as I open the fridge. Yogurt, strawberries, chocolate protein; our family’s favorite bedtime snack.

There was a time when pulling food from the fridge this late at night felt dangerous. Now it feels like devotion. Like a mother’s faithfulness to her child’s needs.

Like so many things, the change happened slowly and also all at once. An accumulation of subtle changes over time until suddenly it felt like something (or someone) new had sprouted up overnight.

I slide the tiny bowl and spoon in front of her. She beams. Soon, her spoon is digging into the brown, fluffy clouds of her yogurt.

She licks the spoon clean and leans back, satisfied. I watch her, belly full and spirit light, and I wonder if maybe my eating disorder is my cross to bear. If my doing so wholeheartedly not only fulfills some part of my purpose but also frees my daughter to seek her own.

If I have an eating disorder so that she never does. If I traversed the narrow path through bush and bramble, from danger to devotion, so that satiating hunger is easy and an appetite for a big life is natural.

Maybe it is something like the lottery after all, and what she’s won is far more than a bedtime snack.

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?

Matthew 16:24-26

---