When Motherhood Quieted Me—and Taught Me How to Listen

Motherhood has a way of quieting your spirit—not because you have nothing to say, but because you’re listening more than you ever have before.

It heightens everything.

Not in a loud, chaotic way, but in a subtle one. You start to notice things you may not have consciously registered before. Not because you were unaware, but because now there is more at stake. Your reality is no longer just yours—it’s something you are actively shaping and reforming to make sure it is safe, stable, and nurturing for your child and for yourself.

Your mind becomes a battleground.

You find yourself running through hypotheticals and scenarios that may never happen, but your body doesn’t know that. Your spirit doesn’t know that. All it knows is that preparation feels like protection. And so you prepare. You observe. You stay alert.

You grow quiet because you’re listening.

You grow quiet because you’re trying to be still enough to sense shifts—changes in energy, tone, expression. A look that lingers too long. A glance that hardens. A nuance that tells you whether someone is regulated… or close to lashing out. When you’re responsible for another human being, especially a small one, these details matter.

Stillness becomes strategy.

But the place where this attentiveness shows up the most is with my daughter.

I tapped all the way in.

The same way people “tap in” when they’re trying to learn a romantic partner—watching patterns, reading moods, studying communication styles—I tapped in fully to learning my child. Her language may not be fully developed, but she is communicating constantly. I pay attention to when she’s sad, when she’s clingy, and why she’s clingy. I notice when she’s expressive, when she’s confused, and when she’s trying to process something she doesn’t yet have words for.

And I have to remind myself: she’s only been alive for two years.

Everything she knows about the world—how to respond, how to regulate, how to care for others—is being shaped by the environment I create around her. That weight isn’t scary to me, but it is sobering.

As well-rounded as I am, I believe that trickles down.

If I knew five languages, I’m confident my daughter would know five languages too. I’m well-versed in the creative arts, the performing arts, and intellectual exploration—and I see the reflection of that in her emotional intelligence. Her awareness, her empathy, her ability to care for others genuinely impresses me. She thrives in ways that sometimes surprise me, even when I feel like I want more for her.

She is already becoming.

Motherhood quieted my spirit in part because I became a mother later in life.

By medical standards, it’s called “advanced maternal age.” I gave birth at 37. By that point, I was already established in who I was—how I operated, how I moved through the world, how I managed my energy and my time. I had norms. I had systems. I had a rhythm.

Then she arrived.

And while children are a blessing at any age, the older you are, the more established you are in your ways—and the more noticeable the disruption becomes. Your bandwidth was built for a certain number of tasks, a certain level of output. Now, if you’re intentional—if you truly want to do this well—you have to create an entirely new mental and emotional file folder for this little person.

And that can be a lot.

There are days when I feel full. There are days when I feel quiet. There are days when I am deeply overstimulated.

On those days, I conserve. I reserve. I stay mindful—because I don’t know what the next moment will require. Anything could set her off. Anything could set me off. So I pace myself.

That conservation shows up physically too.

I’m a singer. My voice is part of my body’s ecosystem. Fatigue, travel, overstimulation, lack of rest—whether from “good stress” or not—adds wear and tear. When I don’t give myself adequate recovery, it catches up to me. Quiet, then, becomes care. Stillness becomes maintenance.

Motherhood didn’t silence me. It refined me.

It taught me how to listen with my whole body. How to observe without reacting. How to stay present without panicking. How to prepare without hardening.

And in that quiet, I’ve learned more than I ever did when life was loud.