I have finally gained a glint of clarity on what is a murky time of high emotion. We are looking at a stage of motherhood, when our children are no longer young, perhaps for the first time. Motherhood the institution has long been inspected, judged, and defined by a society that both exalts an ideal at the same time that it devalues the reality at nearly every turn. And although for a while mamas have taken matters in their own hands—in blogs, books, articles—sharing, exploring and exposing every aspect of their relationships to their children, to themselves as stay-at-home, working, overly involved, or neglectful mothers, like so much else that is about women, it's about young and sexy, about small, cute, babies wreaking havoc with pre-parenthood lives. And Madison Avenue keeps pace by focusing its lens on the only women it ever sees—polished, slender, young—and in the case of mothers, with bright-eyed babies slung on hips like colorful adornments.

So, as our children grow, we disappear. There's no "What to Expect" for us as our kids move on, challenging us to redefine who we are, not just in relation to them, but to ourselves. That is the task at hand.