“Insights on Motherhood Learned Through Ice Skating”

We find ourselves at the public outdoor skating rink in our city, and though it’s chilly, I feel warm. Sweat beads on my neck and torso. My body, now prone to hot flashes due to medical menopause, becomes inundated with prickly heat whenever I experience stress, embarrassment, or excessive warmth.

With me are my daughter, her friend, and my younger son as we venture to the rink. This outing is significant for me as I transition out of breast cancer treatment. I have carried our skates—their weight and sharpness jabbing against my sides as we make our way from the car to the rink. I scold myself for being the kind of person who possesses skates but lacks blade covers.

However, once we hit the ice, the movement feels exhilarating. My extremely cautious son is gradually learning. He clings to my hand as we circle the rink slowly, or he engages in a slow dance with his rubber skate penguin, his charming date for the day.

This is good, I reflect. The last six months have been marred by chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation, affecting not just me but my whole family. Perhaps now I can embrace my role as a mom again. I can take my kids skating on early dismissal days. I might even skate alongside them.

***

The rink is nearly vacant; yet not completely. A solitary young woman skates with expertise around the rink, while two college students—perhaps on a date?—struggle near the wall. Soon another mother arrives with her younger children.

My daughter and her friend, both in fifth grade, play ice hockey on a co-ed team. This is puzzling to me. I’ve never participated in a team sport, never tested my limits aside from yoga class, and never endeavored to learn a skill from scratch among peers just for enjoyment. They glide confidently on the ice, showcasing their skills. They dart fast, lean low, and occasionally cut across the rink, dangerously close to others, myself included.

I feel a stir of annoyance and instruct them to slow down and be more conscious of their surroundings.

“This isn’t hockey practice,” I approach pedantically. “There are younger kids here who are just learning.” My daughter’s friend acknowledges my concern, but my daughter doesn’t comply. She zips past me, cutting me off, and I nearly topple.

I pull her aside and express my frustration. The strict mother—beyond assertive—has emerged. I sweat beneath my multiple layers, seething at her. I will make you leave the ice, I warn her. You need to be aware of other people.

Is this what I truly want? If my life were to be cut short by illness, as I dread nearly every day it might be, is this a vital maternal lesson? The words—be mindful of others—reverberate in my mind like a pinball, as I reluctantly send her back onto the ice post-scolding: am I telling my daughter to shrink? In some aspects, yes, because I do not wish to cultivate a self-centered outlaw. Part of the compulsive apologizing and obsessive consideration for others, often caricatured as feminine frailty, is empathetic, caring, and important.

Yet beneath my intense anger and second-hand embarrassment, a small portion of me takes delight in her skill and fearlessness. It feels foreign to me: I am continuously moving aside, offering apologies whenever someone bumps into me.

***

When I was 10, Tonya Harding’s then-husband orchestrated an attack on Nancy Kerrigan’s knee, and weeks later I watched both women pour their hearts into their performances during the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer. Each sparkled in their respective leotards and tights, yet Nancy radiated an aura of classic elegance in gold, while Tonya struck me as gaudy and cheap in red—a judgment I now recognize as cruel.

My friend Mandy and I yearned to embody Nancy, pretty and strong, facing adversity with resilience, as we skated on the frozen pond in our neighborhood, lifting our legs and bending forward at the hips, arms outstretched. We couldn’t jump, or at least I couldn’t. Maybe Mandy could; I think I was envious of her skating prowess but I can’t recall why. Off the ice, we donned styles reminiscent of Jordan Catalano—flannel shirts and Converse—but Nancy was always in our minds, just ahead on the pond, twirling, shimmering, and triumphant.

***

During that winter of my fifth-grade year, I believed that if I skated hard enough, I could transform into Nancy. Now I realize that after that winter, I moved away from the pond and rarely skated again. I outgrew those ice skates and never acquired a replacement. I once attempted to skate again in college, at Boston Common, barely managing to stay upright, yet nearly 20 years later, I tentatively stepped onto the city rink in my new town and discovered it wasn’t difficult at all. Moreover, I understand how I’ve turned out: capable, composed, middle-aged, cherished, thoughtful, kind. I don’t shine like Nancy, but most days—though not every single day—these traits feel adequate.

No one is observing me skate, which is a relief; my performance isn’t impressive, nor am I particularly skilled. My right foot takes charge; I find it challenging to stop with ease. However, the ache in my lower back after skating for a while is somewhat gratifying. I feel alive and fluid on the ice, moving simply for movement’s sake. I’m struck by the joy that emanates outward when I’m on the pond or even at the city rink. I sense it even at the indoor rink in the suburbs, which carries a smell reminiscent of a dirty refrigerator. The aspiration of becoming Nancy no longer drives me forward. Now, I’m propelled across the frozen surface by a different force: the sheer joy of moving my own body.

***

By the following year, my daughter has grown into her skills with a relaxed confidence. She saves her impressive moves for the pond in our small city, an unhurried frozen oval nestled in a park, next to the curves of the river. However, sometimes she skates too close to me. Once, skating backwards at a rapid pace, she unintentionally crashes into her friend’s dad. “I need to be more mindful of what’s behind me,” she admits to him, genuinely remorseful. I feel a wave of relief. Yet I also ponder: how does one see what’s behind them? And how can you learn to skate backwards—a skill I’ve never truly mastered—if you don’t simply trust that the world will make room for you?

One afternoon at the pond, a dad offers my daughter his lead-filled puck for practice: it’s heavy and shifts differently than a standard puck. As she pursues its peculiar weight around the ice, gliding above the submerged leaves, we share a moment of conversation. I express how much I enjoy skating here.

“I’ve been coming every day since it froze,” he replies. “What else can you do for free?” His question is rhetorical, and I don’t reply “sex.” He’s correct; if you’re not into running or basketball on city courts, finding bodily exhilaration can often come at a cost. But the comparison to the erotic doesn’t escape me: joy for its own sake.

Whenever I skate on a pond, I fear it might be the last time, that the ice will melt away forever, just as I worry my time with my children could be taken by illness. This overlays the enjoyment with a layer of anxiety but simultaneously heightens its value. Gliding on frozen water while the world around us struggles, after my body has betrayed me, feels like an extraordinary gift—to move, smoothly and swiftly, while a hawk glides parallel to the treeline.

What am I preparing my daughter for? What form do I wish to mold her body and behavior into? I am imparting the same lessons to my son: to pay attention to the world around him, to consider the comfort and care of others. I also tell them both to shout stop when someone neglects a polite request, to elevate their voice above the noise when they have a valuable idea. My aspiration for both is to master a delicate balancing act, to remain poised but not unstable on two slender blades: to occupy space while simultaneously creating room for others.

***

At work, a colleague—like me, a middle-aged mom and spouse—shares that she has started playing the violin after years away from it. She mentions joining a local fiddle group. That she plays: for herself, for enjoyment, with others. As we wait for our meeting to commence, I find myself overwhelmed with emotion, and my eyes begin to well up with tears. “Michelle, I’m crying,” I tell her, wiping my eyes, and we both chuckle as our younger coworkers observe, confused.

This is what I want to convey to my daughter as she chases the lead puck with her hockey stick. To skate on the pond purely for yourself, simply to experience the movement, to discover whether you can halt quickly or pivot sharply. To right yourself when you sense a fall looming, to struggle back to your feet after losing balance and falling spectacularly: this constitutes joy.

Look at her, equipped with her stick. Actually, don’t focus on her. Keep your gaze on the ice ahead, on the trees. Sense how you lean forward against the biting winter wind that threatens to drive you back indoors. It won’t. You will skate until the ice transitions back to water.

Miranda Featherstone is a writer and social worker. Her essays on parenting, family, illness, and loss have been featured in the New York Times, The Atlantic, The Yale Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, as well as in newsletters like ParentData and So Many Thoughts. She resides in Rhode Island.

P.S. 21 completely subjective rules for raising teenage girls and boys.

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