Another Kind of Motherhood: Reflections on the Occasion of Mother’s Day

Another Kind of Motherhood: Reflections on the Occasion of Mother’s Day by Diana du Pont

This Mother’s Day I will not receive a Hallmark card, a dozen roses, or a box of Shari’s Berries. Not because I am estranged from my children, or they met some tragic fate before their time. Rather, it is because my children have four legs and fur.

Having been cradled in the arms of a troubled mother who repeatedly lamented, “All I have are kids, kids, kids!” and then marinated in the battle cries of second-wave feminism that valued career over children, I had never thought of myself as maternal. When I was a young girl, lost in those daydreamy moments of childhood in which I would imagine my future incarnation, I could not fathom becoming a mother. And, as a young woman, I never noticed the ticking of my biological clock. It was not that I felt it and then ignored it, I simply never experienced it.

Unlike my mother who married and started a family too young, seemingly the root cause of her ever-present regrets and destructive drinking, I delayed marriage until my mid-thirties after having focused on furthering my education and establishing my career, all while never entertaining the notion of a family. By then, I had become a die-hard careerist and grinding workaholic, having flipped my mother’s desperate alcoholism into another form of addiction that was socially acceptable.

In time, I was offered a new post in a new town known for its rich equestrian legacy. Magically nestled between the mountains and the sea, Santa Barbara still featured an active equine community in spite of the relentless pressures of growth, an important quality-of-life factor in my having accepted the position of curator of modern and contemporary art at the city’s main art museum. If I did not know precisely when, I knew that somehow, someday, here in this equine haven, I would return to the wonderful world of horses (and dogs) that had defined my childhood. I can do this! I thought, I can finally make life with horses work while still pursuing career success full tilt.

For, despite being a vicious and sometimes cruel alcoholic, who in her love-hate for me wanted me to do well just not better than her, my mother performed an act of grace among the ruins. She encouraged my love of animals, creating an emotional bond between mother and daughter that was always genuine when most everything else we shared during my young years constituted a childhood wasteland.

In my first year at the new job, as I drove to and from work daily on the still-rustic backroads of Santa Barbara, I was regularly reminded and routinely exhilarated at seeing how locals easily accommodated horses in their semi-rural backyards. Longing to recreate that one truly happy refuge of childhood where I had sought solace and felt safe, I talked myself into having a horse of my own again sooner rather than later.

My husband, Gary, who lived and worked in Los Angeles as an entertainment lawyer during the week and visited home in Santa Barbara on the weekends, agreed wholeheartedly to the plan. For Gary, the crucial point about me having and caring for a horse and eventually a dog was that he knew I desperately needed a change.

He was an intimate witness to how my life had become alarmingly akilter through my evolution over the years into a perfectionistic workaholic. As I became hostage to my attendant high expectations by degrees, he became increasingly concerned as my joys of daily living and the pleasures of my personal passions slipped away, and with them, my feelings of inner calm and well-being. One too many times, he saw me turn into a twisted pretzel following moments of professional success. After powering through and crossing some job-related finish line, I often lay on the couch or in the bed holding a crinkling ice pack to my temple, with flashing lights accompanying the pulsating throb of an excruciating migraine, a chronic ailment suffered since childhood. I would always rise to the occasion but then pay a price.

When we made our first foray into looking for a horse, Gary seized the moment with a directness suited to his fast-paced and highly competitive trade in Hollywood. Standing in a barn aisle, horses heads peeking over their stall doors, alert and curious to learn what we were up to, he said, both in jest and all seriousness, to the trainer-seller with whom we were discussing prospects, “Find her the most complicated and challenging horse you can, a real firebreather!” He was intent on helping me waste no time in establishing a better life-work balance, and upon noticing that I was more interested in a young, still-green racehorse fresh off the track than in the older, more sedate, and fully trained “pushbutton horse” we had come to evaluate, he steered me toward the more difficult mount, encouraging me to believe that, as a seasoned rider, I would learn how to train him along the way. “Don’t’ be afraid! Don’t doubt yourself!”

After an at-home trial, I signed the adoption papers for this rambunctious off-track Thoroughbred nicknamed Blackie. Unbeknownst to me then, this legal act signified a delivery of a different kind of baby, a gargantuan, half-ton bundle of joy that could not be cuddled in my arms. Blackie’s adoption was eventually followed by that of a loveable rescue dog, a Black Lab mix named Shadow who was saved with ninety minutes to spare from the horror of premature euthanasia.

In meeting the trials presented by Blackie—from his fractious meltdowns on the open trail that, fortunately, left me in the dust only a couple of hair-raising times to his pre-competition tremors in the warm-up arena that made it seem as if I were riding a knife’s edge—I slowly gained his trust and, in turn, he ignited in me a latent maternal instinct. With patience, love, and the understanding that, no matter what, I would never approach him as a project with a deadline, I developed a profound connection with this sensitive steed, earning his confidence, securing his reliance, and building a rapport that exemplified the undeniable power of the human-animal bond.

Mild compared to Blackie, Shadow trusted me and the new environs I provided from the get-go, never questioning my instructions and ever willing to demonstrate that kind of love and loyalty that only reinforced how natural, if surprising, my personal transformation from Type-A professional to doting pet parent felt. Exemplifying the ultimate Velcro dog, Shadow’s favorite spot was always at my feet, sleeping curled up under the antique wooden home desk I had exchanged for the synthetic built-in of my museum office when I finally decided to leave the institutional cocoon to work freelance in order to deepen the relationship with my fur babies.

Together, these four-leggeds teased something from within me I had never experienced, something I had believed I was incapable of appreciating given my mother who made Joan Crawford of Mommie Dearest fame (1981) seem downright warmhearted. Progressively consumed by the abiding need to love and care for these two innocent beings, I slowly discovered the joys of motherhood. Although beyond my natural childbearing years at this juncture, I nurtured, guided, and protected them to the point that I saw them more like children than companion animals. They were not a trial run for the real thing, a preamble to my having a human baby through artificial means, but living, breathing souls, inherently complete and inviolable—setting the stage for another kind of motherhood.

Even as Gary and I uprooted our lives and moved halfway across America, from our beloved California to the Midwest, I continued to embrace the motherly love that was flowering inside me. Living in the American heartland, where family is openly celebrated, I learned that there was no mistaking I was another kind of mother. Embarking on a new life in parts unknown strengthened my already deep sense of marital love, too, helping me to understand, for the first time ever, that I was a central character in a nuclear unit. We were a family, and Blackie and Shadow were the children we were meant to have.

By coming to love Blackie and Shadow as my own, I found my best life. Rather than responding reflexively to the sometimes narrow, narcissistic demands of workplace “achievement culture,” I realized that I no longer needed external proof of internal value. The type of success I wanted to cultivate instead became grounded in that humanizing feeling that comes from taking care of and serving another. “For it is in the giving that we receive.” Through adopting these animals in need and providing them forever homes, filled with love and nurture, I learned this fundamental truth.

In receiving the only kinds of gifts possible from our beloved animals this Mother’s Day, like a horse’s welcoming nicker, a dog’s gentle paw to the lap, or a cat’s resonant purring at a loving cuddle, let us remind ourselves of the blessings of being a fur mama. Yet, on this special occasion, whether you only have furry four-leggeds as family members or you have expanded your traditional family to embrace them, let’s celebrate and honor mothers of all stripes.

[Based on the newly released memoir, Fur Mama: How I Found My Best Life Adopting an Ex-Racehorse and a Shelter Dog, by Diana du Pont (Four-in-Hand Press, an imprint of Trafalgar Square Press, a member of The Stable Book Group, 2026)]

Diana du Pont has thirty years combined experience as an art curator and writer. She has written dozens of museum catalogues and many published books, including IPPY, College Art Association, and Art Directors Club Award-winners. Dedicated to the ethical and humane treatment of all animals, she is a fervent believer in animal adoption and rescue. She lives on a working field and flower farm outside Columbia City, Indiana (dianadupont.com).

Copyright Diana du Pont 2026. All photos courtesy of Diana du Pont.

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