Mama Flamingo story

Mama Flamingo story

About a year ago when I was so confused, perplexed and lost in trying to figure out who I am as a mom, wife and a person, I came across this blog about a mama flamingo. Here’s the story: 

Flamingos produce something called crop milk, which is a collection of protein and fat-rich cells that come from the bird’s digestive tract and use it to keep their young full and satisfied. Adult flamingos will regurgitate the crop milk, then slide it down into their offspring’s open beak for them to devour. 

This crop milk comes out blood red, and it looks precisely like one of the flamingos has been cut open and is feeding its blood to its chick. It’s full of the nutrients a young flamingo needs to grow up big and strong while also coming in a form a chick can handle.

For about the first two months of a baby flamingo’s life, its beak is not formed enough to the point where it can eat food on its own. They need their parents to provide and produce that food for them, and it can’t be bits of shrimp or algae or other typical staples of the flamingo diet. It needs to be something they can drink down without a fully formed beak.

The female flamingo turns white in this process of raising her chick but eventually turn back to pink when the babies are growing and learning their ways,

What is the point of the story? 

As a mom/ parent we sacrifice a lot for our children, newborn phase, sleep deprived or no sleep at all, too busy to take care of yourself, even showering is hard, postpartum phase and losing that confidence you once had and losing self completely in the process.  No longer have that energy, the strength, not to mention the foggy brain. All this is part of us as a mom, we lose our strength and confidence but like the flamingo mama, one day we will get our pink back and its way better than who we were before.