Always a Mother

Is it the case that once you become a mother it becomes your absolute default position? You're a mother. Full stop. Period.

What set me wondering was reading two books, one immediately after the other, where there was a minor but significant character who was a mother, and in both books it was that character who sang to me, whose emotions I experienced, whose values mirrored my own. For whom I cried. 

Is this because I'm a mother? Did becoming a mother change who I am so fundamentally? Of course it did. But did it also blot out all else? 

Notions of identity fascinate me. I am a mother. Will that be the case for ever? What happens when my children move away and form their own lives? Will it still be my primary identity? Right now I feel it will be. It seems so immense so important. Is this normal? What is normal? (Ha!) 

How do other mothers feel?