(used with permission from The Family Man.)
I’ve done a tribute to my mom before on this blog, so for Mother’s Day this year, I want to yammer on about what it’s like being a mom.
Being a mom for the first time is a shock to the system. You lose your life, basically. As the Bible says, those who lose their lives will find it, so it’s an amazingly good process. In order to be a good mother, you need to take care of yourself. However, your needs pre-kids looks like a luxury car. After a baby, your needs are look kind of like a luxury car that has just been stripped down in a bad neighborhood and sitting on blocks. Your “needs” are redefined.
Being a mom is often lonely. I’m fortunate that I’m married to my best friend. I don’t think I could survive otherwise. Getting together with friends is limited. Even if you can manage a play date, your child may start throwing a tantrum the moment you arrive. You stay home from church whenever one of your kids are sick. Sick kids don’t want Daddy. They need Mommy. If a sickness runs through your family, it could be a month before you get to go to church, or have any adult contact except snippets of phone conversations and your husband.
Not only do you have a tough time getting together with friends, you constantly feel judged by friends and relatives. Pretty much because they all seem to have an idea of how you should be parenting, and even though you don’t, you have to pretend that you do or it comes down even harder. Mothers these days are expected to be well versed in the latest research on everything.
You need the confidence to back your choices, and the patience to answer every piece of advice given with good intentions with grace. All of this when you haven’t slept or had a warm meal in weeks…or months. I’ve found that praying for humility helps in offering grace to those who offer advice. I do my best to try to actually consider and listen to what they’re saying, and then genuinely thank them for their heart to help me. Then I do what I think is best. It’s taken me 4 kids to get there. When it was my first, I remember how an eye roll from an older woman on “O…it’s her first…” would throw me into an inner rage. Learning to offer grace is so hard.
Only now I’m the older mother who looks at women having their first and rolling my eyes and saying “O…it’s their first…she’ll learn.” So much for the humility there.
Which leads to mom-guilt. The guilt that is not from God but from the silly expectations that we put on ourselves. We think that we have to control everything, because, well, no one else will.
Perhaps we get this idea from that lonliness factor. I mutter under my breath so many times “no one else is going to do it…” I could walk past a piece of trash on my floor 65 times in my house, and no one will pick it up. I have the choice of either picking up the piece of trash, or spend the time training one of my children to do it themselves.
“Did you drop that scrap of paper?”
“Yes.”
“Why is it still there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going to throw it away.”
“Maybe.”
“Please throw it away.”
“Okay…” as the child wanders off.
“Now. Throw it away now.”
“BUT I DON’T WANT TO!”
“It doesn’t matter. You put it there, you put it away.”
“I’m too tired.”
“You don’t know the meaning of tired.”
[insert long and lengthy discussion of obeying when we don’t want to and listening the first time which may include various kinds of discipline, and perhaps several minutes in time outs.]
Scrap of trash gets picked up.
Now, wouldn’t it just be easier for me to pick up the trash? Yep. I do often, if I’m too tired for a battle. Sometimes my kids give no battle at all, and those days are really nice. My job isn’t just keeping the house clean, though. My job is child training, and it can be exhausting. I just described part of the worst case scenario, and I have discovered that the nicer I ask, the more likely they’ll do it.
I’m also beginning to see more and more how worth it it all is.
I can walk past a thousand little jobs around my house and grumble “I guess I’ll do it, no one else will. In fact no one else cares.” and mope. I do that all too often. I really don’t want to be one of those mothers who thrives on being a martyr. I’m learning that the trick to that is to find joy in my children, even when it isn’t fun. To find joy independent of the situation I hope will be good training for when my kids are older. I don’t want to be dependent on them for my joy. I don’t want to burden them with that responsibility of making me happy. It’s not anymore their job to make me happy as it’s my job to make them happy. Happiness is a personal choice, and should rely on no one. However, it’s my job to try to teach them this fact. Not only do I have to model it, but I need to talk to them about it, and I need to pray for them.
It’s so worth it. I feel like my heart is going to explode from joy some days. I relish in the fact that Solveig just loves to snuggle me. I love her seeing her whole body leap when she hears Knut’s voice and she strains to see him. I love brushing Silje’s hair, and having deep conversations in the car. (This last week in the car, she asked me about why we have taxes. She’s saving up her allowance and trying to buy herself little trinkets and is learning about sales tax.)
I love watching my kids dig in the garden for worms and then spend the afternoon having worm races on the driveway. (A worm named “Worma” seems to be the fastest, I hear.) I love the intensity in which David builds a plane with his Legos. I love when they paint me a picture. I love that when they discover something new they love to run to me to tell me. I love that Elias likes me to sing him “the family song” before he goes to sleep so he can hear all the names of everyone in his family before he shuts his eyes.
I’ve learned to love when a baby gets up at night, because that’s when I get to adore them without interruption. I’ve learned that it’s good to be the one to change a diaper, because then I get to take a few minutes to kiss their toes while they’re laying down, and make them giggle.
These children share their dreams with me. I get to watch them discover everything for the first time. What a privilege! Can you think of a higher honor?
I always come back to the verse that I was assigned to write a paper on in Bible school about motherhood. It was 1 Timothy 2:15: “But women will be saved through childbearing–if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.” Doesn’t that look like an awful verse to write a paper on? Where do I even begin to describe everything that I feel is “wrong” with this verse that was inspired by God. The only thing I had ever heard as far as interpretation of this verse was “Women are saved through grace, just like men.” While that is true, it’s not what the verse appears to say.
I hate it when I’m looking at a verse and ask someone what it means, they tell me what it doesn’t mean. I’ll start out by saying I found out this verse doesn’t mean that women go to heaven by having babies. I don’t even think this is addressing women who can’t have children or do not yet have children. However, what does it mean?
Having a child makes you re-prioritize your life. It makes you care about things you didn’t think of before, and find that some things you held so dear were kind of dumb. That re-centering of what is important is from God. It’s a gift from him.
I think it’s a comforting promise to those of us who do have children, or look forward to having children. I was only allowed to use a Bible dictionary, exhaustive concordance, and the rest of the Bible to search for the answer, and after going along that journey, this verse has become such a comfort to me as a mother.
Just like in the garden of Eden, when God gave as “punishment” to men that they will toil the fields and eat by the sweat of their brow. Still, I see a sense of satisfaction in my husband working the fields. His blood is in that dirt, both figuratively, and probably literally. God told woman that she will have pain in childbearing. Still with that, there’s a promise that God gives with that “punishment.” God would use childbearing to refine us. Children do not allow us to focus on ourselves, on our beauty, or our desires.
The word for “save” in this verse in Greek is not the same “save” context as salvation from Hell as we normally associate that word. Look at the context of that verse. It’s surrounded by verses on where women should have their hearts. It’s talking about all the distractions that women can be lured by. God doesn’t want us to look back on our lives and think “Well, at least my hair looked awesome.” We won’t find satisfaction in that.
God knows our hearts and knows we’re deeper than that. He knows that looking good will never be enough to fulfill us. He knows that no matter how good we look, we will still find fault in ourselves. We still won’t believe it. Our beauty will be found in the investment of our children. “Her children rise up and call her blessed.” the proverbs say.
So when my house is a mess, and one of my children thinks that a freshly painted wall is really a blank canvas for coloring, and I haven’t showered in days and I wonder if anyone cares that I want to just sit in my sewing room and blast some soul music. When I am exhausted and wonder if anyone cares, this verse comes back to mind that says “It will be worth it. You won’t regret it. That’s a promise.”
I think that it’s closely connected to the verse in Galatians 6:9-10: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest, if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”
This is not a works based gospel. God has freed us from a life of endless trying. He has replaced it with a life of promise, a life of trust, and a life of faith. The joy is there for the taking.
Mom says
May 8, 2011 at 2:36 pmWow, Gretchen. What a precious post! Thanks for this wonderful Mother’s Day gift! You are right when you say, “Our beauty will be found in the investment of our children.” Suddenly I feel very beautiful when I think of what a beautiful woman you have become.
Parenting isn’t for cowards, as Dr. Dobson says. Thanks for beautifully describing the struggles,hopes, dreams and joys of all mothers. I love you so much!
Anonymous says
May 8, 2011 at 6:23 pmYour mom must be so honored by how you mother your own children! Some of my kids are grown and they now appreciate how much of my time I gave them and how they were raised. It is so worth it. The teenagers still aren’t so sure! Love your blog. Happy Mother’s Day
Cheryl says
May 9, 2011 at 7:31 amGretchen, I hear so much of myself in your post – myself about 20 years ago! And from my vantage point now, I can assure you, and say with you that YES! It is absolutely worth it! God’s blessings on a job that sometimes seems thankless now, but which will reap a harvest for as many generations that will exist until He returns for His children!
In Him,
Cheryl O.