Motherhood

When Tennie was about six months old we had just returned from living in Southern Mexico for three months and were into Geoff’s second year of graduate school in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His sister Nikki was at Yale, and on the field hockey team. Yale was playing Boston College in Boston so we went to cheer on the Bulldogs. Geoff’s mom and his sister Ingrid were also in town and going to the game. It was a perfect fall afternoon outing. Despite our grown-up anticipation Tennie fell asleep in the car on the way to the game. She would be happier with a nap so I volunteered to stay in the car until she woke up. An hour later I found a distant spot on the bleachers to nurse her, as the cheering crowd would distract her from eating. As I sat there away from the fun I was feeling particularly sorry for myself. I was wrestling with the necessary sacrifice of self that every mother must face with the birth of her first (and in my case, each) baby. I could hear the crowd cheering. I could hear Geoff and his family yelling, “Go Nikki! Nice hustle! Way to go! Go #4!” I thought to myself, “Enjoy your glory days Nikki, because one day no one will be looking in your windows yelling, ‘nice hustle’ even though you’ll be giving more of yourself than ever before.” Tears were streaming down my face. And then clear and distinct words came into my mind, “He who seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. This kind of glory is temporary, but yours will be eternal.” I knew then that I had a Father in Heaven who was looking in my windows. He knew the stretching I was feeling, and personal sacrifice I was giving. He cared about this little baby and sent her into my care despite my weaknesses and feelings of inadequacy. He was communicating his gratitude that I was willing to be a mother. Motherhood changed for me after that.

A friend’s mom, Linda Eyre, writes wonderful parenting and mothering books. A title of one of her books always makes me smile after a long day. It’s called I Didn’t Plan to be a Witch and Other Motherhood Surprises. There have been many challenges and surprises in my children that weren’t a part of those perfect images I imagined of motherhood as a young woman, and there have been unpleasant qualities in myself that have surfaced in mothering that I wish would have stayed in their dark closets. I also didn’t anticipate post-partum depression, food intolerance to almost all the foods we ate regularly, a husband whose job took him around the world leaving me primarily on my own from the first weeks of my babies births, and more recently a husband’s health failure that left us living on savings, moving to another country to recover in peace, and living a life with all of our trust in a loving God. Yes, motherhood is full of surprises.

When we lived in Mexico we spent a week at a resort where guests shared meal tables with other guests. We met an American couple who raised four boys. The mother of these boys expressed her dissatisfaction with motherhood. She complained that it was a total waste of time; you give all of yourself to your children and they give nothing in return. I sat there with my small baby marveling at her attitude, and after some time pondering about her words I concluded that we are left with one thing, even if our children “move on” in their own lives. That one thing is charity. I don’t mean good deeds or acts of service. I’m talking about when a mother gives her mind (thoughts), might (desires and energy) and strength (physical capacity) to the nurturing of her children, she develops, over time, a genuine motivation to wholly give of herself to the welfare of others. In the Book of Mormon the prophet Ether records, “…thou hast loved the world (speaking to the Savior), even unto the laying down of thy life for the world…this love…is charity”. You could easily apply this by saying “…thou hast loved your children, even unto the laying down of thy life for them…this love…is charity”. And as I mentioned before, Heaven knows we are laying down our lives as mothers. In the process of mothering, however, the beautiful motivation to action called charity, the pure love of Christ, seems elusive at times. I once heard a Mother’s Day talk at church where charity as described in Moroni and Corinthians was replaced by Mother:

Mother suffereth long,
Mother is kind,
Mother envieth not,
Mother is not puffed up,
Mother seeketh not her own,
Mother is not easily provoked,
Mother thinketh no evil,
Mother rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth,
Mother beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Here is this beautiful picture of a perfect mother as a standard we hope to become and yet in the process we’re face to face with our personal short-comings. But, I can’t help but believe that the very act of waking up and being willing to take on another day of potential unpleasentries is what qualifies us to feel the small moments of perfect JOY in our mothering…joy that is reserved for those who are, day by day, developing charity; or a willingness to lay aside “self”.

Why am I writing all of this? A few weeks ago when working at my dad’s conference one of my dad’s employees, knowing I was a Mother, tried to pay me a compliment by saying, “Why are you wasting your skills as a mother?!” I assured him that being a Mother was the best use of my skills (thank you very much!) I am dispensable in any other role! So I’m writing this because I want my girls to grow up knowing that I feel that being their mom is the greatest privilege I’ll ever have (besides being Geoff’s wife, of course!) I want them to know that as I strive to make them better people I am becoming MUCH better than I could have been without them. And, I want them to know that choosing to be a Mother during my “productive years” is the best choice I’ve made, hands down. I hope they’ll make the same choice one day…doesn’t every mom want her children to grow up and feel JOY?