Yesterday was Mothers' Day. If you forgot to call your mom, then hurry up and go do it! :)
I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. In my church, we don't have a pastor who gives a sermon every week. Instead, we each take turns speaking. And yesterday it was my turn. They told me it was because I have the most kids, so they wanted to hear what I had to say about motherhood, or raising kids, or something like that.
I'm not totally sure they aren't regretting that choice.
Here is a copy of the talk I gave yesterday. It was easily the most polarizing talk I've ever given. Usually we tend to just talk about things we all agree on: Jesus, praying, reading our scriptures, serving others.
A handful of people loved it, cited specific parts that they agreed with, asked for a copy of it, commended me for my "honesty", and for "just saying it how I see it". But for the most part, the rest of the day most people avoided looking me in the eye. I hope they don't think I'm judging them. But motherhood and parenting? They're
personal. As human beings, we don't like being told that someone thinks we might be doing anything wrong, especially not something as big as this.
So please understand that I'm not judging you, either. I know that we're all just doing our best here. I hope we'll all still be friends after you read this. I feel very strongly about how I parent, and the reasons why I've made my choices. I hope you feel as strongly as I do.
Kate
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I want to start out by saying that if Mother’s Day is a hard day
for you, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make things harder. But when a
mother of six gets asked to speak on Mother’s Day, you’re pretty much
guaranteed a talk on motherhood.
Also, I’m pretty sure I’m going to offend some of you.
Again, I don’t mean to, but we come to church to learn and to grow.
I’d love it if something I say makes you think about your life, and maybe
make some positive changes, but I don’t mean to offend.
With that said,
A friend of mine has a teenager who has been struggling
lately. Bad friends, bad choices, the details aren’t important. The
critical point is that when my friend was telling me about how their child had been
having such a hard time the past few months, what they said was this, “Yeah, it’s
too bad. Aside from that I’d been having a pretty good couple of months.”
This blows my mind. The idea that a parent can recount the
(admittedly self-inflicted) suffering of their son, and then remark that aside
from that they were doing pretty well, just seems impossible to me.
I am saddened by the idea that someone could separate in their mind their
personal well-being from that of their children.
Unfortunately this is the way the world views families today. This
is not, however, how Heavenly Father intended us to see our families. In 2
Nephi we see Lehi’s suffering over the rebelliousness of his sons. He says, “My
heart has been weighed down with sorrow from time to time, for I have feared,
lest for the hardness of your hearts the Lord your God should come out in the
fulness of his wrath upon you, that ye be cut off and destroyed forever;”
As a parent, my children are my life. When I decided to
marry, and then to have children, I decided to forever put myself last, to
forever consider others’ wants and needs before my own. If my child is
working through a particularly difficult challenge, so am I. On the flip
side, if my child is having a particularly successful experience, so am I.
There is no aside from that when it comes to my kids.
Much of our purpose in this life is to learn to become like our
Father in Heaven. We can see in the scriptures that our sorrows are his
sorrows, and our triumphs are his triumphs. He says, “For behold, this is my
work and my glory- to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”
We are his WORK. We are his GLORY. Exactly as our children
should be for us.
When did we start seeing parenthood, (or for today more
specifically motherhood), in terms of what it does for ME, rather than what it
does for my CHILDREN? Motherhood is all about children.
What has happened to motherhood? Everywhere I go, everyone I
meet weighs in on it. They tell me that I have too many children and
exclaim that they’re glad they’re not me. They ask if “they’re all mine”
and follow up with whether I know how to prevent it. In short, they let
me know that they disapprove mightily with my choice to have six children.
Children, and motherhood, easily come in last when compared with almost
anything else in the world. My children are viewed by the casual observer
as hindering my life, as limiting the choices I have available to me.
What a very sad way to view those referred to in Psalms 127:3 as, “an
heritage of the Lord.”
The more times I’ve heard these comments, the more I started to
realize that the younger the person commenting, the more likely they are to
have a negative view of my kids, and of me as their mother.
The (unfortunately rare) times when the comments are positive, are
when the observer is maybe 70 years old or more. Then I am likely to
hear, “Oh, how wonderful, God bless you!” and “Oh, I remember those days!”
So this got me thinking. If a 30 year old thinks my life as
a mother of six is decidedly unenviable, a 50 year old says, “I sure couldn’t do
it, but there were eight of us in my family growing up”, and an 80 year old
sighs wistfully and remembers her own children, exactly what happened here?
I thought it might be interesting to follow the evolution of the
family, and of motherhood, through television. TV imitates life, but it
also drives it, giving us “role models” to follow.
1950s
In the 1950s, men had come home from World War 2, and women
welcomed them home with dinner on the table. The idea that women could be
fulfilled by being a wife and mother was assumed. Mom and apple pie.
Leave it To Beaver was on TV in those days, following the
misadventures of a little boy, who was always under the watchful eye of his
mother. June Cleaver, perfect housewife and wise mother. She was
always there, in her heels and pearls, always respectful of her husband, who
was unquestionably the head of their household.
1960s
The beginning of the 1960s was actually still a lot like post-war
1950s. Mothers were home, and raising their children.
We watched The Donna Reed Show, and The Adventures of Ozzie and
Harriet. Both mothers stayed at home with their kids, and the fathers
were good fathers, worthy of respect.
But the sixties ultimately became the “beginning of the end” of
the glorification of motherhood. Contraception became widespread, and
children were no longer thought of as a blessing, but as simply an option.
1970s
This subtle shift in thinking has ultimately lead to the
unthinkable. Not only are women choosing not to bear children, they are now
able to choose to undo a life they have already created.
In the 1970s Roe vs Wade became law, and children became a choice.
Pregnancy and childbirth are now talked about in terms of what it does to
a woman’s body, instead of focusing on what it can do for a mother’s heart.
A well-known family sitcom from the seventies was All in the
Family. Where is the father, leading his family in righteousness?
Archie Bunker’s character is now infamous for being an outspoken crass
bigot who called his wife Dingbat. Meanwhile, Edith Bunker, ditzy and
long-suffering, “put up with” Archie and his obnoxious ways.
1980s
The eighties were when women began to really try to “have it all”.
They could work outside the home AND have children. They could be
Super Mom. Now that’s a compliment.
The eighties were when the sentiment “it takes a village to raise
a child” took hold. It didn't used to “take a village”. It took a
family. It took a mother and a father, hand in hand, each doing their
part to raise their children, together.
This is my favorite part of the Family Proclamation: “Successful
marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith,
prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome
recreational activities. By divine design, fathers are to preside over their
families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the
necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily
responsible for the nurture of their children.”
But by the eighties? This thinking was already outdated.
There were several “family sitcoms”: Growing Pains, Family Ties,
Cosby Show. Every wife works outside the home, and every husband has
“antics” that the wife sighs over. Gone is the wise and watchful mother
at home, supporting and serving her husband, the head of their family.
Every one of the questionable decisions I made during my teen
years were made during the hour or two I spent at home after school while my
mother was at work. I know not every mother can be home all the time, but
children are meant to be cared for and watched over, not left to
themselves. Supervision nips a lot of
bad decisions in the bud.
1990s
The 90’s saw the complete breakdown and near disappearance of the
family on television. Most shows were glorifying the single life:
Friends, Seinfeld, Frasier, The Drew Carey Show. The one mother on tv was
Murphy Brown. Not only was she a successful working mother, but a single
mother as well. Now women could supposedly have it all, and they could do
it without the help of a man too. The message of the world was that being
single was where it’s at, and if you want children, you can have them whenever
it’s convenient regardless of your marital status.
This is definitely contrary to what our church leaders have
counseled us. In the 2012 October General Conference, Dallin H. Oaks said, “Children need the emotional and personal strength that come from being
raised by two parents who are united in their marriage and their goals. As
one who was raised by a widowed mother, I know firsthand that this cannot
always be achieved, but it is the ideal to be sought whenever possible.”
2000s
Today the “family” is being completely redefined. If you
think it should be one man and one woman in a marriage, you are closed-minded
and old-fashioned.
There has been more change to the family unit, and to the roles of
each family member in the last 50 years than in the 2000 before that.
Mothers have worked from inside their homes forever - taking in laundry
or mending, running an inn that IS their home. Single women have worked
outside the home, but mothers have traditionally been home with their children.
If we are not careful, if we have been listening too much to the
messages we are hearing today, it can be very hard to “find nobility in
motherhood,” as in the Relief Society theme. It can be hard to give
yourself to your family, to your children, and not feel that you are “giving
up” too much in return. It can be hard to not feel “less than” because
you are “only” a mother.
When you choose your children instead of yourself, you can’t keep
score. You have to give up the idea that because you do this, you
deserve that. You have to give up your selfish desires, and not
look back. You have to give up your desire for recognition, because
heaven knows your kids won’t be giving you any awards. You have to give
up your desire for accomplishment, because there are no annual reviews or
report cards when it comes to raising kids. Even the finish line is
pretty fuzzy. You have to sacrifice the old you for the new you.
Motherhood is a kind of refiner’s fire. You walk into the
inferno, giving your life as you know it to your children, and you come out a
new person. A better person. A more selfless, loving, Christ-like
person. Let it burn away the selfishness, and the bitterness. Let
it burn away the frustration that the laundry and the dishes are never done.
Let It burn away the desire for recognition. Let it burn away the idea
that the grass is greener somewhere else.
I’m not saying we all need to put on our high heels and pearls and
wash the kids’ faces to get ready for our husbands to come home from work. What
I am saying is that we need to be very careful what we let the world tell us
about motherhood. Rare is the time when our modern world and the
scriptures agree on this subject. If our goal is to become more
Christlike, then let’s make Christ our example. He spent his life in
service. He lovingly dedicated his time to helping others.
Does that mean we have to work ourselves to death and neglect our
own health? No. Even Christ got away to the mountains to be alone
now and then. But his life was spent in service. And not
grudgingly. Joyfully. Let’s be a force for good in the world today, let’s
be an example of our Heavenly Father’s love, as we selflessly, obviously,
lovingly value our children and the blessing that they are, and make choices
that reflect their value.
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