For some few months now, I've been feeling this strong impulse to write about my feelings on motherhood. I've put it off for reasons I can't really define or even understand; maybe the main one being the inadequacy I feel to try to write about something so divinely important and yet so polarizing for so many people.
I understand the mixed emotions that the topic of motherhood can stir up. I have friends--many of them--who have any number of extenuating circumstances that make the topic of motherhood particularly painful; friends who can't have children, friends who have not yet married, friends who don't see themselves ever being able to marry for various reasons. My heart truly aches for each and every one of these dear wonderful women who so desperately desire to fill this role and yet, for whatever reasons, seem to be denied the opportunity.
I also see those of my friends (and I for sure am included in this group) who have been blessed with children, but who also acknowledge the overwhelming impossibility of fulfilling perfectly the calling of motherhood in this life. There is no possible way we mothers can be everything that is demanded of us at every moment in every way, and so we get overwhelmed, frustrated, embarrassed--I, for one, often feel inadequate.
Let's be honest, here--it's not possible to listen attentively to every single 20-minute unintelligible story (especially because each story is usually told at the same time as some other child's story), frame every single piece of unidentifiable artwork, throw Pinterest parties for every anniversary/birthday/random holiday/milestone, cook three well-balanced meals a day (plus snacks! Organic, of course!), keep our children safe from every possible threat (emotional or physical) while still allowing them to take enough risks and have enough failures to grow up with resilience, and keep a house clean enough to pass Mary Poppins' white-glove test, all while volunteering at the local school, library, and church, and providing therapist-approved guidance to our little navigators as they address various social, emotional, spiritual, and physical issues.
We all laugh at this ridiculous list I've concocted, because we intellectually know that no one expects that of us mothers. We all know that motherhood is messy, unpredictable, and full of wonderful failures every single day.
And yet, I don't know that I'm actually able to believe it. Somehow, more often than not, even when I am taking the time to do something that I know a "good mom" would do, I still have that doubt in my mind--"I should be...." and, well, you know the rest. Fill in the blank.
I've discussed this before, and you all know the struggle--the struggle to fight against so many, MANY well-meaning voices that tell you exactly what to feed your children and what to clothe them in and what to teach them and how to raise them....we are surrounded, inundated, saturated with voices that tell us how to mother.
But in all those voices, there are very few that tell us why we mother.
We mother--we are mothers (even those of us who have not yet born children and who maybe won't in this lifetime) because that is our DIVINE NATURE.
It is a part of who we are--a part of who we always have been.
We were created by an infinitely creative Being--a Heavenly Father, who has all power and all capability and all EVERYTHING--and who, above all other descriptive words and titles, still chooses to be called "Father."
And guess what? He didn't create us alone.
We have a Heavenly Mother. We don't know much about her, but we DO know that she is real and that Her partnership with Heavenly Father is perfect--everything that a happy, equally-yoked Celestial marriage strives to become.
So when I say that I have been feeling moved to write on the topic of motherhood, this is the topic I have felt strongly about lately.
How grateful when I am reminded (especially in this most recent Women's Session of General Conference) that motherhood is a divine calling. Sometimes we focus so much on talks that are about fulfilling your callings that we forget that the most important calling we can fulfill has nothing to do with handouts or centerpieces and everything about our home and the people who live in it. And when I read those talks, the most important principle that stands out to me is the one that we are not expected to fulfill any calling--especially this most important one--alone.
Because knowing that I am a child of God means that each of my children is one, too. So He kind of has a vested interest in making sure that the very best teaching and parenting and love is given to them--and when I ask Him for help, He always, always gives it to me.
Sometimes that help comes in the moment when I want to yell and decide to count to ten (and then ten again, and then ten again) instead.
Sometimes that help comes in the moment when I feel the Spirit telling me to go check on that child when things are a little too quiet.
Sometimes that help comes when I have had a rough night with a teething baby and yet somehow I am given the strength to get my school-aged children off with a smile and a prayer when all I want to do is cry.
Sometimes that help is given after I've failed spectacularly--because, let's be honest, no other role gives as many opportunities to fail spectacularly as motherhood (okay, well, fatherhood, too, I guess)--and yet I am given the knowledge that repentance is real and that, oh yeah, the Atonement applies to this, too.
Sometimes that help is given in the sweet moments when I feel the Spirit whisper to me that this is the most important thing I could possibly be doing with my life right now.
I know I often post and joke about the hard parts about being a mom...because, let's be honest, sometimes the choice is to either laugh or cry about what we moms deal with (SO much poop!! Really, though....), and I usually choose to laugh when I describe the realities of being a mother.
But today--right now--it is nice to just fully immerse myself in the absolute divinity of what I do, in and out, all day, every single day.
I am a mother.
And how eternally grateful I am for that truth.
I understand the mixed emotions that the topic of motherhood can stir up. I have friends--many of them--who have any number of extenuating circumstances that make the topic of motherhood particularly painful; friends who can't have children, friends who have not yet married, friends who don't see themselves ever being able to marry for various reasons. My heart truly aches for each and every one of these dear wonderful women who so desperately desire to fill this role and yet, for whatever reasons, seem to be denied the opportunity.
I also see those of my friends (and I for sure am included in this group) who have been blessed with children, but who also acknowledge the overwhelming impossibility of fulfilling perfectly the calling of motherhood in this life. There is no possible way we mothers can be everything that is demanded of us at every moment in every way, and so we get overwhelmed, frustrated, embarrassed--I, for one, often feel inadequate.
Let's be honest, here--it's not possible to listen attentively to every single 20-minute unintelligible story (especially because each story is usually told at the same time as some other child's story), frame every single piece of unidentifiable artwork, throw Pinterest parties for every anniversary/birthday/random holiday/milestone, cook three well-balanced meals a day (plus snacks! Organic, of course!), keep our children safe from every possible threat (emotional or physical) while still allowing them to take enough risks and have enough failures to grow up with resilience, and keep a house clean enough to pass Mary Poppins' white-glove test, all while volunteering at the local school, library, and church, and providing therapist-approved guidance to our little navigators as they address various social, emotional, spiritual, and physical issues.
We all laugh at this ridiculous list I've concocted, because we intellectually know that no one expects that of us mothers. We all know that motherhood is messy, unpredictable, and full of wonderful failures every single day.
And yet, I don't know that I'm actually able to believe it. Somehow, more often than not, even when I am taking the time to do something that I know a "good mom" would do, I still have that doubt in my mind--"I should be...." and, well, you know the rest. Fill in the blank.
I've discussed this before, and you all know the struggle--the struggle to fight against so many, MANY well-meaning voices that tell you exactly what to feed your children and what to clothe them in and what to teach them and how to raise them....we are surrounded, inundated, saturated with voices that tell us how to mother.
But in all those voices, there are very few that tell us why we mother.
We mother--we are mothers (even those of us who have not yet born children and who maybe won't in this lifetime) because that is our DIVINE NATURE.
It is a part of who we are--a part of who we always have been.
We were created by an infinitely creative Being--a Heavenly Father, who has all power and all capability and all EVERYTHING--and who, above all other descriptive words and titles, still chooses to be called "Father."
And guess what? He didn't create us alone.
We have a Heavenly Mother. We don't know much about her, but we DO know that she is real and that Her partnership with Heavenly Father is perfect--everything that a happy, equally-yoked Celestial marriage strives to become.
So when I say that I have been feeling moved to write on the topic of motherhood, this is the topic I have felt strongly about lately.
How grateful when I am reminded (especially in this most recent Women's Session of General Conference) that motherhood is a divine calling. Sometimes we focus so much on talks that are about fulfilling your callings that we forget that the most important calling we can fulfill has nothing to do with handouts or centerpieces and everything about our home and the people who live in it. And when I read those talks, the most important principle that stands out to me is the one that we are not expected to fulfill any calling--especially this most important one--alone.
Because knowing that I am a child of God means that each of my children is one, too. So He kind of has a vested interest in making sure that the very best teaching and parenting and love is given to them--and when I ask Him for help, He always, always gives it to me.
Sometimes that help comes in the moment when I want to yell and decide to count to ten (and then ten again, and then ten again) instead.
Sometimes that help comes in the moment when I feel the Spirit telling me to go check on that child when things are a little too quiet.
Sometimes that help comes when I have had a rough night with a teething baby and yet somehow I am given the strength to get my school-aged children off with a smile and a prayer when all I want to do is cry.
Sometimes that help is given after I've failed spectacularly--because, let's be honest, no other role gives as many opportunities to fail spectacularly as motherhood (okay, well, fatherhood, too, I guess)--and yet I am given the knowledge that repentance is real and that, oh yeah, the Atonement applies to this, too.
Sometimes that help is given in the sweet moments when I feel the Spirit whisper to me that this is the most important thing I could possibly be doing with my life right now.
I know I often post and joke about the hard parts about being a mom...because, let's be honest, sometimes the choice is to either laugh or cry about what we moms deal with (SO much poop!! Really, though....), and I usually choose to laugh when I describe the realities of being a mother.
But today--right now--it is nice to just fully immerse myself in the absolute divinity of what I do, in and out, all day, every single day.
I am a mother.
And how eternally grateful I am for that truth.
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