Motherhood

While I was at Education Week at BYU-Idaho, I was able to attend a class called Handling the “Mother Load.”  Motherhood is something that I ponder and think about every. single. day.  The class left me inspired about what it meant to be a “good” mother and gave me hope. Hope that maybe, just maybe, I was doing an “OK” job after all. That maybe, in spite of my faults and weaknesses, my kids were going to turn out all right.

Being a mom is something that I have struggled with from the very beginning. Not because I didn’t love it and because it wasn’t what I wanted. I struggled because I DID love it and it WAS everything I wanted it to be – but I suddenly didn’t feel ready or prepared for the HUGE responsibility of raising my children. I remember being in the hospital in the early hours of the morning when Carson was only a few hours old and being overcome with the fear that I wasn’t going to be able to teach him everything he needed to know.

How could I possibly teach him everything he needed to know?

Suddenly, the only thing that was perfectly clear to me was just how imperfect I was. As a mother and as a woman, I was quick to find my flaws and almost always had this nagging in the back of my mind that I wasn’t going to be good enough or do enough. Time passes so quickly when you have little kids and with every passing month I thought about all the ways I hadn’t done everything that I wished I could do and I hadn’t taught him the things I wanted to teach him yet.

It will all get easier when I stay at home with him. That’s what I kept telling myself, over and over and over. I mean, everyone else was so quick to point out that I should be at home and not working. Never mind my own inner struggle every day as I dropped him off at daycare or my own countdown to staying home. Never mind my own feelings of being a horrible mom for having to work instead of being at home with my baby. Thank you, “supporters”, for judging me and my situation and assuming you knew better than I did about my own family. Thank you for making me feel even less of a mother than I already did.

Then it finally happened – I got to stay home! I had all these grand plans of everything we were going to do and everything I was going to teach my son. It started off really well….. but then I was in my third trimester of being pregnant and starting to get more and more tired. Housework and chores started filling up more and more of my time. Practicing living on a VERY tight income meant lots more time spent in the kitchen making pretty much everything from scratch (which is fine because I like it, but kinda cuts in to the kiddo time). Then came Brooklyn. Oh, Brooklyn. Love you, girlie, but you are kinda a hard little munchkin. Suddenly my days became all about surviving, not about teaching and learning and playing and serving. We are lucky some days if we make it out of our PJs!

Anyways, it seems like almost every night I would go to bed and vow to be a better mom the next day. Tomorrow we will actually sit down and do a craft or learn something. Tomorrow we will read more than just one or two books. Tomorrow I will have more patience. Tomorrow will be better……

Then I was able to attend Education Week and a few classes on Motherhood. I was also able to teach about Motherhood for several weeks in YW. Throughout the month of August it seemed like everywhere I turned I was being surrounded by encouragement about Motherhood. It was uplifting and inspiring. I realized I don’t have to be perfect to be a good mom. I just need to love my kids and do the best I can. Yes, I am always looking for ways to improve and for things to help my kids learn. However, it doesn’t have to be all at once and it doesn’t have to be everyday. Through the guidance of the Spirit and strength from Christ and a loving Father in Heaven, I will be able to teach my kids. The key is just trying to be better and making sure I have the Spirit present in my life.

I love Jeffrey R. Holland. He was a way of speaking straight to my heart, and his love for mothers and motherhood can be felt in so much of what he says. In his talk called, "Because She is a Mother," he said the following:

"In speaking of mothers generally, I especially wish to praise and encourage young mothers. The work of a mother is hard, too often unheralded work. The young years are often those when either husband or wife—or both—may still be in school or in those earliest and leanest stages of developing the husband’s breadwinning capacities. Finances fluctuate daily between low and nonexistent. The apartment is usually decorated in one of two smart designs—Deseret Industries provincial or early Mother Hubbard. The car, if there is one, runs on smooth tires and an empty tank. But with night feedings and night teethings, often the greatest challenge of all for a young mother is simply fatigue. Through these years, mothers go longer on less sleep and give more to others with less personal renewal for themselves than any other group I know at any other time in life. It is not surprising when the shadows under their eyes sometimes vaguely resemble the state of Rhode Island...

Do the best you can through these years, but whatever else you do, cherish that role that is so uniquely yours and for which heaven itself sends angels to watch over you and your little ones...

It is clear that some of those Rhode Island–sized shadows come not just from diapers and carpooling but from at least a few sleepless nights spent searching the soul, seeking earnestly for the capacity to raise these children to be what God wants them to be. Moved by that kind of devotion and determination, may I say to mothers collectively, in the name of the Lord, you are magnificent. You are doing terrifically well. The very fact that you have been given such a responsibility is everlasting evidence of the trust your Father in Heaven has in you. He knows that your giving birth to a child does not immediately propel you into the circle of the omniscient. If you and your husband will strive to love God and live the gospel yourselves; if you will plead for that guidance and comfort of the Holy Spirit promised to the faithful; if you will go to the temple to both make and claim the promises of the most sacred covenants a woman or man can make in this world; if you will show others, including your children, the same caring, compassionate, forgiving heart you want heaven to show you; if you try your best to be the best parent you can be, you will have done all that a human being can do and all that God expects you to do."

I now realize that I'm doing the best I can - and that is all I need to do. :)