Why I disliked Mother’s Day

 

I don’t know why, but this holiday for some reason was especially difficult for me this year.  I had been particularly engaged in self-reflection over the preceding months.   Perhaps it was that I am at a crossroads in my life and can see that empty nest stage fast approaching.  Most of my peers have navigated this stage well, but having a child at age 41 and again at 46 postponed it for me.  We still have three single daughters.  One is completing her degree next month, another just left on her LDS mission and the youngest will be a freshman in high school.  My sweet mother and mother-in-law have both passed away.  So, it should be a day of little pressure.  But, I felt pressure!

 

But, back to why this year was particularly difficult.   I dislike having loved ones feeling compelled to give me a gift for either Mother’s Day or my birthday.  I hate how commercial holidays are.  They use guilt to increase their profits.  However, if a child fails to fall prey to this commercialism, I feel kind of sad.  That puts my family members into a truly no-win situation.  And I even feel sad when I can't keep those beautiful fresh cut flowers alive.  I don’t know why, even when I feed and trim them regularly, they just don’t last more than a couple of days.    

 

Mother's Day is a to consider if I have been a good mother and how does one really measure that???   Good mothers have produced all types of children and good children have come from all types of mothers.    So we can’t really measure a mother’s worth by how her children turn out.   I believe that producing a child doesn’t necessarily make you a mother any more than building a house, makes it a home.

 

To me, these are, however, things that make a woman a good mother. . .

 

1.  A good mother is a woman who consistently seeks to know her creator and acquire truth.   A woman cannot teach her children to have faith, hope and charity if she doesn’t have those attributes. 

 

2.  A good mother gives her children the key to the well.  I love the anonymous quote: 
“There is a difference between the learned man who will pump you full of knowledge and the one who will give you the key to the well.”  Though my mother wasn’t religiously inclined and seldom went to Church.  She did believe in saying prayers.  She taught me to pray.  Those prayers led me to Him and He led me to church activity and affiliation. 

 

3.  A good mother seeks to teach correct principles while still preserving a child’s agency in a climate of order and safety.  Now if that isn’t a tricky job description, I don’t know what is.   We want to prepare them for adulthood because we want them to make it in a society that has laws, regulations, rules and consequences.  

 

 

4.  A good mother is a happy person.  She needs to take care of herself while not being selfish and neglecting her children.    For example, she needs to exercise without taking huge chunks of time pursuing the perfect body.  Paul, who saw our day, wisely warned against taking physical fitness to an extreme:  “For bodily exercise profiteth little:  but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.  I know mothers who don’t deviate from a prescribed daily exercise routine, but seldom have time to read their scriptures or read to their children.    These same principles apply to a host of other activities.  But, we do need to get that haircut, a new outfit, as well as groom and have growing experiences.  We want our children to see that raising children is joyful.   We want them to look forward to being parents.  I was sad when I heard a young woman say, “I don’t ever want kids.  My mom is the unhappiest person I know”. 
 

My oldest daughter Jeanette, with her daughter, loves being a mother

 

 

5.  A good mother loves and respects their children’s father.   Studies have shown that if a child can witness a truly intimate relationship, they have a greater capacity to form an intimate relationship with a future spouse.  This doesn’t mean their witnessing physical sexual intimacy.  This kind of intimacy can be observed by a child whose parents  have mutual respect and care deeply for each other.  We can’t truly have or even seek to have this kind of relationship with our children.  They will never care for us, the way we care for them.  But they will know how much we love them, when they have children of their own.  Now this is a particularly difficult task when there has been a divorce.   But, it is a Christian command to love others, ALL OTHERS.  That ability and capacity will come from our relationship with God. 
 

 

 

 

6.  In seeking to establish a house of happiness and safety, we need to be sure that our goal is not to make our child’s life ideal and stress free.   A child who is waited on hand and foot and has a “Disneyland” childhood often grows up to be self-absorbed and “entitled”.   They need to learn to work, serve and wait for some things.  They need role models who occasionally mess up and admit it.  They need to see repentance modeled.  A “ Disneyland” childhood could produce a child ill-prepared for life. 

 

7.  I am really going to go out on a limb with the last one.  A child needs a mother who is there, who puts career and time consuming hobbies on the back burner, until a later time.  A child needs supervision.  The cost of a child coming home from school to an empty house is often a cost that is far too great.  Society and divorce makes this ideal almost impossible.   If this means a smaller home, fewer extracurricular activities or whatever sacrifice it takes, you won’t be sorry.

Whatever you can do to provide that supervision and accountability will pay great dividends.   

So why was I sad this Mother’s Day?  It is to know, I come up short by my own standards!   I am not the perfect mother I want to be.   But the next day, I was fine and happy again.  My children’s imperfect mother was well celebrated, but I was ever so grateful for the atonement and another day to seek to improve.  There is a place for Holidays and traditions, a place for retrospection and honor.  Like everything else, we need to involve the Lord to help us get the right balance in the observation of these traditions.  We need Him to help us establish that right balance in everything we do.  Finally,

we simply cannot give up on ourselves or anyone within our realm of influence.  That is the perhaps the best definition of a good mother. 

 

We need to talk . . .

These four words have the ability to cause a sense of panic and dread to those who hear them, especially if they are spoken by your mother, wife or older female acquaintance.   You are almost certain her words will surmise that you haven't been listening and the substance of her message will involve something you haven't been doing or something you have been doing wrong according to her point of view.  However, I chose this title for this post not for the reasons just mentioned, but because, we really do need to talk and this compulsion sometimes intensifies the older we become.  This desire to communicate and share with loved ones and others what we think we have learned or what we are in the process of learning is strong and persistent.   We care deeply about you, our loved ones, friends and neighbors.  We want you to succeed.  We want you to stay safe and avoid the pitfalls that so many fall into.  We've lived long enough to see patterns, and cause and effect scenarios.  We are a few short years from senility.  And if we are lucky enough to come out of life's experience to this point without becoming bitter at life, and filled with a strong testimony of the purposes of life, we might actually have something that would be of value for you to hear. 

These days mothering isn't seen in the same light as it was viewed historically and older mothers are especially rich fodder for comedians and sitcoms.   The Prophet Isaiah saw our day with clarity.  It would be time when children would be quite brazen and something would happen that would be unique when compared to almost all past eras of history.  It would be a time when " the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, (Isaiah 3:5)".  In other words, it would be a time when the elderly would enjoy little honor or respect.  It would also be a unique time when child bearing and rearing would not be considered the primary and most important task of a married woman.  Throughout the Bible, a woman's ability to bear children was considered her greatest blessing and a measure of divine favor.  I think it was no accident that some of the most noble of biblical women were tested by long periods of infertility.  I read in an ancient text that Anna, the mother of Mary, previously barren, was visited by an angel who told her that there are times "the Lord shuts the womb of a woman, only to open it up again, in a more glorious manner (Quomran Genesis Apocraphon).”    So important was this chance to bear that Moses established laws that gave women access to their husbands for the purpose of conception based upon the husband's profession.  Less demanding professions required more accessibility.   While women generally enjoy greater status than any period in history, which is a good thing, the status of motherhood has lessened, and decreases as women age.

So if we decide to brave this unpopular course of imparting our thoughts, how do we go about it? There are a variety of ways.  We can write a personal letter.  One of my children boasted that they hadn't had one of these "letters" yet.   They had had their share of camp letters and birthday wishes, but they hadn't recalled a communication they might refer to as a "call to repentance" or a "come to Jesus confrontation".   We all know it is just a matter of time before she gets her turn.

Another means is to simply send an email.  My emails are simply entitled:  "Mom letter".   They are sent out about monthly.   In it I try to share uplifting things I've recently learned, as well as address those things I think we could do better as a family.   My children are encouraged to at least let me know they have read it.  But, most often my children actually share their thoughts about its content and what they have been learning and the ways they have seen the hand of the Lord in their lives.    It is a great way to keep the whole family up to date on family activities.    It is even an opportunity to request extra prayers in our behalf during difficult times.

Another venue for sharing is to simply gather once a month as a family, especially if there are a number of married children as we have.  We take turns preparing a short gospel centered lesson and then everyone shares a brief uplifting event or thought.   We then do a "fun"  activity and of course we share good food.  Those families living away can even join us via Skype for the sharing and lesson parts.  It has been a great way to stay connected.

Finally, I enjoyed simply writing my thoughts on a subject in essay form.  This has been especially handy when one of my children approach me on a subject such as repentance when they are asked to teach or speak.  I can send them to my "Quotable Quote Binder", where they will also find the essay.   (I may include some of these essays on this blog.) 

What I have learned most is that the greatest benefit of sharing is mostly mine.  That is why I keep doing it.  It is a great challenge to put your thoughts on paper.   It forces me to review and consider the many blessings that have been mine and what I may have learned from periods of adversity.  When the kids share what they are learning, my faith is greatly strengthened.  A side benefit has been that it seems the Lord is trying to teach us all the same kinds of lessons.  We see great purpose in life struggles and realize the Lord is trying to refine our understanding of true gospel principles and identify weaknesses in thought.  Mostly, he is trying to help us understand our nothingness and how much we rely upon the atonement and that we need that atonement as much as anyone we have ever met.   I love the Bible Dictionary's definition of faith, especially the following statement:  "Faith is kindled by hearing the testimony of those who have faith".

I recalled a dream, my oldest son had while on his mission.  In the dream, he and I were scuba diving.  While we were doing so, we happened upon a treasure.  He asked me what it was, even wondering if it were the actual "Ark of the Covenant".  I told him that the treasure was Zion and "it is established in families".  That was the extent of the dream.  Zion has been defined as the "pure in heart".  Zion indicates to me a plural word meaning a group of people united in the goal of overcoming the world and seeking a heavenly connection.   We need to seek this treasure more fervently as a family.

Given our need to talk as older moms, how can we satisfy this need and still maintain relationships and credibility-- all the while still giving those within the sound of our voices, freedom to make their own choices and  the privilege of gaining their own experience?    It is a tightrope and not easily navigated.  Actually impossible to navigate if we don't involved the Lord in the process.   But I have some strange advice--advice that has not made me necessarily popular among my associates.  It is to err on  the side of saying too much rather than too little.  Certainly we need to learn when to be quiet.  Certainly, we need to make our words as palatable as possible.  But, we do need to say it, as lovingly and as succinctly as possible.   Why?  Because eternity hangs in the balance and we need to talk!