I was just reading a post I did about motherhood about a month before Elijah was born, mostly about its importance and why I was planning on staying home with him. Now that I actually have been a mother for two and a half years (and have complained about it quite unashamedly) I think it's time to redefine my thoughts on motherhood.
Before you have kids everyone tells you how your life will change, but of course you can't totally understand until you actually have them. I will admit that it is harder than I thought. There have been days when I have considered running away...those days when everything combines - a terrible nights' sleep, the kids fighting naps, Ivy screaming after feedings and spitting everything up, Elijah going limp in the parking lot and lugging him kicking and screaming into the grocery store, having to physically wrestle him to change a disgusting diaper, dinner to be made, laundry to be folded, etc.. To run away, to not be needed, to go wherever I want, to do whatever I want, not worrying about being back within three hours for my baby that doesn't take a bottle.
One semester I was enrolled in a Literature class at BYU. It was almost the end of the first week and I could tell that this professor and this class was going to kill everything I l would have loved about the literature I was to read. A couple people had been attending hoping to add the class, but by the end of the week the professor told them it looked like there wouldn't be room. Spontaneously (very unlike me) I jumped up and said, "I'll drop it. You can have it!" and ran out of the room. I have never experienced such a feeling of freedom in my life.
Running away from my husband and babies would not be like that. Where would I go? After about an hour I would be missing Ivy's monster growls and nose scrunching when she smiles and Elijah's sweet renditions of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and his constant excitement at seeing letters and numbers and triangles everywhere he looks. And of course I would be missing my best friend. My life is really exactly what I want. I don't want to run away - I just need a break once in a while!
Things that help me from losing my mind are getting together with friends, especially the playgroup, writing in my journal, exercising, doing things outside, and just trying to enjoy my kids and not overdo the "to do" list.
Prayer is huge, reading things that help me keep my vision of motherhood fresh, remembering that they really will grow up and thinking about everything I want to teach them before they go.
In our church we can receive a patriarchal blessing, a blessing with counsel specifically for each individual's life. Mine tells me that my greatest challenges will be those I have as an earthly mother, but that I will have great influence over what my children learn and do. It says that if I accept the challenges and lead my children in righteousness, they will be obedient spirits. This counsel could apply to every mother, and has been a great strength to me. I have memorized that paragraph and pull it out of my head when I need it.
Being a mom has helped me know my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ better.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said, "Of all the titles [God] has chosen for himself, Father is the one He declares, and creation is his watchword--especially human creation, creation in His image. His glory isn't in a mountain, as stunning as mountains are. It isn't in sea or sky or snow or sunrise, as beautiful as they all are. It isn't in art or technology, be that a concerto or a computer. No, His glory--and His grief--is in His children..." (
Of Souls, Symbols, and Sacraments, Deseret Book Company, 2001, p. 31)
If we, His children, are everything to Him, what better opportunity to become more like Him than to become parents ourselves? What better way to shift our focus from self to others? What better way to know our Savior, who lived every moment teaching, blessing, lifting, never seeking his own, ultimately giving His life -- while so many he was seeking to bless not only didn't appreciate it, but sought His destruction. Hopefully our kids don't seek our destruction, but they definitely don't appreciate many of the things we do for their good. We do it because we love them, and I think in the end they will love us back for it.
I am a mother. It is not comfortable or easy, but it is changing me. I love my kids. I hope I can give them all they need to succeed. There is no running away, no dropping out of this class. There is no going back, only forward.
