1. Unloosed: http://www.feminagirls.com/2013/11/15/unloosed/
So many things about mothering are harder than I thought they would
be. So many moments that didn’t sound hard in advance, didn’t sound
hard at the time, and didn’t even sound hard when I was trying to
explain them to my husband through tears. There are just so many
opportunities to be surprised by your own weakness.
It wasn’t that I had a low view of motherhood coming into it – I knew
it would be hard. I guess the thing that I didn’t realize was what kind
of hard it was going to be. I got on this treadmill expecting a hard
work out of running, and I had good shoes. I was ready! What I was not
prepared for was being pelted with potatoes while I was running. I
didn’t realize that the real struggle of motherhood is not the using of
my own strength, but rather the exposing of my weakness.
I don’t think that this is unique to me. There is a reason that you
hear mothers so often talking about being burned out, being tired, being
lonely, feeling lost, being discouraged. There is a reason that women
so often turn to doubting their worth as a mother or as a wife. There is
a reason that we are so quick to feel inadequate, so quick to feel like
we are doing the wrong things, and so quick to want to give up. There
is a reason that we are so vulnerable to stupid fights about mothering
methods, so quick to be threatened and hurt.
The things that we have come to believe about the value of life, the
quality of life, the kind of work we should desire, and the kind of
reward we should receive have been painstakingly imparted to us by the
world.
We are a generation of women who grew up in a world that corsets young
women with selfish desires, shallow ideals, visions of unattainable
beauty, and a false understanding of success.The kinds of muscles that
we need to be a mother at home with a bunch of kids are seriously out of
practice. How bizarre is it that a woman with a brood of little people growing up in her care, with her love can
regularly wonder what it would be like to do something important? How is
it possible that we can easily get discouraged and feel like this work –
this work of being everything for other people – isn’t enough for us?
What has gone wrong that we can actually feel hurt by a stranger
counting our children or laughing at our pregnant bellies? We are simply
finding that we are unable to sit up in bed without the encouragement
of the world.
And this is what I mean when I say that the true challenge of motherhood is meeting your own weakness.
2. Frantic: http://www.feminagirls.com/2013/11/19/frantic/
But it wasn’t that long ago. Only a handful of years ago in our
house, if playing in the toilet had come to a vote, I could have lost. The
people could have spoken and called it all good fun. I was outnumbered,
outsmarted, outrun, and seriously outdone. My days at home were
blindingly tiring. I’m not exaggerating, and I know some of you are
right with me here. Many of you are still in it. You are hanging on by a
thread. You are puking in the bathroom for the 10th solid week in a row
while little children whom you love dearly are running around the house
largely unkempt and unruly. You are lying on the couch trying with all
your might to eat a cracker and not smell anything. You are wary of
people who smell like showers. Or onions. Or garlic in yesterday’s food.
You resent people who talk about tortillas. You are holding your breath
as you walk into the kitchen and fill a sippy cup against all odds. Or
you might even be as desperate as I have been and tell children who
certainly aren’t big enough to go ahead and pour themselves juice.
I recently spoke at a local MOPS group, and during the question and
answers, a lady in the audience asked me about my coping mechanisms. And
when I looked out to talk to this brave soul with her three under
three, I saw it in her eyes. Oh, how I remember that time. It was a
desperate time – and here I am, surprised as anyone to be looking back
on it. But I want to write to you who are still in it and tell you a few
things. Don’t believe that you have made a mistake that this is what
your life is like. These little people were called by God to your house
now. He knows what He has given to you to do, and in the middle of all
this craziness is some profound mercy.
