More on Submit and Preside

I was listening to a Conversation with Jeffrey R. and Patricia Holland, and Sheri Dew quoted one of their sons as saying:

"Mom and dad are both very strong individuals; however, my mother gives her full, unreserved allegiance to my father's priesthood leadership and my father constantly turns to my mother for counsel and insight."

Sister Holland goes on to compare the marriage relationship to a business where someone ultimately makes a final decision.  However, that person pulls in the "greatest minds" to help him/her make that decision beforehand.  Sister Holland is quite the example in if her husband does what God wants him to, she will surely support.

A Conversation with Bridget

Emily has asked me to write about my perceptions and experience with motherhood and I am totally flattered and overwhelmed. At this stage of my life (with three kids five and under), being a mom is pretty much what defines me and I am glad to say that I am feeling okay with this. However, it has taken me a while to get to this point and I know that as Sister Goates points out, I am probably in the “childhood” phase of motherhood, so I really am just at the beginning of this experience. One of the reasons I like this blog and Emily’s enthusiasm for this topic is that it reminds me to keep making motherhood - and being the best mother I can be - a priority. Even though things can get really frustrating (for example, my way-too-small baby is currently in the throwing all of her food/spitting her drinks out phase – yikes!), when my kids are raised I want to feel like I did the best job I possibly could have done. I know that doesn’t mean that I’m going to have perfect kids. I just want happy kids that know their mom loves them. One of my favorite articles that helps me to remember to enjoy the small moments and not stress to much about little things is Anna Quindlen’s article On Being Mom.

I grew up in Cedar City, Utah, but joined the church when my high school friends sent missionaries to me during my freshman year at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. I grew up in a very scholarly/secular home with great parents and as you can imagine my conversion was a challenge for our family. However, things progressed, I met my husband in Utah, was married in the temple and we went along our happy way with school and work. When we married I was very career driven and did not “just” want to be a mom. When I’ve asked Justin about why he wanted to marry me when he came from such a conservative background, he says that he knew that I had great potential and that he had faith that I would realize what I wanted to really do as time passed. I wasn’t necessarily waiting until I had finished school or gotten rich (that still hasn’t happened!), to have kids, I was just frankly terrified at the prospect of being a stay-at-home-mother. On both sides of my extended family there had been sad stories of women that didn’t enjoy motherhood, felt forced into being moms, and suffered from serious depressions and so even though my mom had been amazing and sacrificed so much for me I was always worried that motherhood would make me feel trapped and when a baby was born my life would be over. I knew that I wanted to be a mom someday, but I was definitely scared to take the plunge. My good and patient husband wanted to make sure I was okay with being a mom because he realized that the decision to have children would affect me the most since my life would be changing dramatically to stay home.

I’m not really sure what made me change. Maybe it was quite a few callings in primary, or watching my amazing mother-in-law love being a mom, or maybe it was just getting a little older, but after about four years of marriage we decided to have a baby and got pregnant relatively easily. I remember going along and trying to push myself with full-time graduate school and a demanding work schedule and about 12 weeks into the pregnancy after a busy day I just began gushing blood and we went to the E.R. Being at the hospital was a surreal experience. It forcefully hit me that there was a life growing inside of me and that this little life might be cut short. They did an ultrasound to check to see if the baby was okay and at 12 weeks we could see her whole beautiful little body and profile. I remember at that moment thinking that if I lost the baby my heart would absolutely break. I left the hospital with the doctor’s nerve-racking prediction that if I could keep the baby for three more days everything would be fine. Even though I was an emotional wreck for a while I was able to stay pregnant and I think that this event really made me want to have a baby.

My little girl was an absolutely adorable baby, but very difficult and it was kind of a rocky transition. Everyone warns you about the exhaustion you will feel with a newborn, but until you feel it for yourself you have no clue about sleep deprivation! I remember worrying that my mind was going to go to waste, so I would try to always read while I was nursing and I watched tons of classic movies from the library so that I wouldn’t be “wasting” my time. I remember one night I was again concerned with being able to get my baby to sleep in a crib without being rocked and my mother-in-law sweetly told me that it wouldn’t be long before my baby would be all grown-up and I couldn’t rock her anymore.

Difficult things with my oldest did pass and I think I really began enjoying motherhood when I connected with other moms and set up reasonable expectations for myself. Playdates and other opportunities to really talk to other women in my position and those that have been through raising small children, helped me put things into perspective. I know that I am a result-driven person, so I would initially get frustrated when I’d look back at my day and realize that the only productive thing I did was shower. Now, I really try to focus on spending quality time with the kids. Not necessarily doing an amazing craft or anything special, just being together. Even though we went from being “established” with a steady job and home after our first child was born to graduate students again, the decision to have our two other children was relatively easy. Although we were poor it just felt like the right time to have kids and really the Lord kept providing ways that we could make things work financially. We have kept trying to be frugal, but I know that things worked out because we have been blessed for trying to do what we should.

One simple thing that we do that helps me enjoy being a mom is that we read a lot of books and I know that it has been an important way for us to feel close, even when they were very small. A routine has been essential to all of us to help us keep a happy home. I think that my kids thrive on knowing what to expect and then at the end of the day I know that the important things for our family have been accomplished and it makes me feel better too. Even though I am seriously craft-impaired, I have found a love for creating things and have really enjoyed sewing in the past few years.

I am glad that now I can sit back and feel happy to be a mother and very grateful that I made the decision to have children. I know that even though we don’t do anything fabulous in our daily routines, the things I am doing are helping to mold people who can be the building blocks for happy families in the future. I try to let my kids know how much I love them and love being a mom and I hope that my girls will value motherhood and not be scared to take on this life-altering responsibility. I hope that my son will see how important it is to support and honor women and will understand how critical father’s roles are in raising happy children.

The moms that I admire have many varied backgrounds. Some of the amazing moms I know have not finished college, others have PhDs. Some are exclusively stay-at-home moms, others work full-time. I think that it really comes down to having to teach our children to be close to the Spirit, because there is no one right way to be a great parent and I think that as times change parents are going to have to continue to adapt to raise content and competent children. For me an education was very important, especially in helping me mature and I have a difficult time giving my best to my family when I work so I am currently choosing not to work very much (I help a non-profit about 10 hours a month). But, for my children I cannot say that my choices will be best for them and I pray that they will be mindful of the Lord’s will for them when the time comes for them to make decisions about family and parenthood. I know that it is cliché, but I am so grateful for the gospel and its’ emphasis on the family, because I think without the tools and knowledge we can gain from the teachings of the church it would be so difficult to be a parent in these times.

That was really long-winded, but I hope that others will write about their experiences with motherhood because I know that there is a lot we can all learn from each other (and that I still certainly need to learn!). Emily, thanks again for the great blog!

More Interesting Sites:

The Art of Manliness
What Women Never Hear
Segullah 
The Misfit Cygnet
Being a Mother Who Knows 
Mormon Women Project 
Mormon Mommy Blogs
NieNie Dialogues 
C Jane Enjoy It
Power of Moms
Momzoo 
Focus on the Family
The Heritage Foundation
Voices for Virtue 
Old Fashioned Motherhood
Simplify My Life
Happy Hutchings
Smile Always
An Ordinary Mom
Beautopotamus

What do I know?

I was visiting a friend today whom I totally admire.  She's 13 or so years older than me and has kids from the ages of 4 to about 20, including 2 sets of twins.  We chatted a little about some of the topics I've written about on this blog and she, in her wisdom, said that when she was a younger mom there were things she felt totally sure about, but now, as the kids are older and life situations have changed, she's not so sure and she just keeps her mouth shut.

My mom has said something similar.  She said she's looked at this blog and has some thoughts, but there's just so much to say; how do you put it all in words?

I also think about Cokie Roberts in We Are Our Mother's Daughters how she said that the issues the feminists are fighting for today are still the same issues as when she was young -- everything's just recycled.

It's interesting that we younger generations are trying to figure out the same things our mothers and grandmothers all tried to figure out.  Maybe we should just listen a little more since they've probably figured it out already.

A wise old owl sat in an oak,
The more he heard the less he spoke,
The less he spoke the more he heard,
Why aren't we more like that wise old bird?

Yeah.

The Family -- Not a lot has changed

Last night I read, "Families Can Be Eternal" by Spencer W. Kimball written 30 years ago.  He was the president of the LDS church from 1973 - 1985.  The talk could have been given yesterday.  I was amazed that the problems facing the family then are pretty much still the same.  1980 doesn't sound that long ago, does it?  Gulp.

Our obligation to the family:
". . .whenever anything so basic as the eternal family is imperiled, we have a solemn obligation to speak out, lest there be critical damage to the family institution by those who seem to be deliberately destructive of it."

". . . many of the social restraints which in the past have helped to reinforce and to shore up the family are dissolving and disappearing. The time will come when only those who believe deeply and actively in the family will be able to preserve their families in the midst of the gathering evil around us."

". . . There are those who would define the family in such a nontraditional way that they would define it out of existence. The more governments try in vain to take the place of the family, the less effective governments will be in performing the traditional and basic roles for which governments are formed in the first place.

". . . We are free to resist those moves which downplay the significance of the family and which play up the significance of selfish individualism."
 
". . .We genuinely welcome help, real help, from churches, schools, colleges, and universities, from thoughtful men and women of every race, creed, and culture who care about the family."

A Return to Modesty Point
President Kimball pointed out that "so many of the difficulties which beset the family today stem from the breaking of the seventh commandment (see Ex. 20:14). Total chastity before marriage and total fidelity after are still the standard from which there can be no deviation without sin, misery, and unhappiness."  After reading Wendy Shalit's A Return to Modesty, where she suggests that if we all respected modesty, women would be safer; we can add that not only will women be safer when we are modest (which goes hand in hand with chastity, etc.), but so will families.

"Rising generations who have been taught that authority and loving discipline are wrong will not keep the fifth commandment, honoring their fathers and mothers (see Ex. 20:12). How can the rising generations honor their parents if their parents have dishonored themselves—especially by breaking the seventh commandment?"

The Feminine Minority Point
Patricia Regar, author of The Feminine Minority, suggested that one reason Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood) wanted to restrict birthrates among the poor was so that they'd stop populating the world with more poor people (page 57).  President Kimball had different point for a similar scenario:  "Delinquent adults still tend to produce delinquent children, and that awful reality will not change simply by our lowering standards as to what constitutes delinquency—either in adults, youth, or children."  I would think President Kimball's solution to the problem would be to care for and educate "delinquents" rather than eliminate them.

When times get rough:
"Permissiveness will not pull us through such crises."

". . . parliaments, congresses, and assemblies—cannot rescue us if our basic institution, the family, is not intact. Peace treaties cannot save us when there is hostility instead of love in the home. Unemployment programs cannot rescue us when many are no longer taught how to work or do not have the opportunity to work or the inclination, in some cases, to do so. Law enforcement cannot safeguard us if too many people are unwilling to discipline themselves or be disciplined."

I really like that part about how "unemployment programs cannot rescue us when many are no longer taught how to work."  I thought that was interesting in light of today's economic crisis -- you could add integrity in one's work to the mix.

My Time to Teach

I was listening to a "Conversation" with Claudio and Margarethe Costa.  The Costas were talking about being happy.  Sister Costa said when you're a mother of young children, sometimes it's hard to be happy because there are so many things you can't do, but when you realize it's not your time to learn, it's your time to teach, it makes it much easier.  She was specifically referring to how frustrating it gets at church.  She also mentioned that there will be times later to do things you want to get done such as clean the closet.

My thoughts:

•  Although I'd love to be listening better and participating more at church, I hope my spiritual stores are filled so that I can be aware and direct my kids in the things they need to know.  It's their turn to learn the Gospel; I've already learned it (or at least should have!) -- not that I should neglect my personal growth. . . .
• I suppose if if I make cleaning a part of teaching (which I think it should be, but it's hard), that will make it  less frustrating.  
• Learning I do should not selfishly get in the way of the family, but should be of benefit to them.

The Women of God Quotables

These quotes are from "The Women of God" by Neal A. Maxwell.


Teamwork and roles:
In the work of the Kingdom, men and women are not without each other, but do not envy each other, lest by reversals and renunciations of role we make a wasteland of both womanhood and manhood.

No wonder the men of God support and sustain you sisters in your unique roles, for the act of deserting home in order to shape society is like thoughtlessly removing crucial fingers from an imperiled dike in order to teach people to swim.

On children: 
The divine maternal instincts of an Egyptian woman retrieved Moses from the bullrushes, thereby shaping history and demonstrating how a baby is a blessing—not a burden.

God trusts women so much that He lets them bear and care for His spirit children.

On serving:
. . . [women] are too busy serving to sit statusfully about, waiting to be offended. 

On self:
Women, more quickly than others, will understand the possible dangers when the word self is militantly placed before other words like fulfillment. You rock a sobbing child without wondering if today’s world is passing you by, because you know you hold tomorrow tightly in your arms. . . .

I thank the Father that His Only Begotten Son did not say in defiant protest at Calvary, “My body is my own!” I stand in admiration of women today who resist the fashion of abortion, by refusing to make the sacred womb a tomb!

On being single:

We have special admiration for the unsung but unsullied single women among whom are some of the noblest daughters of God. These sisters know that God loves them, individually and distinctly. They make wise career choices even though they cannot now have the most choice career. Though in their second estate they do not have their first desire, they still overcome the world. These sisters who cannot now enrich the institution of their own marriage so often enrich other institutions in society. They do not withhold their blessings simply because some blessings are now withheld from them. Their trust in God is like that of the wives who are childless, but not by choice, but who in the justice of God will receive special blessings one day.     UAdd a Note