My first daughter came completely unexpectedly....
When my husband and I discovered we were expecting it wasn't exactly planned, but we were excited. Then reality hit.... nothing about what followed was normal!
Throughout my entire pregnancy I struggled with high blood pressure, stress, isolation and now as I look back on it, even depression.
What I had been led to believe was one of the most amazing experiences in a woman's life, becoming a mother, is a period full of mixed emotions for me even four years later.
Don't get me wrong, I love being Mommy to my two little world changers. However, no matter how many articles, books and podcasts you devour on the topics of parenting and motherhood, I am not sure that anything prepares you for "Mommy guilt". Mine started before my due date.
I was admitted to the hospital early in my third trimester and Myka was born nearly 2 months early.
Enter Mommy guilt.... While in the moment I was thankful that she was alive and doing well even if that meant she was in the ICU, it didn't take long for Mommy guilt to hit. As we were separated by the length of a hall and the restrictions of NICU for her and bedrest for me the realities of "I couldn't carry her full term", "I'd have to leave her at the hospital while I went home", "I can only visit once or twice a day" began to hit me.
While our determined little girl, who was born with a check-list, made getting home to Mommy and Daddy a high priority and that phase of Mommy guilt was short lived, it was the introduction of a shadow self into my world of Motherhood.
Your story might not include C-sections, NICU and preemies, but each of us, who answer to the name "Mommy" know the feeling of guilt that we are not enough. We can't get the ducks of our life in the same pond let alone in a row! And we are being asked to care for these little humans?!
Somehow over the years, decades and centuries that mothers have existed we have created incredible and often unattainable standards for motherhood. I have looked for it. Nowhere in Scripture can I find that we as mothers are required to give our children 5 hugs, 3 books and a special song before they can go to bed (see Boss Baby for context). As mothers we can believe that the traditions we start with one child are necessary when children 2, 3, 4 and 5 come along. It's just not true!
I have been learning as a mom myself that we create complex rituals and routines for ourselves. These become the ways that we assuage our guilt in the periods we need to care for ourselves.
So my Mommy guilt story doesn't end with my oldest finally making it home. My Mommy guilt story picks up again over the past few months. In January, I finished my bachelors degree. I am now in that fun phase of "between jobs". Enter Mommy guilt.... My daughters go to daycare during the week. I struggle with this every time someone asks me if I am a "stay at home mom". I feel the guilt and shame hit me full force when I am asked about what I do and then am I a stay at home mom. The simple answer is "Nope. I am a new grad looking for a job". So why do I feel less than enough?
When did we decide that it was an ideal for mothers to stay at home? Now don't get me wrong I have friends who are stay at home moms and they are amazing! They take their kids on play dates, go check out all the cool things going on around town and have all the cute little Pinterest projects they do at home (my kids on the other hand think Pinterest is a cookbook!). On the other hand though... I have friends who help others heal in their roles as Physical Therapist, Occupational Therapist and Nurse. I have friends who are mothers that run their own business. All of us are called to something different, even if we are mothers. Our roles all look a little different.
A friend recently loaned me a book that reminded me exactly why my husband and I have chosen to keep our girls at their daycare. The most powerful gift I, as a mother, can give my children is relieving them of the responsibility of being the center of our family. I have two toddlers and they are both full of massive emotions! These little tykes do not even have the ability to control their anger without guidance and yet so often we saddle them with the role of nucleus of the family.
The same idea goes for Mommy's though... One of the greatest gifts we can give our families is to not make ourselves the nucleus of their world. None of us were made to be the center of the world. Think about it.... In science class we learn about the center of the earth being hot. Some sources estimate it around 6100 degrees Celsius. So if we as moms make ourselves the center of family life... well... we make ourselves a hot mess, literally!
Over my life I have had a love-hate relationship with what we in faith circles infamously call "the Proverbs 31 woman". She has been elevated to an ideal. So much so that I have noticed it is not uncommon for men to think they need to "free" women from this burden. Rather than freeing us from it I think we really need to take a closer look at her. This woman was amazing! Not in the way that we typically think of her as slaving over her family, providing for their every need. She was amazing because she is our first model of what a passionate woman looks like.
She was the first feminist... (vs 15) She provided for her female servants!
She was a servant leader (again vs 15)... She provided for her female servants!
She had her husband's confidence in a culture where women were inferior to men (vs 11).
She is a business woman, buying land and planting vineyards.
And I can't help, but think when I read that "her lamp does not go out at night", she networks and has others working when she is asleep!
So she is a business woman and has female servants... I think we tend to place ourselves in the context of this woman and her place in history while forgetting that we live in a different era. This woman is very likely taking care of her female servants because they are helping take care of her children...
When we just look at this woman in Proverbs 31 through the lens of a stay at home mom ideal then we are missing the freedom that she is bringing to us. In the era during which Proverbs is being written this woman gives hope and inspiration to all of the women who feel inferior and less than enough. The more I read her story the more I become convinced as a mom that her role was never intended to create an ideal. It was intended to give hope and freedom to women. She is in Scripture to remind us that we as mothers do not have to be the nucleus of our families to be loved, respected and honored. We do not have to show up to life guilt ridden that someone with the gift of relating to and teaching children is spending the day with our children while we live out the gifting God has given us.
I become more and more convinced that our children need our presence, our boundaries and our example to help them navigate the complexities of life. They do not need to be the center of our worlds. Nor do they need us as moms to move ourselves to the center of their worlds for them to thrive.
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