Mothers

Recently, I have been considering what it means to be a mother. There is really a lot involved. You spend years doing what you think is the best that you can do to later be told by your children all the things that you failed to do. I know that not all mothers experience this, but there is an aweful lot of them that do. I think that of those who think about it, we as women go into this experience with high hopes for our children. We have grand ideas about what our children will become or how they will succeed where we have failed. I don't think that the majority of us go in intending to make mistakes.

It is easy for me to look back at my own mother and see the things that she imparted on me that I value and want to pass on to my own children, but it is also easy to see her shortcomings and the things that I felt at one point or another were damaging. I suppose I could choose to be angry with her for all the things she failed to do or not do. I could blame her for all of my own shortcomings, hoping that somehow that would fix the situation, but that would only make me bitter.

Growing up, we always had food on the table, clothes on our backs, and a roof over our head. Even in the early years, when things were really hard financially, we were always taken care of. My mom always talked to me. She always told me why she didn't want me to do certain things. This helped me to develop good reasoning skills in certain situations. She also shared things with me about her life and why she had made the decisions that she did. She told me about her tragedies and hopes and the things that she wished she had done differently. This helped me to be a good communicator and maybe what some would call too transparent. At times, I would have said that I knew too much about my mom...that maybe in some areas I wished she had not shared certain things. This would be one of the areas that in the past I would have said I wished she had done differently. Now though, I see that because she shared that information with me I have learned about discretion and what it means to hold certain things closer to your heart. That there are things that my children don't need to know. For example, my private relationship with my husband is private and doesn't need to be discussed with my children. This doesn't mean I can't talk to them about the value of that relationship, why it is important, and how when they get older and get married it should be important to them. They can know that we both make mistakes and need to apologize for them to each other, but they don't need to know every mistake that we make. There should be a line between child and adult. Obviously, that changes a little as children grow into adults themselves, but not to the point where they know everything. So, instead of being upset with my mom for sharing intimate details of her life with me, I have just used it as a learning opportunity on what I do and don't want to share with my own children or anyone else for that matter. It is possible to have open communication with people without disclosing certain private details. If someone asks me about private things, I can say, "I am not going to share private details about my own life, but I will say that I think blah blah blah is an important part of blah blah blah for this reason...(replace blah blah blah with whatever we are discussing)."

I could have also been upset with my mom for having to take care of her when she had too much to drink and involving me in her arguments, but through that I have learned a lot too. First, I learned how to care for someone in need, how to put others ahead of myself at times, and how to help mediate an argument when needed. I also learned how to stay calm in situations where others may scream and yell. Finally, I learned that it is really hard to be young and have to take care of your parent. So it is important to try to make sure that my kids know how to handle crisis situtions that may arise so they can take care of us if needed in an emergency, but also that I don't want to put my kids into those types of situations needlessly.

As well as the things I mentioned earlier, some of the other good things that my mom worked hard to teach me are of great value to me also. She made sure that I respected authority figures, could empathize with others, knew the value of hard work, and that she loved me unconditionally, etc... These things I want to pass on to my children because I think they are important and valuable as well.

I guess the things that I need to take into motherhood are that I am going to make mistakes. There are going to be challenges and rough times and I am not going to know what to do. I might do the wrong thing, but hopefully my kids will be able to learn from that too. In all these things, I pray that God will help Robert and I to make good decisions and to seek Him first in everything that we teach to our kids. I pray that He helps us to stay close to Him throughout our lives so our children can see the value of a strong relationship with God. Above all, I pray that our children grow up to love God with all of their hearts, love others and love themselves. As a mother, if I manage that, I will have succeeded (with God's help of course) at my job. After that, I pray that wherever I fall short as a mom that God will fill in the gap and teach them what they need to know that I was unable to. (Um...God, I think you already know this, but that was for you...Thanks and Amen!)