Mothers Day Talk

Like many other women, Mothers Day is a day I dread.  I feel it spotlights my shortcomings and emphasizes my unappreciated role as mother.  I know the purpose of the holiday is to honor mothers, but it is often a demoralizing day when those who would honor their mothers fail to do so.  Or we are self-deprecating all by ourselves. Thus, my husband’s gift this year was to let me stay home and hide under a rock.  But alas, Brother Hutchings called to extend the opportunity to speak this day.  Now I know I have lucked out on not having to give a talk in the nearly 5 years we’ve been here.  But as it so happens, the times that I HAVE been asked to give a talk, it has ALWAYS been on Mothers Day, including one as a youth speaker and one as a newlywed with no children.  How ironic for someone who does not have a natural love of children and who never really wanted to be a mother in the first place.  As was referenced when talking with Brother Hutchings, maybe there is a reason Heavenly Father inspires 4 different bishoprics to ask me to speak on Motherhood.  And that reason, I’m sure, has nothing to do with any of you.

Mothering doesn’t always come naturally.  Well, maybe it does for everyone else.  But not for me.  Most women I know crave holding a baby.  I do not.  Not even my own.  When I think back to when I had my first baby, I picture myself holding a screaming object with outstretched arms, thinking “what am I supposed to do with this thing.”  In all honestly, it was weeks before I could call him by his name and not just refer to him as “Baby.”  I also felt absolutely ridiculous talking to my baby as if he cared about the sound of my voice.  In fact, he didn’t.  He absolutely hated it when I would sing to him.  He also didn’t like being held and would hold his arms straight out to the sides of himself instead of clinging to me whenever I would hold him.  I must have been as alien to him and he was to me.

But mothering CAN be learned.  Some things you do naturally; they are our first nature, the things you don’t need to learn and never even think about.  Some things become second nature; they are things you learn and practice so much that they feel almost instinctual.  Some mothering things are like that for me.  Other things are what I would call “third nature;” they are things you learn and practice, but never feel natural no matter how long you do it; you must remind yourself to do these things and consciously execute them.  There are a lot of mothering things I do like that.  Perhaps I am not much different than my Asperger child…

…Who happens to be a great example to me.  All those years as a baby and toddler, when he didn’t like me to hold him, have melted away.  Today, he likes to be hugged.  When he cries and he doesn’t know why, he appreciates it when I open my arms to him.  Because I have a husband who has taught me about touch enough that it’s almost second nature to me now, I have been able to offer it to my children without too much thought.  Some days I am better at it than others.  On the extremely rare occasion, that son will offer a hug first. It’s so rare that when it happens, I make a note of it and deem it as a miracle.  For him, it is learned as well, but I don’t know if it will ever become second nature, despite how much I realize now how much he wants to be touched even though he doesn’t know it.

So now you know my secret…if you didn’t already know it.  That my greatest struggle in life is reconciling my feelings about being a mother.

Earlier this week, while I was wallowing about what a horrible mother I was and how much I wish we could skip mothers day, I came across an article about just this very topic.  And among the many other remedies the author had, there was one that stuck out for me.  She said “If you’ve got hang ups about not being a good enough mom, stop making Mother’s Day about you, and turn the spotlight on your awesome kids and the love you feel for them.” That statement stopped me in my tracks.  I had it all wrong.  This isn’t a day to glorify myself.  Nor is it a day to expect my kids to appreciate me and remember to thank me.  And most importantly in my mind, it is not the Day Off from motherhood that I always feel mothers desperately need.  Instead, it is a day in which I 1) be grateful to my kids for the opportunity to be a mother 2) appreciate the good in my kids, acknowledging that I had a hand in it, and realize I am not a failure, nor are they 3) enjoy my children.

1) Be grateful to my kids for the opportunity to be a mother. While I go up and down like a teeter-totter, in the end, I really am grateful to be a mother.  Moreover, I am grateful to be a stay-at-home-mom.   Sometimes, I think my husband and I did it backward, and I think we’d be better off if he was a stay-at-home-dad and I was the one who went to college and worked outside of the home.  After all, he’s the one who is a natural with children, hence his career choice.  But what I’ve realized through the years is that motherhood has helped me develop skills and attributes that I would never ever have acquired in any other way.  If such things did not come naturally to me, this would be the only way for me to become like my Heavenly parents. 

In the April 2011 General Conference, there was a talk called “What Manner of Men Ought Ye to Be.”  It was like the best parenting lesson I’d ever heard.  Elder Robbins said “A sweet and obedient child will enroll a father or mother only in Parenting 101. If you are blessed with a child who tests your patience to the nth degree, you will be enrolled in Parenting 505. Rather than wonder what you might have done wrong in the premortal life to be so deserving, you might consider the more challenging child a blessing and opportunity to become more godlike yourself. With which child will your patience, long-suffering, and other Christlike virtues most likely be tested, developed, and refined? Could it be possible that you need this child as much as this child needs you?”

Yes, I think I need my children a lot more than they need me.  And I am grateful to them for their patience with me and their forgiveness.

2) Appreciate the good in my kids, acknowledging that I had a hand in it, and realize I am not a failure, nor are they.  Lately, I feel like my children have regressed in personal independence, in what they are able to do for themselves.  I am quite often frustrated that they would rather have a full-blown tantrum than put their shoes away or make their sandwich, expecting me to do it for them.  And I take blame for it, chastising myself for not teaching them better how to work.  We’re also on a downswing in our cycle of peace and contention lately.  And I keep thinking that if only I did fill-in-the-blank better, they would do this better.

And it’s funny because I’ve listened to that conference talk SO many times since last year.  But it’s been a couple of months…and I seemed to have already forgotten its message.  Because what it’s about is BEING who they are and BECOMING who they are meant to become.  And NOT on what they are DOING.  Elder Robbins said “in helping children discover who they are and helping strengthen their self-worth, we can appropriately compliment their achievement or behavior—the do. But it would be even wiser to focus our primary praise on their character and beliefs—who they are.” 

And what’s even more ironic is that my whole motto for life is based on a phrase my high school English teacher used to make us say:  “I am not my essay.”  And for all the mandated testing in public schools, and all the keeping up with the Joneses, and all the caparison we do to ourselves, the most important thing I want to teach my children is that “they are not their essays.”  They are not rated on what they do or how well they do it or what they’ve achieved.  They are incredible people because of who they are.  And in fact, they are really good kids, which means I must be a really good mom.

3) Enjoy my children.  This is actually the hardest one for me.  I like to have fun – doing grownup things.  Children’s activities tend to be boring and mind-numbing: I groan inwardly when I’m asked to play Candyland or Sorry, knowing it will most likely end in someone crying or throwing a fit because they lost.  Taking my children on one-and-one dates is not one of my favorite activities.  I recently took my daughter to Painted Plate and she loved it.  I hate crafts and it was 2 hours of drudgery for me.  And listening to my oldest go on and on about Pokemon can feel like torture.  But he’s grateful that I seem to be listening.

But sometimes, when my kids are getting along, smiling and laughing, and helping each other, I enjoy them very much.  I often ask my husband rhetorically that, if men are that they might have joy, why were we commanded to have children.  Well, my conclusion, when I’m honest with myself, is that joy isn’t the fun I like so much.  It’s the feeling you get when your children are having fun. 

Sister Lamb recently shared with me a poem called Welcome to Holland.  It was written by a woman whose son was diagnosed with Down Syndrome.  But when I read it, it meant more to me than appreciating my son with Aspergers.  It made me think more about Motherhood in general.

I know that to most of you, this whole talk must sound totally off the wall.  But for me, it was a way to get back on the right track and try to enjoy Holland.