the art of motherhood
Sometimes I think the art of Motherhood tends to get lost in the shuffle in our culture.
As women reach with their might for their “dreams”…they gradually let fade one dream they were given right from the start.
A free gift.
The opportunity to become “Mother."
I'm not talking about becoming a mother through the act of giving birth to a child. That is another topic all together...one that some women, despite their very most valiant efforts do not get the opportunity to take part in.
I'm talking about once we have those children in our care, despite how we get them, the art of being "Mother." Motherhood as a career...one that is hallowed and beautiful and real and whole.
Running a company has become much more important in the world.
We want the rush of accomplishment.
Or making a name for ourselves.
A name to be hallowed to people we don’t even know.
While our children sit at home wishing for our arms to stretch around them.
I think it is human nature to seek for recognition. We want our efforts not to slip quietly away, unnoticed. And motherhood doesn’t naturally lend itself to Pulitzer prizes or red carpets.
No.
Initially motherhood tends to travel more down the dark-circles-under-your-eyes-for-want-of-sleep, and adornment with smears from sticky fingers sort of road. Then, in some cases, it leads to the disrespectful teenager stage, and then the glorious stage of being the dumb parent who messed up their kids while trying to raise them right.
Yes, it can be a thankless job.
But we Mothers tend to forget, amidst the chaos, that we have our own “Pulitzer Prizes” right in front of us. Little spirits in which we can sometimes catch a faint reflection of ourselves, for better or for worse.
And all that stuff that doesn't lend itself to the recognition our human nature leads us to crave? The endless laundry, the scrubbing, the same books read over and over and over again...the teaching kids tough lessons and the heart break that comes with letting them make their own decisions?
Well, those things are the scaffolding of the beautiful cathedrals we are building.
If we can only remember that each mundane thing we do as mothers contributes, if even in a seemingly minuscule part, to something so beautiful and holy: helping one of God's own children blossom and bloom into what they are to one day become.
And in the process we, ourselves, blossom and bloom...each day becoming a little closer to what God wants us to be.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
clarification...
In speaking of the "art" of motherhood I'm talking about motherhood as just that...a beautiful act of doing something with our hearts, and doing it gracefully, deliberately, in the best way we can taking into account our vastly different circumstances.
Just as a meticulous dancer balances and leaps, making her work look so compelling and beautiful to a bystander who may or may not even comprehend all the grueling work that has gone into her precision, so a mother can perform her work with grace and beauty. What comes across when someone makes what they love doing into an "art" is that it is important enough to them that they are willing to make the sacrifices needed to make it beautiful.
To me, motherhood is beautiful. A mother with a toddler on her hip, or a pacifier slung around her finger as a ring speaks to me. A mother who, tired from a day of working at an office, still comes home and puts on a puppet show with her children, or that mother who is willing to stop what she's doing and stoop down to look into the eyes of a worried child as she balances a load of laundry on her hip and lets the swirl of activity just be, even for a split second...those mothers know the art of motherhood. And I want to be like them.
To me, the "art" of motherhood doesn't have as much do to with all the extra things we balance...whether it is working full-time or developing a talent that fulfills us...as it has to do with being in the moment when the "moment" arises. Really reading a book with a child (instead of skipping pages in an attempt to please not have to read every word for the thirty-fifth time in a day like I do), or staying up late to talk to a teenager who needs a little extra loving, or praying our guts out that a child will make good decisions in life all contribute to the moments that make our motherhood an art.
There can certainly be no generalized "perfect mother." We are all too different. We have different husbands or have no husbands at all. We all have different children to care for who have myriads of varying needs. And most importantly we are all different...unique daughters of God, all with completely different abilities and attributes to develop.
But no matter what we do, or who we are, or where we live, or how many children we have, we can all make our little piece of motherhood an "art" in it's own right. We can go about what we do in a day just as a dancer goes about a beautiful dance, with precision and grace. We can keep getting up again, after numerous failures and mistakes, and keep trying. We have the power to choose to meet our challenges in a way that will help us grow and become who God wants us to be.
No one on earth may ever know the heart break we have endured, or the gallons of throw up we have cleaned or the amount of times we have counted to ten in valiant efforts not to loose our minds with difficult children. There are no Pulitzer prizes or even gold stars stuck to our foreheads for figuring out how life-changing "magic erasers" can be, folding load after load of laundry, or being able to whip up a decent dinner with the random assortment of what we have to work with after not making it to the grocery store for a while.
But on that same note, no one else will feel the rewarding heart-swell we will when a child finally makes a much prayed for breakthrough. No one else will quite understand the sweetness of an inside joke shared with a child we've cultivated time with. No one else gets to feel the same joy watching our children love each other as only siblings do, or save money as we have painstakingly tried to teach them. And those things come when we choose to make the way we mother a priority, whether we work outside the home or not, whether we live in a different culture or have different interests outside of mothering. They come when we put our heart into our mothering, no matter how different we may be.
Some day, as we look back, we will marvel at the strength and rhythm we were able to develop. Because what we have willingly done with love in our hearts has become our passion. Hopefully we will see that love reflected in the eyes of our children. And that will be our reward.
I must also clarify that I am writing these things mostly for me...one who has more patience to learn than I can even comprehend. One who gets frustrated and slams doors and forgets things right and left. One who gets distracted from the "moments" at hand quite easily and is just about as far from perfect as you can get. But also one who knows there is a God who cares and who is willing to help me every step of the way if I will only let Him in. And that is what I am hoping will somehow help mold me into the mother I want so much to become.
