Motherhood defies logic
One afternoon during my junior year of high school, my mother came into my room to ask about my college applications and future plans.
“What kind of a career are you thinking about, April? What would you like to be?”
I rattled off a couple of prestigious options that involved highly technical work and long hours away from home–careers that would easily impress anyone who ever asked.
After considering my choices for a moment, my mother gently suggested, “It might be a good idea to consider a career that would work better with raising a family.”
My heart pounded heavily, my cheeks flushed red, and I fired back,
“Mom, if I become a mother, and if I raise my daughters to become mothers, none of us will ever be anything!”
She paused for a moment–this lovely, selfless woman who had always been my best friend–and then she put her head in her hands. I’m not sure if her words were actually spoken or merely felt by me, but the essence was, “What did I not teach you?”
That discussion with my mother was just a small part of a growing, worldwide conversation that brings up excellent questions about womanhood and motherhood. Why do we have children? How should we raise them if we do have them? How do we balance our financial and personal needs as women with our innate desires to nurture children who need so much of our time and energy?
Thoughtful women on blogs, in books, on talk shows, in laundromats, and alongside playground swings are participating in this conversation–women who love their children but are very familiar with heartache, frustration, and unfulfilled desires. They speak about poverty, guilt, depression, glass ceilings, birth rates, overload, and strained relationships.
Oh, it’s complicated.
But what’s happening is that in our desires to find solutions to life’s real problems, we too often turn to an attack on motherhood.
Mothering children, in many circles, is being defined as madness. It’s described as mind-numbing, menial work akin to prison or slavery. Mothers are portrayed as not having time to change the world because they’re “wasting” their time in their homes. Children are labeled as detriments to a woman’s personal growth, and the decision to become a mother is reduced to its impact on paychecks, freedom, and personal satisfaction.
Motherhood, then, becomes a decision based solely on logic.
What many women don’t understand–and what I didn’t know as a 17-year-old–is this one true principle:
Motherhood defies logic.
For example, logic can’t explain the number of cards Grace makes for me.
Or help me see why I ever went grocery shopping with three preschoolers.
And can logic explain why our babies want to live in cupboards?
It’s just not logical.
Last week, I sat with my 10-year-old in the corner of the orthodontist’s waiting room, our cheeks pressed together as we shared a set of earbuds and listened to her favorite song by the newest boy band. I wanted to freeze that moment.
The other night, I went into my 12-year-old daughter’s room to say goodnight, tired from a long day and anxious to get to some projects looming over my head. My daughter is at that pivotal age, navigating the gradual transition from childhood to young adulthood, and as I quickly kissed her forehead and turned to the door, she softly said, “Mom, please don’t leave me.”
Logic says, “It’s bedtime. Go to sleep.”
My heart says, “Let me hold you, and we can talk for a few more minutes.”
I’ve been touched by these words attributed to Victor Hugo:
“She broke the bread into two fragments and gave them to her children, who ate with eagerness. ‘She hath kept none for herself,’ grumbled the sergeant.
“‘Because she is not hungry,’ said a soldier.
“‘No,’ said the sergeant, ‘because she is a mother.’”
The world is full of deliberate mothers who spend years swaying side to side, waking up in the middle of the night, bandaging scrapes on knees, and kissing tears from cheeks.
It’s personal work, very personal work, and it reminds me of this interchange from the movie “You’ve Got Mail,” where Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) owns a large bookstore chain that is putting the small bookshop owned by Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) out of business.
Joe Fox: It wasn’t . . . personal.
Kathleen Kelly: What is that supposed to mean? . . . All that means is that it wasn’t personal to you. But it was personal to me. It’s personal to a lot of people. And what’s so wrong with being personal, anyway?
Joe Fox: Uh, nothing.
Kathleen Kelly: Whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal.
When the beautiful, essential role of building a home and family is reduced by societal forces to be synonymous with “drudgery,” that’s personal to me.
And more importantly, it’s personal to them:
But what we feel in our hearts and know from experience is that, however well-intentioned, these blanket statements about motherhood are simply not true.
We’re not diminished by our children. We are infused with purpose because of them.
We strengthen the mothers of the world, we strengthen the world. Period.
Certainly, we want to use our minds and talents to thrive personally, to contribute to our family’s economic stability, and to serve the broader world around us – but thriving and mothering can co-exist, and our intentions for striking that balance aren’t to fill a void left by dedication to family. They are to more completely fulfill the purposes for which we are here.
Each woman has the right to make her own choices, and sadly, many women who desperately want to be mothers don’t always have the opportunity. But we don’t tear down the women who are doing their best to provide a beautiful upbringing for their children. We unite our voices. We build each other up. We put our heads together to creatively influence humanity for the better. And we teach our daughters and sons to develop that same fierce loyalty to family.
For those of us (mothers or not) who know the power of motherhood, it is our privilege to cherish it and to defend it.
Motherhood is hard. It’s demanding, painful, and often unappreciated. But the satisfaction I feel as a mother – even on the longest, most discouraging, exhausting days – far exceeds what I ever expected out of family life.
I don’t know what the future holds for my sweet girls, but someday we’ll be sitting together, making plans for their future. And I’m doing everything in my power to teach them what my mom knew all along: that motherhood, as illogical as it may be, is absolutely worth it.
April Perry is the Co-Director of www.powerofmoms.com.
QUESTION: Have you had an experience in motherhood that defies logic?
CHALLENGE: Realize that the work you are doing as a mother has meaning beyond what the world can see. On those long, exhausting days, remind yourself that you are shaping the future.
I was lucky enough to graduate from a university, get married and then land an entry-level position in my dream career. I loved my work and my life at that time. About a year after that, I voluntarily made drastic changes in almost every aspect of my life: I became a stay-at-home mom to my sweet little girl. Even though my job was meaningful, fulfilling, exciting, and fun; I have to say that nothing beats the job I have now.
I’ve learned that motherhood is about perfecting the art of life. Every meal we eat shapes who we are, ever so slightly. A clean house alleviates stress and allows us to enjoy our surroundings and have peace in our lives. Gently (trying!) teaching an 18-month old how to overcome tantrum-throwing is at the core of one of the most important lessons in life-self control in all aspects. Balancing time with my husband and time with my baby, balancing story time with a clean house and healthy meals and church service all while being frugal…what else is life about? I really did love my job, and maybe in 30 years or so I hope to reenter that field in some degree, but when I compare that life to this life, I think that the phone calls and emails and projects were much more menial than mopping the bathroom and cooking a nutritious dinner. To me, a life focused on a career and the workforce is much more illogical and full of much more madness than a life focused on the family. To me, motherhood is life, uncluttered.
I loved these thoughts, Laura! Thanks so much. It’s true that every job has it’s not-so-fun parts. Sometimes we lose perspective. And I love that phrase, “Motherhood is life, uncluttered.” What a beautiful image! Thanks for sharing.
I’m not a mom, but I am a parent, and my wife is a full-time mom, so this blog post really resonated with me. I thought it was interesting that you lamented “motherhood becomes a decision based on logic.” I have a different take on that.
While it’s true that motherhood can’t be defined by logic, if you look at the BIG picture, the decision to be a full-time mom is perfectly logical.
If improving society and making the world a better place is important to you, then raising children so they’ll become kind, thoughtful adults is the most powerful way to affect the future. There is no better way for children to learn positive values and behaviors than to see it modeled for them every day by at least one full-time parent.
The world needs good parents. If you can be a good one, then being one full-time is a highly logical thing to do. It’s the ultimate way to “pay it forward.” What’s illogical to me is the idea that having a paying job is the only “real” way to be fulfilled and do something worthwhile; that’s a pinched and narrow way to view the world, if you ask me.
Living in a small university town, I actually see a fair number of people who would agree with us. My kids’ community preschool groups were peppered with women (and even a couple of men) who had college degrees (including MBA’s and Ph.D’s) and had decided to pass up a career, at least temporarily, to be full-time parents.
Is it love or logic that makes us do it? I like to think it can be both.
This article was so amazing! Thank you. I’ve recently realized that we are getting swarmed with information about the drudgery of motherhood, and that’s really sad. I’m glad to finally see an article that switches the script a bit. I actually referenced this in my latest blog post, hope you don’t mind!
http://www.mamainstyle.com/a-new-leaf/
I just spent 5 days getting ready for a gathering celebrating a milestone for one of my children. Since we would be having friends and family over to our house, I spend several days cleaning and fixing and generally taking care of things that probablly should have been done ages ago. I took time off from work to do this. Those days of working frantically to get stuff done and prepared were more chaoic than most but they were better and more satisfying than the best day I’ve ever had at work. I got to spend time with my two oldest and my youngest children. We were able to work side by side and I was privy to some tender moments between my 19 year old and my 4 year old. All the stuff I’ve ever done at work and the achievements that I have gained, pale in comparison to the time I spend with my kids. It’s not logical, but it’s where my heart is.
I LOVE being a mom; I LOVED being a mom; now I LOVE being a grandmom. I traded up my BFA for an “MOM”. Motherhood was the hardest most rewarding thing I have ever done. I think that mother love is the closest thing to Christ-like love I have ever felt. When our children stray, it is our Gethsemane. When they adhere to Gospel principles, it is like our triumphal entry into Jerusalem. I’m glad for the plan of salvation so that all women who did not have a chance to bear children in this life will be able to in the millenium.
As Mother’s day approaches, there are a plethora of jewelry commercials. “Give mom that something special for Mother’s day” say the ads.
My sons don’t have to – they are my jewels.
Thank you for this sweet and powerful message . It is very important in every generation to realize the importance of family and the nurturing and very necessary influence of good parents. I am in my 80′s now and am so very blessed to have a large and loving family. I feel that their lives have been an influence for good where ever they have been. What would my life be like now as a widow without them? I can not only feel of their love but have the hope that they know of my love for them. This gives me such great comfort personally and I know the good that they do radiates out to many others. thank you again for this important message.