Being a mom is awesome - mostly.
Let me say it this way... on a whole, the Mom Life is worth the tears, the pain of childbirth (and the weeks following... you know, when you can't pee without crying or "other things" without feeling like you are giving birth all over again), the fear of screwing up your child so badly they will never enter the adult world confidently or maybe even at all, the temper tantrums for only God knows why, the frustrations of packing the friggin' car with all the crap you need for your kid the first time they stay overnight with someone else, the lack of sleep you get the first couple months... and then the lack of sleep you get for the rest of your life, the puke in your hair and your new permanent cologne "Eau de Barf" (I don't think I'll ever smell sexy again), the getting peed on, the poops during bath time, the annoying screeches coming from your angry baby while you are TRYING to finally get something done around your horribly filthy home, and everything in between. The Mom Life is so worth it.
However, these past two days of Mom Life have been horrible. Our baby is teething. You other moms out there know exactly what I'm talking about when I say "horrible" due to teething. He's cut his first tooth which is so stinkin' cute (and sharp)! I'm pretty sure he's working on the one right next to it now. Basically, nothing makes him happy currently. He's hungry, but he throws a fit when we give him his "ba". He wants to play, so we go to play and he throws a fit. He wants to sleep, but refuses naps and bedtime. He wants to crawl (but he can't) so we try and he throws a fit. He wants to be outside so we go play in the grass or go for a walk and he throws a fit. When I say "throws a fit" I mean, my six month old son will grab and scratch at my face, smack me, kick, push me away, arch his back, and scream this raspy, horrible, guttural screech that sounds like he's being exorcised by a priest. It's horrible. You can only take this with loving tenderness and understanding for so long before you start to get past the point of irritation and lose any grip on reality you may have left after living on caffeine and snack bars for the past 6 months.
After days like this, I so need encouragement that I'm not the only mother in the world who has had to put her sweet child (who has turned into a nightmare) in his crib during these fits and go on the other side of the house to curl into the fetal position in the corner and just cry it out myself. However, more often in those moments, what you're met with is judgement and "encouragement" to go be a better mom and be whatever your son needs in that moment.
The Mommy Club is beating me up a bit and I keep hearing all sorts of "this is what you should do" statements - many of which conflict - it's hard to know what to believe. So I picked up this book on parenting that our church gave us when we had our baby dedication. I'm only a few chapters in and already I can breathe a sigh of relief. I'M NOT A HORRIBLE MOTHER!!!
I feel so encouraged by something I read in this book recently, I felt the need to shout it from the rooftops for all of the other struggling parents out there who just feel like they need to survive the next 18 years and pray to God that their kid doesn't end up in jail. We parents are told time and time again that the things we do or don't do, say or don't say will directly determine the outcome of our child's happiness and effectiveness in their adult life. That system works great when they get great grades and make the football team and go to college and become a doctor and find the cure for cancer and teach and entire tribe in Africa about Jesus during his extra time for mission work... I'd love to look at a child like that and say, "The reason he is so wonderful is because I was the world's greatest mother. I never let him cry it out, I always said encouraging words and never lost my temper with him, I always built his self esteem and we never punished his 'misbehavior', etc. So the reason he is the man he is today is not because he is responsible for his decisions in life, but because I AM responsible for those decisions in his life."
However, that system completely fails when you have to go pick him up from the nurses office in 4th grade for fighting on the playground, he comes home with D's in algebra and biology in middle school, he decides he wants to hang out with the skaters instead of going out for the football team, he gets caught smoking pot his senior year, he flunks his first year of college, then he decides to quit school and work at McDonald's for the rest of his life. Taking the full responsibility for his actions as a parent in this situation sucks. It brings an enormous amount of guilt with it.
Hear me...
"The only perfect parent there is or ever will be creates two children who disobey his first instruction. What, pray tell, did God do wrong that caused his first kids such pronounced obedience issues? Freud might have said that Eve resented that Adam was created first, that he was obviously the favored child. Tempting Adam to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge was an expression of this resentment, a passive-aggressive means of lowering Adam's image in God's eyes. Grandma would have scoffed at this. She knew there was no psychology behind the Fall. It happened because human beings possess what animals do not: freedom of choice, including the freedom to choose wrongly. If a perfect God could not raise children who were perfectly obedient, what chance do you have?" (Parenting By the Book by John Rosemond).
You may have your criticisms of what I'm saying or this quote or something, but I'd encourage you to not just take this tiny piece and judge whether its good or bad or biblical, rather go read the book and then decide!
Basically, it comes down to this... Do I want peace or turmoil in child rearing? I want peace. These next two quotes gave me a lot of peace:
"Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6
"No matter how good a parent you are, your child is still capable on any given day of doing something despicable, disgusting, or depraved." (Parenting By the Book by John Rosemond).
That second quote doesn't contradict the first and it doesn't absolve parents of responsibility in the way they train up their children. But it is encouragement that, hey - even if you are the world's greatest parent, your kids won't be perfect. They will do something stupid in their life and that doesn't mean you are entirely to blame. No matter how you raise your child, the responsibility of their decisions still rest on them. They are responsible for the decisions they make, but YOU are responsible for training them up in the way that they should go.
I'm not trying to act like I have this parenting thing down. I have a 6 month old baby and sometimes I think I'm losing my mind. Any knowledge I have to share definitely doesn't come from my little brain, but from the perfect intellect of the Lord and what he's revealed to me through his Word.
So basically, I know nothing of being a mother. I'm just a woman who loves God, loves my husband, and loves my baby. I don't want to be the world's greatest mother and wife... I want to have a heart that loves God beyond anything that makes sense. In loving God completely, He'll make sure I'm a good mom to my kids and a good wife to my husband. My eyes just need to be on loving the Lord.
How AWESOME would our world be if all of us believers decided we just wanted to have our sole focus be on loving Jesus beyond anything that makes sense?! Want to join me in this revolution?
