“I don’t care about anything anymore but being a mother,” I told Ivan the other day. “My whole world revolves around Annalise. I don’t even read the news. I’ve become like all mothers everywhere…boring.”
At least that’s what I thought of moms when I was younger–nice, dependable, boring. In my world, it was expected of a woman to get married, have children, and pretty much devote her life to the care of them. Mothers were like the air you breathed or the ground you walked on. Motherhood seemed mundane, something everybody did.
Ivan said he thought some of these modern mothers–career women–might be different.
“I have a career,” I pointed out. And I listed several women we know who are “modern women.” Day jobs or no, their lives–or at least their thoughts about their lives–still mostly revolve around their children.
The other Sunday in church, our pastor said it’s hard for us to understand Hannah, the Biblical mother who wept and prayed for a child with such earnestness that Eli the priest thought she was drunk. In those days, children brought one status, and it was a terrible shame not to have a child.
I thought of a few women I know, from a variety of backgrounds, who long for a child, and I thought, You might not understand, but I think those women do. Status or no, a woman’s heart always longs.
Some things never change.
The love that a child in invokes in a mother is not surpassed by anything else.
A wonderful message. May God Bless
you and your family.
On your address, you left out that you live in MD. We locals know that Oakland is in MD, but the postal folks around the country may think you’re MB (Mennonite Brethren) out in California or something. :)
We had a miscarriage when we first started to try and become parents. I recall the grief my wife had when we found out. She was so distraught saying, “I have so much to give!”. In the end, we had 3 sons (and we no longer feel the energy of our youth). But there is something so fundamentally important to raising children. We parents know a different life than those who are not blessed with children. I have several friends who chose to never have kids. They intellectually see some of the work that goes into being parents, but they’ll never understand.
I’m not trying to be hurtful, as many wish to be parents and just are not so blessed, but it’s a fundamental alteration in life path, to be or to not be a parent. There’s no sugar-coating it.
AND THEN SHE REALIZED SHE WAS REPLACEABLE IN EVERY
AREA OF HER LIFE EXCEPT HER HOME. SO SHE INVESTED HER TIME, HER ENERGY, AND HER HEART WISELY.
JILLIAN BENFIELD
«The homemaker has the ultimate career.
All other careers exist for one purpose only and that is to support the ultimate career,
C.S. Lewis
“The mother who is faithful in the home honors God just as truly and fully as the
most self -sacrificing missionary.
~Arthur W. Pink
And sometimes that’s all you want to do, but you want to feed them too, so you do the best you can! Somehow with being a nurse and working off shifts and weekends our kids were scarcely in day care or with a sitter (because a dad is a parent too) and you make it work!
Yes. Yes. I’m single and trying to figure out what it means to mourn not having a biological child. I know there are plenty of children to love (I have 15 spread between 3,000 miles). Nevertheless, God made made women to bear children. How does a single woman grieve this loss in a conservative setting?
I understand what you feel because I remember longing for children too, when I was single.
As a mother with a day job, I appreciate this post. My child is first and foremost on my mind. His care and upbringing and learning about his Savior is always first and foremost.
As a mother who couldn’t have a child till 41, I understand Hannah and the tears .
Well said
Wfh mom here. This post resonates with me, because all I want to do is be with my kiddos. After years of college, and work experience-it has all boiled down to baking cookies, and playing Lego.
Yes! I get it.