Motherhood and the mundane

I have a thinking chair.  It's black and small and sits on top of a motor and blades.  My husband knows this is my thinking chair, so when it's time to mow the lawn, he gets it gassed up and ready to go, and I mow.  It clears my head.  It helps me process things.  I love cutting down a row and looking behind me, and seeing that that row is cut.  It's routine.  Up and down the yard in a specific pattern.  There is little thinking do to about the task, so the task melts away and lets me have my thoughts.  The task itself is mundane, and that is why I find so much joy in it.

I've heard people complain that motherhood has the same tasks over and over again.  Mundane has two definitions: "lacking interest and excitement; dull" and "of this earthly world rather than heavenly or spiritual one."  I can tell you that my house of boys is never lacking excitement or dull, and I can also tell you that motherhood is far from being a task of this earthly world.  I'd argue that motherhood is completely the opposite of mundane.  (Admittedly, some of the tasks involved are mundane themselves- how many diapers have you changed?) 

And that's exactly why I crave a task like mowing the lawn so much.  No one's salvation rests on the accuracy of which I mow the lawn.  But, in my home, when tears start or when a child misbehaves, how I handle it carries the weight of heaven on it.  And, so, mowing the lawn is a mental, spiritual, and emotional break from that weight.  The only "joy" I've found in housework and yard work is when I can do it without interruption from children and so it is mundane. 

After having my fifth child, I had times where I had no idea how I would meet the needs of my children.  I'm confident in my ability to keep my house at a reasonable level of clean (and by that, I mean that it will not cause illness to my children nor will someone call CPS on me for it, I keep my standards high. ;) ) I can put dinner on the table.  (That's because I keep a supply of prepared foods on hand for nights when it wouldn't happen otherwise.)  However, I'm not always confident in my ability to respond properly to their emotional and spiritual needs. 

So, while I'm not finding refuge in lawn mowing, I have to find a way to balance the real work of motherhood.  Feeling overwhelmed one day, I was prompted to pray for something.  I was prompted to pay to have my efforts sanctified.  Later, I ran across this quote:

"The use of medical science is not at odds with our prayers of faith and our reliance on priesthood blessings. When a person requested a priesthood blessing, Brigham Young would ask, “Have you used any remedies?” To those who said no because “we wish the Elders to lay hands upon us, and we have faith that we shall be healed,” President Young replied: “That is very inconsistent according to my faith.... If we are sick, and ask the Lord to heal us, and to do all for us that is necessary to be done, according to my understanding of the Gospel of salvation, I might as well ask the Lord to cause my wheat and corn to grow, without my plowing the ground and casting in the seed. It appears consistent to me to apply every remedy that comes within the range of my knowledge, and [then] to ask my Father in Heaven … to sanctify that application to the healing of my body.” -Dallin H. Oaks

 

Yes, it's about medical treatments, but I'm applying to motherhood.  I am obligated to do all I can to help my children grow and after doing that, I'm privileged to have access to the Lord's healing powers.  As a mother, the power and the beauty of the atonement have meant so much to me.  The atonement heals both the sinner and the person who was hurt.  So when my efforts as a mother are not perfect, the Lord will make up for that, both within myself and within my children.  The most important thing I can do is teach them to have access to the atonement. 

 

To Mothers, Jeffrey R. Holland said:

 

"If you try your best to be the best parent you can be, you will have done all that a human being can do and all that God expects you to do."

 

Really, the only way we can fail as mothers is to do nothing.  As long as we are trying, we will succeed.  That thought gives me the most comfort I possibly can find. 

 

And, it's that thought the keeps me going in between my lawn mowing sessions. 

 

Repentance and Forgiveness

Just some things I have learned about them:

One is dependant upon the other.  If we are to repent of our sins, we must forgive others of theirs.  It is easy, though, to believe in a different dependancy that does not exist.  Forgiving someone is not dependant upon their repentance.  In fact, forgiving someone has no relevance on their apology to you or anyone else, or on their own repentance. 

Why is that?  Because both repentance and forgiveness depend upon how active the atonement is in our lives.  If we refuse to forgive someone of their sin, then what we are *choosing* is to not allow the atonement to work in our own life.  If we choose that, then we put our own ability to repent aside.  It is an "all or nothing" thing.  Either we are allowing Christ to be an intregal part of our relationship with others, or we are not.  We cannot choose whether or not someone else allows the atonement to work in their life.  Hence, our choice to forgive and allow the atonement in has no relevance on someone else's choice to repent and allow the atonement to work for them. 

When Christ took upon him all sins, we became in debt to him.  Everyone did, in fact.  Which means that when someone sins against us, they become in debt to Christ, not to us.  They owe us nothing.  We all owe our eternal salvation to Christ. 

Mothering and the internet

I'm not talking about how to teach your children internet use. That is a good topic to look at, but not the point of this post.

I'm talking about what the internet has done to mothers now. Of course, this is the only time I've experienced motherhood, so maybe it hasn't changed all that much. Then again, I didn't have internet in my home for the first 3 years of being a mother, and even then, it was dial-up. So, I do have some perspective on how the internet world has changed me.

The biggest change, for me, is that I interact with a lot more moms in different circumstances. Pre-internet, I would have only interacted with moms of kids in my area. We'd be in scouts, or ECFE, or some other activity together, and that would be that. We'd naturally have something in common. Now, I can reach out and cyberally touch the Californian mom or the American mom raising her children in Europe. I'm not limited to moms who are like me. What a catalyst for mommy-wars! Where you live matters in how you raise your children. The Californian mom can be shocked and appalled that my children don't ride in that safest of the safest car seats until they are 18. The reality is that she deals with a much bigger danger when it comes to road travel than I do. It would be a bad choice for her to allow her children to bike down the side of a highway. For me, even on a highway, we aren't likely to see another vehicle. (We are most likely, this time of year, to pass by a horse-drawn buggy, actually.) Unfortunately, the idea that we are in different circumstances doesn't translate well online, and so an online debate about carseat usage turns ugly because one mom can't imagine letting her child sit in a booster seat at the age of 4, while the other can't imagine why they would pay $300 for a 5-point harness to hold them until they are 8.

That's not where the internet hurts us mommies the most, though. It hurts us in the guilt department. Blogs written by moms show a neatly packaged picture of motherhood. I may wander on to a craft blog and suddenly feel guilt that my front porch contains a basket of dead flowers that have been there for over a year, a screen door tied shut because it blows open in the wind, and a box of sidewalk chalk, while hers has perfectly coordinated chairs, homemade planters (with plants that are actually alive!), and a cutely decorated table. Somehow, it becomes apparent that my children will be forever deprived because there was a lack of fresh foliage on our front porch.

Then, we take these feelings of guilt and transfer them on to our facebook accounts. Of COURSE my children had a beautifully prepared meal tonight. And, hey, look at all the cute things my kid says. Yes, my son knows what the hallelujah chorus is at the age of 3. (Ha, that one is mine.) Would I ever admit online to "find your own dinner" and peanut butter all over my blankets? (Consider that an admission of last night at our house.) In all of these places- message boards, blogs, facebook- what is being said is as important as what is not being said.

But let's not turn our backs on the internet, because it is a wonderful tool. It has greatly blessed our lives. It was on the internet that I learned about oximeters which have saved us hundreds of miles traveled to the doctor and who knows how much in medical bills. If I can't think of dinner, I can find something online. It is an endless resource for advice, recipes, fun kid activities, communication with teachers and other parents.

It just becomes a trick of avoiding the pitfalls of guilt and time lost.

There is one more internet trap to be avoided and that is the one of finding easy answers. A few clicks gives us many experiences from other moms. As I have faced dilemmas with my children, I have found other moms online who have experienced similar things. I can read what worked for them. However, there is no where on the internet a manual for raising my own children. There is just one place where I find the answer to what MY child needs, and that is in prayer. No one else but the Lord can tell me if my child's behavior is because of hurt, anger, or a deeper psychological issue.

In the information age, please don't forget to go to the source of all knowledge and all intelligence. Even with the internet, we have not begun to scrape the surface of all the our God knows about the world around us. And, the internet does not understand any of what God knows about me, my children, and my family.