Motherhood is not a joy.
I haven’t gotten to that place where I can feel comfortable having a filthy house and clean hearts. I want both. I want it all. I want the spotless magazine-home and obedient, grateful children.
The expectations are too much. The ones I carry with me, the ones I perceive my husband has. All the ones I’ve picked up from various relationships, the media, church denominations.
I still struggle to tell the difference between anger and hatred.
I study other parents to learn what works…and what not to do.
I analyze the happy parents and study the miserable ones. Often, the happiest parents have the unruliest children and messiest houses.
Perhaps my priorities are all wrong.
The work overwhelms me.
The constant battling over dust and sand, dirty looks, and hateful comments thrown like darts from around corners. The lying and deceit. The laziness and shirking of duty.
It’s exhausting. I get bogged down in the checklists of laundry, meal planning and preparation, dishes, school lesson planning and implementation, flossing.
I don’t have time or energy to dance or sing…or sit with an empty lap.
I don’t have time for my husband. The relationship that was tenuous is slowly slipping away.
Between the teeth brushing and baths and bedtimes and early risers and second breakfast, there is all but nothing left over.
And the blogging and the home business? I am such a poser. You see only a glimpse of the best: the fairy tale, photoshopped, magazine-pretty version of my reality.
The thankful journals, the hymn-singing, the chore charts, the Bible studies, worldview notebooking, the scripture memorization and copywork. The church and Sunday school attendance. VBS. All the checklists that don’t matter to Jesus or to anyone else, not really.
If they’re not hiding it in their hearts. Just going through the motions of learning lessons at face value isn’t enough.
If they’re not pouring out love, then they’re not being filled up properly.
When the stresses of the world weigh me down. When I have to walk away, biting my lip, sucking back tears, holding my breath.
I haven’t yet reached that place where motherhood is a joy, where I can laugh at spills and smile at mistakes.
The busyness is a defense mechanism. To just be still is scary, requires too much of the soft, fleshy insides to be revealed, exposed, examined. {Click to tweet this!}
And I dread being found wanting.
Even after thirteen years of motherhood and ten years of marriage, I’m not comfortable enough with myself to allow God, my husband, or my children in.
If I don’t accept love, I cannot offer it. If I don’t receive love, I cannot give it.
I struggle to find a balance of teaching the hard lessons well and stepping back to not take it personally when the children misbehave.
So, I must pray and find new ways to fill myself up with Love so I can pour it into my little ones. So I can teach them well and love them well. So there is something leftover.
Love is a verb.
Joy is a choice.
Resources:
- Motherwhelmed by Beth Berry
- Jesus, the Gentle Parent by LR Knost
- Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay Gibson
- The Highly Sensitive Parent: Be Brilliant in Your Role, Even When the World Overwhelms You by Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D
- Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child by John Gottman
- The Mother Dance: How Children Change Your Life by Harriet Lerner
- I’m So Effing Tired: A Proven Plan to Beat Burnout, Boost Your Energy, and Reclaim Your Life by Dr. Amy Shah, MD
- Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers by Gordon Neufeld
- Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam Grant
- Good-Enough Mother: The Perfectly Imperfect Book of Parenting by René Syler and Karen Moline
- The Mom Gap by Karen Gurney
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