Mommy culture -
I’ve mentioned before; most people my age have been there, done that, in raising children, but it’s new to me so that’s what fills my days.
Tuesdays Andy has a standing play date appointment with another church family’s two boys. Today we went to a lake and rode a duck-shaped paddleboat. Afterwards we took a nature walk along the lake and helped the boys throw rocks into the water and find dandelions to blow off the spores. Elizabeth, their mother, and I talk about the pleasures and pains of raising the boys. I told her that if I had met her four years ago and if she had had children then, we probably wouldn’t be social friends. She understood. It’s not fun hanging around a family who has young kids unless you also have young kids.
When Tom and I were childless (we dated five years and have been married nine years) we could get-up-and-go to the lake at the drop of a hat. Just pack water, fruit, crackers and books in a backpack. Saddle up the car with bikes; throw in the picnic blanket and off we went. As far as children were concerned: we would do our expected duties of visiting family members or friends who had young children but we were usually emotionally drained afterwards so our visits were few and far between.
Families with young children are draining, whether you’re visiting their house or they’re visiting yours. I had told myself that I wouldn’t allow my son to be a nuisance in other households but I realized one day that I am also blind to his being spoiled when a hostess brought him a play phone because he had been playing with their house phone. Love is blind.
Sometimes we keep the kids indoors during a play date. They play for about two hours. Other times we take them out on a “field trip” and less gets done. Two weeks ago we went to a playroom two blocks away on the fifth floor of a building. The playroom was closed for remodeling so we went to the eighth floor, where there’s a movie theater, to get nachos and popcorn before returning to my apartment to play. These easy-sounding activities took a good hour since we had to haul children in and out of cars and car seats and elevators and bring them into the apartment while holding umbrellas under the chin with a baby in one arm and popcorn and nachos in the other and a diaper bag slung over the shoulder. And I only have one child; Elizabeth has a 16-month-old and a three-year-old. We agreed that it takes a mommy to understand a mommy. No longer do I get irritated when I hear a child crying. Instead, I feel pity for the child. No longer am I free to indulge my time as I want. My day revolves around Andy’s needs.
Anybody can be a mom, but it takes hard work and love to be a mommy. I feel sorry for the children whose parents can’t or don’t make their kids a priority. An extreme example is the Florida mother, Casey Anthony, who is accused of killing her two-year-old daughter because the child was cramping her lifestyle. The mom wasn’t free to live the carefree life that she had been living. Yes, I know, it is an extreme example. However, from my experience of teaching thousands of high school students in Arlington, Texas, I know that the percentage of child neglect is pretty high. If the quality of the students is any indication of America’s future, it’s a scary picture. I’d say that half of the students didn’t have parents that made their children a priority in their lives. I yearn to return to America but sometimes I fear that Andy will be affected by the overly sexual and blasphemous culture in various areas of America.
My job as a mommy is seen as a lowly unglamorous job, but it is the most important job I have ever held. I have a huge responsibility to train my child to make it to heaven and to leave the world a better place. A segment from the chapter “True and Honest Men” from one of my favorite books, “Education” by Ellen G. White, stays on my mind:
But such a character is not the result of accident; it is not due to special favours or endowments of Providence. A noble character is the result of self-discipline, of the subjection of the lower to the higher nature-the surrender of self for the service of love to God and man.
“The greatest want of the world is the want of men- men who will not be bought or sold, men who in their inmost souls are true and honest, men who do not fear to call sin by its right name, men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole, men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall.”
The youth need to be impressed with the truth that their endowments are not their own. Strength, time, intellect, are but lent treasures. They belong to God, and it should be the resolve of every youth to put them to the highest use. He is a branch, from which God expects fruit; a steward, whose capital must yield increase; a light, to illuminate the world’s darkness.
Every youth, every child, has a work to do for the honour of God and the uplifting of humanity.
