Happy Mother’s Day to all of you!  I hope you had a wonderful day with your children and family! 

Mothering, and this process of becoming the designer and architect of your own family’s culture,  can be wonderful and joyous but also challenging and daunting.  Mothering can be like a yoga pose that one cannot get out of, and must stay in and stretch.  Mothering can become a catalyst for one to learn more about oneself, about one’s biography and history.  Mothering can be a catalyst for developing oneself further as a human being, and for nurturing the qualities of goodness in ourselves. 

One question that I have heard over the years and that recently came up in a comment,  is this idea or question of “How can I be happy in my mothering? How can I be happy with my children?”

I think this is a very valid question!  In our society, there are very few models for mothering.  Many of us have had mothers who were/are  either physically or emotionally unavailable, or who  modeled  mothering for us in ways we do not wish to repeat.  

Many mothers I meet are trying to juggle many different roles in their lives, and feeling frustrated.  They are working outside the home and thinking about their children and trying to juggle work and sick days and teething days, or they are with their children and thinking about their outside work and feeling as if they are not doing the best job in either world.  This  is a true challenge, especially in the US, where we do not have a paid maternity leave, and many mothers are back at work before their infants are twelve weeks of age.

To me, this question is actually  not a question of happiness or love, but a question of satisfaction.  Are you satisfied being home with your children and would you change that?  Most stay at home mothers I speak with talk about how they would not change that for anything, even on the “bad” days.  These mothers may not be joyously happy every minute of the  day, but will find moments within the day to be happy, moments to smile and laugh with their children, and they feel satisfied being home with their children.  Even on the sick days, the teething days, the days when there are sibling fights, there is this sense of satisfaction that they are the one dealing with it.  Every day at an outside job is typically not fabulous, and neither is every day at home, but is it satisfying to be there.

1.  One thing  that goes with satisfaction includes having unhurried time.  If you have unhurried time with small children instead of rushing about, you have the time to catch those cute moments, the funny moments, the silence of being together that I mentioned above and they often redeem the time when things are not going so well.  If you can be present you will be available to catch these moments.   So my first piece of advice in terms of how to be happy at home is to try not to wear so many hats so you can have this time.

Here is an example from my personal life: many of you know  I am a highly specialized physical therapist in neonatal feeding and development.  There are very few of us in the country, and it was hard for me to think of not treating patients and using those skills to help families who were so desperate.  Yet, there will always be patients and families.  My children are only here once.  That is the only shot I get with them.  Can you slow your own life down enough to really be present?    Here is a  post that speaks to this subject: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/08/22/how-do-i-take-off-one-of-these-hats/

Many mothers I know who seem most satisfied with being with their children are ones who have a profound connection to a sense of Higher Purpose in their mothering, that this is a calling.  This also requires unhurried time, to be able to sit and think and listen.  You can get this even with small children running about, usually by being present and in those moments outside when your wee one is digging in the sand box.    This attitude can take time to develop, and I hope some of the mothers who feel this way will leave a comment below to help other mothers. 

2.  The second thing that goes with satisfaction is having confidence.  If you know developmental stages and have a proper view of the infant, the toddler, the child at different points in the developmental cycle, it helps you weather the stormy periods in a satisfied and calm manner.  You feel calm, you handle things, you feel satisfied that you are handling the more challenging things.   You don’t feel so defeated and take it so personally when things do not go well.  There are still two parties involved in mothering – you and your child.  It is not all you and some children really are more sensitive than others, or more challenging than others.  Confidence grows with time, but I think one way to gain confidence is to read about developmental stages, about gentle discipline, about where you are and to come up with a “box of tools.”  What tools do you have?  What do you use?  Are you using what is effective?  Do you beat yourself up if you use a tool that is not effective, and what does that gain for you?  What is the payoff of beating yourself up and being negative?  Is it helpful, does it make your family life wonderful?  Sobering questions, but ones to ponder. 

The other arm of building confidence is to have a MOTHERING MENTOR.  Pick someone who has children that you like, whose children are older than yours, and ask her to be your mothering mentor.  The Internet is wonderful, but there is nothing like having real flesh and blood people who know you and your children and who can support you.  Every mother needs a friend that is encouraging and supportive.   It is always amazing to  me to see mothers being snide to each other instead of loving and supportive.  Those “back-handed” compliments have nothing to do with support!  Every mother is doing the best job that they can in the place that they are with the information that they have.   

For those of you without a mothering mentor or a special encouraging friend, make a list of the qualities of a friend you would love to have, and pray and meditate over that list.  You may be surprised whom you find in your life!

3.  The third thing that goes with satisfaction is feeling as if you are actually not just reacting to everything, but that you have some sort of overall vision and plan. That is why I encourage mothers all the time to think about a Family Mission Statement, to think about what the rhythm of the day might look like (because the rhythm is for YOU even if your small children don’t fall right into it!)  Think about having a menu plan, and when you will clean your house and when you will shop.  Think about how you will handle things that come up as far as guiding your child; if you know developmental stages anticipating these situations and thinking through them is easier;  talk to your mothering mentor about these situations. 

Also, what would be FUN for you with your children?  Do you make time to snuggle, play games, sing together, be outside in nature together, laugh, tell stories, read?  These are the things that build those happy moments rather then the end of the day with exhausted children who are crying through dinner because they really just need to get off to bed! 

4.  The fourth thing to add to your satisfaction is developing yourself and your own inner qualities.  Many mothers do this through a spiritual or religious life; some mothers find this through artistic work, through meditation or  through certain activities that they do.   Taking a bit of time every week to really ask yourself, “Where I am this week and what am I striving for?”  can be really helpful… That person that I was before I was a mother, am I still really that person or am I finding a footing in a new world and changing into being a new person with new and different interests?  Motherhood can be the catalyst to developing yourself further in ways you were not open to before; with different interests that were not there before motherhood.  However, this too, takes time.

Also, please remember to ask for help.  On Mother’s Day and every day, you deserve some time to just think.  Your spouse really does want to help you, tell him what you need.  Time to think will help you process your own growth and lead to increased satisfaction and joy in being home.   If your lack of joy in being with your children stems from a developmental stage that they are in or something going on with your spouse, there are so many posts about sibling fighting, challenges  in marriage and each developmental stage on this blog.  I encourage you to check them out and I hope you will find them helpful.

I hope you have found this encouraging. 

Many blessings and much love,

Carrie

In this time of renewal between Easter and Ascension, in this time of planning for  Fall for many homeschooling mothers,  and in this time of evaluation for many parents as we all gear up for Summer (or Winter, if you are one of my dear Down Under readers!), I invite you to breathe and ask yourself this question:  How often am I going out of my home?

• Is it every day and you have children under the age of seven?
• Is your home and your homeschooling and your parenting where you would like it to be?
• Could your time of lessons or classes or activities for your small  children be better spent elsewhere at this point? 

I understand if you are suffering from depression and really need that social connection and support of other mothers.  I really do understand if you are extremely outgoing like me and just get filled up by being with other mothers and other people…I really do understand!    I wrote a post about Social Isolation for Stay-At-Home mothers here:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/02/24/social-isolation-for-stay-at-home-mothers/

But there has to be a balance, and if you are going out every day and if your under-seven child is involved in a plethora of activities, I just gently am nudging you to explore this.  Boundaries are important, and showing and modeling for your child how to set boundaries and maintain them is REALLY important as they grow up into a world that will most likely have even more blurred lines between personal and professional lives due to increased technology. 

I invite you to try to discern what really are  the most essential things in your life, and how the time you spend reflects what is most meaningful to you.  I am working on this right now, and it really is challenging me!

Particularly for the parents of very small under-aged five children, it is easy to get caught up in lessons, classes, and other things.  The ages under five (and under seven and yes, even under age nine!), to me, is an excellent place to experience an  unhurried concept of  time.   They will never have these days again!   There will be so many other years for classes, for lessons and for other activities and for rushing about on a schedule (which is different than the flowing rhythm of being at home).

Many mothers I speak with somehow feel their children will be “behind” if they don’t enroll in a number of things, and they point to things like elite Olympic athletes who start training at the age of four or something.  Actually, I like to point out that for a number of athletes, they started later or switched later from one sport to the sport that later became their Olympic sport.  I  also like to point out that if a four-year-old starts piano lessons, a seven or eight year old can typically catch up to where the four-year-old is in a matter of months because they are more mature and more coordinated.   There is something to be said for developmental maturity and neural pathways being mature and ready…. I am sure many with disagree on this point, but I guess what I am trying to say is that all is not lost if you take a summer and have nowhere to be or take your children’s under-seven years and be HOME.  That will probably provide a more lasting foundation  than any one-hour class that you are rushing your child and younger children and babies out the door for!

For homeschooling mothers, especially for mothers new to homeschooling, it is easy to think that one’s child should be involved in this and in that for “socialization” and for those things that just seem  harder to do at home.  Many times we tend to forget that home has its own advantages.

So, today, I am just giving you that gentle nudge to look into your heart as you plan for Fall. Think about how many days out of the home are necessary. If your children are small, it may not be what you think.  If your children are older, please do plan enough time to actually home school at home instead of trying to home school from your car.  Unhurried “digestion” of academic material is so important.

Many blessings,

Carrie