Mother's Day

I think Mother's Day is really, really weird. Not the idea of it—the idea is awesome! And not the cuteness of little kids singing songs for their moms, crafting chunky presents and making sketchy breakfasts. That's all awesome, too. I love it!

Mostly it's that all the homage paid to moms ends up sounding totally LAME. The "Mother's Day" sacrament meeting at my church is always one of the worst of the year, if you ask me. And not just because a worship service is held hostage by homage to people (that's a whole post in and of itself). Let's just pretend there's nothing dreadful about dedicating a worship service to Mother's Day instead of worship. Even then, the message you get is really, really lame! If I didn't know better, I'd think that the great thing about my job as a mom is that . . . my kids will get meals every day and laundry done because of my great sacrifice. Wow. Awesome. :-|

Year after year, same thing. Youth get up and give talks: "Why I love my mom. Sometimes it really bugs me that she tells me what to do, but then I had to make dinner for everyone and it was really hard. My mom is awesome. I'm so lucky she gave up all the other things she could do so that she can be home and cook for us and clean for us, and do all these hard, thankless things. Thank you, Mom."

:-|

Then women get up and say: "Being a mom is sometimes the most boring thing in the world. And sometimes it's the hardest thing in the world. Most days, I feel like the house is falling apart, the kids are running wild, and it's all I can do to just get dinner on the table. But then one of them touches my heart and I realize, this is the best job in the world, and I'm so glad I was righteous enough to have lots and lots of children and stay home to take care of them."

:-|

So what I'm getting from this is, wow, moms are really boring out their lives to be moms and especially to be stay-at-home moms. But they're irreplaceable—no one can put dinner on the table like mom can.

Interesting.

[Disclaimer: these were not synopses of the talks this time. They're generalizations of lots of talks I've heard over the years. :)]

Year after year, this lame meeting reminds of two things I really want out of life:

1) To thoroughly enjoy my kids. Every day.

2) To have the kind of relationship with them where they value a gazillion things over and above the chores I do. In fact, I'd like for them to not even think about the chores as part of my job description.

If my kid ever gets up to give a Mother's Day tribute, I hope with all hope it doesn't occur to him to pay tribute to my excellent housekeeping skills. Don't get me wrong—I do hope to be able to get my kids good dinners every day, and to keep up with the laundry, and have a house of order, and manage my kids' schedules well! But when my kid is asked to think about, "what makes your mom awesome," I'll cry my brains out if his heart doesn't melt, and he doesn't think about all the intangibles. I want him to feel overwhelmed by love. I hope he'd be able to say: my mom makes me feel loved; she makes me feel unafraid; she helps me to have faith, and to trust in the love my Heavenly Father has for me; she helps me to not fear the world; she helps me to have confidence in things that matter; she'll skip making dinner in order to play a game with me, and she'll let the laundry build up so we can go to the park together. ;-) 

And if I am ever asked to extol the virtues of motherhood, I hope with all hope that I will have planned and managed my life well enough to be able to say, honestly, "being a mom is the funnest, most fulfilling, least boring, most enjoyable thing ever!" Because it is. 

I saw this episode of Oprah a while ago that was supposed to be a tribute to mothers, but ended up just being a bunch of moms complaining about how thankless and boring and difficult it is to be a mom—and everyone saying "you moms have the best and hardest job in the world! And you also need to take time for your own interests because being a mom will steal your identity!" Boo. 

I'm a woman with a gazillion interests and a few talents that have definitely gone by the wayside these past few years. I love to read. Not lame books. GOOD books. The Brothers Karamazov has been staring at me for four years, begging me to read it. Instead, I've read things like Marley and Me. Boo! It's easy. I can read it in 10-minute chunks while I get in some exercise. My frazzled brain and unrelenting schedule can handle the Twilights and the Marley and Me's and The Time Traveler's Wifes of the world. Blugh. Whatever. Diverting, but lame. If I weren't a mom, I'd still be devouring Dostoevsky, Hugo, Camus, Tolstoy, Dickens, etc., etc. But good books are mostly a thing of the past for now. I love theatre. You might think I still do that all the time if you've noticed the times I've mentioned we saw something. But three or four shows a year doesn't cut it for this theatre-lover. :) Sans-child, we'd be season-ticket holders to the San Diego Opera, the Globe Theatre, the San Diego Symphony . . . . We'd be headed up to L.A. for things. We'd have seen about a dozen performances on our med-school mega-vacation . . . . Theatre feels mostly cut out of my life. We've only been skiing three or four times since Seth was born. We've adjusted all our travel so Seth could be with us (it's awesome to travel with a kid, by the way!). And I don't have the graduate degree I was dying to get, nor do I have the job I'm excited to train for one day. One might think I've "lost my identity." But I have always believed the Savior—and now have found proof, not just faith!—that one who saves his life will lose it, but one who loses his life will find it. What greater opportunity is there in all the world to "lose your life" than to your child? What greater built-in way to practice this than parenthood? I truly believe nothing can be more satisfying, more fulfilling, more enjoyable than parenthood!

Is it always easy? No, it really isn't. But I can honestly say that it's never boring (how can a close relationship with one of your favorite people in the world be boring? :)), and it's never dissatisfying. It's the best thing ever. It's enjoyable. It is!

So here's to mothers. Not because you do the chores and harp on morals, crafting impressive kids and clean homes. Here's to you because the mother–child relationship is one of the most sacred in all the universe; because moms can give children a haven of love and comfort and joy; because children can make a mother whole. 

And here's to everyone out there who misses your mother or who longs to be a mother, but cannot. I was thinking of you on Mother's Day . . . .