Practicing Motherhood

This past week, my youngest daughter brought up a problem that she faces at school with a classmate who wants a best friend -- which really means she wants to dominate my daughter's time and attention.  My daughter wishes to maintain friendships with other girls in the class, yet her efforts to be kind to this desperate friend have meant that she has been manipulated to cut off additional school relationships.  My daughter wondered aloud if she is obliged to continue showing kindness to the girl who often comes to the point of ridiculous rudeness in demanding her attention.

This is not a new problem; each of my daughters has faced a similar dilemma with friendships, and it usually starts by about fifth grade.  It is essential for my daughters to learn to handle such situations kindly but with direction and strength:  if a girl becomes accustomed to being prey to such manipulators in her girlhood relationships, she will be an easy target for controlling dating and marriage relationships later.  But how she learns to handle it goes even deeper.

Strength for my daughter means more than merely sticking up for herself; the experiences she is having now are real-life practice for motherhood -- with the potential for real development for her and for the people around her.  If my seventh-grader were a loving mother trying to teach her junior high-age daughter, what would she do?  Perhaps I should phrase it differently:  Because my seventh-grader is am emerging mother with real potential to nurture and help her classmates, what should she do?

There are many "effective parenthood" ways for my daughter to handle her challenge, and this article is not written to enumerate them.  After a discussion of several strategies, I am confident that my daughter will choose options that work for her situation -- and that this is valuable practice in motherhood.


This experience has served as a reminder that the way we view our roles helps us have greater access to the power we have been given to act for ourselves and to make positive changes in the world around us. 

"You Pick Your Battles"

At my twenty-year high school class reunion, I had a chance to visit with the father of one of my classmates.  This was a man I had admired from childhood.  In conversation, I asked him about his talented younger daughter.  When he told me briefly about her life, I congratulated him for the good things she has accomplished.  His face pained, he expressed that some of her choices were not what he had hoped for her.  He leaned closer and with great intensity he added, "But you pick your battles, Daunell.  You pick your battles."

This brief exchange has been one of the most significant events of that reunion weekend:  I know little enough about this man's parenting, but have often thought of his earnest face and how his remark has urged me to become a more deliberate mother.  Whatever he may have intended to communicate, his comment continues to remind me to "pick my battles" carefully.

Love comes first.  Foremost in such a discussion is love.  Many times when we talk of "picking our battles," we mean that we feel forced to choose between maintaining a relationship or abandoning our principles; we seldom consider ways that such "battles" may be an expression of our love. Often, the way we frame something changes the way it is received:  timing, tone of voice, and the wider context of a loving relationship can allow me to be direct without communicating that I am in "attack mode."
 

Advocate for, don't fight against. I don't really want to fight against my children.  When they were younger (and even now, as they grow up,) I have been willing to defend them -- to advocate for them.  Ideally, in our family relationships we can battle against error and evil together; this is a battle I willingly pick.  Because I know there is a God who has defined truth and goodness, my role as mother means that for life's battles I must personally learn and teach God's true principles to my children.  Who is right is less important than what is right.

Seek divine help.  We don't live hypothetically, so each mother needs personal inspiration to know how best to face each challenge.  The fact that something seems to work at one time or with a particular child is not proof positive that all similar situations should be handled the same way.  God knows us and our children and leads parents to know what to do in our real parenting challenges -- but we have to listen and obey.

Calm courage.  Wading into a worthwhile "battle" takes sustained courage.  When you know your position is God-directed/based on true principles, it is easier to remain calm and consistently defend right without becoming defensive.

Hold the line.  I remember my mother often saying that raising children is like containing cattle in a field, and that the fences are a comfort to both the cattle and the rancher.  She grew up on a ranch and had noticed cattle bumping up against electric wires -- occasionally shocking themselves on purpose -- then grazing contentedly after finding the boundaries remained strong.  We can expect that our children will likewise vigorously test the boundaries we have established and that they will later sometimes brush against them to see if they are still there.  Like a protective fence, it is a mother's job to hold up the bounds -- even when complaints against them are loud and manipulative.  The knowledge that a fence is a moving target is an enemy to peace, inviting perpetual, painful testing!

Nip it in the bud.  The most effective battle-picking happens when I take care of problems before they grow big and ugly.  This means starting when children are young and arresting issues before they have a chance to become problems: children may complain a little, but it is much less painful to discuss, establish, and enforce thoughtful rules governing television content, iPod use, sleeveless tops and dating than it is to spring it on an adult child that bringing his live-in lover home for Christmas is a violation of your family's policies. 

I realize that these principles do not guarantee freedom from ever having parental challenges, but I have seen them at work.  They give me power to act, rather than leave me feeling oppressed or acted upon as a parent.  Yes, I pick my battles -- and when I am thoughtful, it usually means we all win and I don't even have to fight.

Unexpected Traditions

My Grandma Jensen was a talented musician and a professional secretary; I doubt she thought of herself as "a knitter," and I don't imagine that, fifty years ago, she was trying to start a tradition when she made a small scarf for my father of variegated wool yarn.  The scarf was a small and simple thing:  just rows and rows of knit stitch.  Dad wore that scarf on his mission to France and for many years after, until the treasure eventually fell apart.  Twenty-five years ago, when my brother left to serve in Washington, D.C., Grandma was asked to make a similar scarf for him.  Now that my son is similarly serving a mission, I purchased some variegated wool and began work on a scarf for him.

The ladies at the store tried to redirect my attention to yarns that were less expensive and more bulky, warning (truly) that such a scarf as I described would be costly and “take forever” to complete; I can now see why Grandma’s scarves were (as I thought) somewhat narrow and short!  Though my amateurish knitting is imperfect and though I was unable to locate the primary color variety that I remember from my youth, my son’s scarf in shades of avocado and copper – and which works up looking suspiciously like camouflage – is part of Grandma’s larger, if inadvertent, tradition.  I was not the recipient of a handmade scarf; yet as I make time to work on one for my son, I become a part of her tradition of love and effort and have hope to connect my children to the qualities I've admired in her life.

Many of our most cherished traditions are like this.  Mothers plan and work to create what we think will be meaningful ways to mark the lives of our family members; but the seemingly insignificant, unexpected things often are the ones about which memories are made.  The Christmas my oldest children began to read, I had a few gifts wrapped for one and nothing ready for some others; I wanted to set out the gifts but avoid discontent, so I made up a simple code and let everyone wonder and hope each gift could be for him.  The next year I had prepared better and saw no need for a code, but the hopeful Code Crackers pleaded in favor of the “tradition.”  And so it continues:  when my children are assigned to write about Christmas Traditions, they always mention the fun of The Code.  

 (Incidentally, this was the way my husband got his wish that we open presents one at a time:  our inadvertent tradition has unexpectedly facilitated anticipation of and appreciation for each gift, rather than a greedy hoarding and unwrapping frenzy on Christmas morning.)

When our oldest child was eight, I had a conversation with an experienced mother and grandmother who provided comfort when she shared this principle with me.  Her eight children were fairly close in age and she knew first-hand the struggles I faced at the time.  She talked about her own high expectations, her health challenges, and about the times when she had felt like a grumpy failure as a mother; but she reminded me that people have selective memories.  She explained that as a parent, she was amazed to hear her adult children reminisce about their happy childhood – and the stories often began with, “Do you remember how we always used to…?” 

“What they remembered might have happened once or twice,” she said with a shrug, “but to them it was our family tradition.”  Looking at the neighbor with admiration, I realized this was probably because a tradition of real love undergirded everything, even the occasional unpleasantness.   

Which gave me hope.

Tipping Points

In The Tipping Point, one of Malcolm Gladwell’s thought-provoking books, the author uses multiple examples to demonstrate how big – and sometimes sweeping – consequences emerge out of seemingly small events or situations.  He shows how (as he says in his subtitle) “Little Things Can Make a Big Difference”:  violent crime on city streets has been arrested by cracking down on petty infractions such as graffiti, jaywalking, and panhandling; fashion trends become epidemics because of the remarkable gifts of a few well-connected people; religious seminarians in a hurry literally step over an opportunity to be a "Good Samaritan."

One surprising statistical difference equates the presence of only a few professionals in a neighborhood (fewer than 5%) with keeping drug abuse and teen dropout and pregnancy rates down.  It could be frustrating to be one of the 4% of professionals in a neighborhood; one might not suspect that the neighborhood might literally “go to pot” if he moved!  Yet the presence of even one directed person may have a surprisingly powerful influence for good on his entire community – indeed, his very presence may be a decisive factor in providing light, hope, and safety for everyone.

In context of our society’s crumbling moral norms, I have been led to wonder what our tipping points for total disintegration might be – and whose quiet strength might be helping to hold destruction at bay.   It takes courage for adults and children to choose to cheerfully resist peer pressure even when it appears “everybody else is doing it” with no apparent consequences.  Naturally, the thought that one is withstanding the pain of persecution for the benefit of those who inflict it may bring out vindictive feelings, but when we consider more closely we realize that this willing gift is the essence of Christianity.

The reality is that people can choose to change if they have hope – and that you and your loved ones benefit from every semblance of order and goodness in the larger community in which you live.  If it seems “nobody else” is doing what you believe is right, your continued firmness in doing it anyway serves for the good of everyone.  Like the Jimmy Stewart hero in It’s a Wonderful Life, we rarely see the full impact our lives have had on the world around us.  Whether or not we ever know, the effort is worth it.

Directed parenthood is one of the main things that "tips" the world in favor of goodness.  Repeated studies of positive outcomes in successful families suggest that the biggest defining factor is a father in the home; I believe that the possibility of a nurturing mother is also much higher in a home where the father is present.  Wisely choosing a spouse is important, but what comes during the Ever After part of marriage really defines its ultimate success.  When the parents’ marriage is intact, the husband and wife have learned to get along and support one another, for one thing; for another, a mother is more likely to have the necessary time and freedom to nurture when there is a paternal provider.   I know that much of the growth I have experienced is due to the love and support of my remarkable husband.

The following essays are the observations of an ordinary God-fearing housewife with a modicum of common sense, not those of a credentialed researcher who needs to impress colleagues or who has something to gain.  I know nobody wants my job; I would not trade my role as Mother for any other.  My  focus is on ways women become the nurturing and supportive Strength that we identify with Motherhood.