Why Moms Are Better When We Have Something of Our Own
Yes you should get a hobby, build a business, find something you enjoy right now!
My kids are now 28, 25, and 23. Yesterday it was a Lego invasion all over my kitchen floor. Today I babysit my oldest son’s baby girl. Time is wild, and kid’s growing up truly does happen that fast.
When kids grow to be adults, you bear both the privilege and the angst of being that mom who can look back and see if what you believed about motherhood was true and what you did as a mom worked enough for you to give any advice about it.
(There are plenty of things I bombed as a mother, I can promise you that).
But one thing I have never regretted: having things of my own while my kids were growing up to learn, create, experience and grow in, that lived outside of my role as their mother.
It was a little clunky, at first. I wasn’t sure if I was ruining them. I well remember my daughter saying something to me that nearly broke my heart when she was in about the 3rd grade: I wish you were one of those non-worker moms so you could be my room mom.
I reconsidered my entire life for at least a day.
But then I remembered what the Lord had called me to. And I remembered an important rule of parenting: kids don’t have the wisdom yet to understand your why behind things, therefore, you can’t let them emotionally strong-arm you into decision-making. (This would prove to be an important truth for all of our parenting life, not just about this).
My why was always clear, and it wasn’t something I could yet explain to my 8-year old daughter.
That she would be a better woman one day to witness a woman who put her relationship with Jesus, first. I was a wife and mother, but I was a child of God, most of all. Kids will feel most secure when they understand the world doesn’t actually revolve around them. Otherwise, they feel destabilized by their own fallibility. But you can’t explain that to a child who in that moment, just wants the world to center around them (a universal issue).
That she would be a better woman one day after seeing a woman use her gifts and having it impress upon her young mind that God gifts and equips women to do a variety of work. This can and does co-exist with the most important work at home. All of my kids will tell you that I was their mom, first (and a quite traditional one, which isn’t a pre-requisite, of course — but I am the only one who ever cooked them a meal! ;). I cheered for all their ball games in the stands, missing only a very few for work. I made homemade corsages for dates for proms and was there for all the many field trips (not my thing…but THEY were!). But I also wrote books and traveled to speak. It was a juggle at times, but possible. One didn’t have to sacrifice for the other.
That she would understand one day that moms who do not live every breath for their children will not raise children who feel the burden to pay back that favor when they get older. After raising 3 children to adulthood, I know this to be true: kids need to see their parents develop a life of their own outside of them, or they will feel it is up to them to help maintain their parent’s happiness (or they will resent them for it and shy away!) — a job that should never be theirs. Empty nesting comes quicker than we think, and developing hobbies and using our gifts along the way keeps us from putting all of our soul into our child(ren).
The truth is, my daughter didn’t yet understand that working didn’t keep me from being her room mom. I would have been a terrible room mom, no matter what. Work didn’t keep me from signing up. My personality, lack of giftedness in hospitality, and severe introversion did. But how do you explain that to an 8 year old extroverted kid who just wants her mom to do what Sarah’s mom does? In a 3rd grader’s mind, room mom is way cooler than speaker and author.
In life, we get to take on many beautiful roles. Sometimes, that role includes getting to be a mother — something I always dreamed to be.
I get to be a mom, but first and ultimately, I am God’s child. That lives outside of my roles. He created me with gifts and loves me outside of cooking dinner, washing clothes, folding laundry, running carpool, and yes, writing books and speaking, too.
Raising my kids to see me play, create, dream, build things, and love and nurture them all at the same time was a beautiful way to say to them: you are a whole person no matter what roles in life God may give you.
It’s something I believed then and believe even more now that my kids are grown and now believe it, too.
