A recent study
claimed that “ the average mother devotes a staggering 57 hours a week to tasks
such as cooking, cleaning, washing and playing nurse to the family... They say that “typically a mum carries out 34
tasks per day, a grand total of 238 each week”
(Rebecca McKnight). This estimate
seems a little low to me. I have to
wonder if it fully accounts for the mornings when twin toddlers hop into their
mother’s bed to wake the baby at an ungodly hour or the frenzied home school
day when Mother scrambles to teach multiple grade levels in between dentist
appointments. Does it include the
afternoons and evenings when she scribbles grocery lists while prepping dinner
or the nights she tackles laundry mountains while engaging in the
heart-to-heart conversations with teens?
Or the countless times she has rallied to calm her toddler’s night
terrors and then finally, collapsing in bed, nursed the baby who won’t leave
her arms until morning dawns and she begins all over again?
Since the COVID-19
virus sent our nation into lockdown mode, social media has been flooded with
stories of deflated mothers whose routines have been turned upside down by tedious
days at home with their children. As I’ve scrolled through these accounts of
miserable isolation, cancelled vacations, unsatisfied cravings for fast-food fixes, and hair crises (due to
closed salons), I’ve felt my own agitation and discontentment increase. Admittedly our own family vacations and trips
to restaurants and salons are few and far between, but somehow reading my
friends’ protests has stirred up in me a
sense of being deprived of my rights as a woman and drained by the demands of motherhood. Suddenly I’m finding myself tallying each of
these 238 daily tasks I perform each week and wondering when I’ll ever have the
chance to “clock out.”
Following a
particularly impossible morning with countless potty training accidents, a
failed attempt at writing a sonnet with my elementary kids, and confirmed
reports that my 3 year old was doing planks and push-ups with a broken arm, I
put on my running shoes and fled the chaos of my household long enough to do
some ranting and soul searching. A few
miles into my run, Psalm 43:5 came to mind, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil
within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.”
I held tenaciously
to these words, letting them penetrate and calm my anxious heart. Suddenly I saw my restless discontentment for
what it was and knew that I could make the conscious choice to shut down the
toxic, swirling unrest in my spirit and, instead, number the unmistakable
answers to prayer and unexpected blessings I’d received in just the past
year. I recalled the startling, yet
joyful, surprise that I was expecting our ninth baby. So many friends prayed me through a difficult
pregnancy, collected all of the maternity clothes and baby gear I was lacking, and
lavished us with meals when our seventh son was born. I considered the sisterhood of sweet ladies
at our homeschool Co-Op who cheered me on as I struggled through the doorway
each Tuesday with half a dozen children, including my squawking newborn in the
front carrier and wild twins on monkey leashes.
My brave smile thinly masked the inadequacy I felt and the overwhelming
fear that I would prove to be a failure and a burden. Yet these women sought me out, empathized
with me in our common plight as mothers, listened with compassion to what they
couldn’t comprehend, laughed through tears over what none of us could control,
and blessed us immeasurably with their extraordinary creativity and skill as
teachers… They quietly picked up the
pieces I awkwardly dropped and served my family with such an abundance of grace that I couldn’t help but feel loved and
treasured. When I’ve thought of these dear women and the strength
they shared with me when I felt most weak, the image of Moses has come to
mind. This meek leader of an unruly
people was called on by God to raise His hands over the battle with the
Amalekites. And when his hands grew too
heavy for him to lift, Aaron and Hur stepped in to support his aching arms so
that the people of God would
prevail. What a humbling image of human frailty
and our calling to support each other!
” Strengthen the
feeble hands,
steady the knees
that give way;
4 say to those
with fearful hearts,
“Be strong, do
not fear;
your God will come,
he will come
with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to
save you” (Is. 35:3-4).
I think that one of
the saddest elements of the COVID-19 restrictions is the fear of contaminated
hands. While some people have hoarded a
lifetime supply of Purell and Clorox wipes, the rest of us have obsessed over
how we’ll keep our families clean and safe from potentially life-threatening
illness. With the necessary evils of
quarantine and social distancing, we have been prevented from engaging in the
life-giving connections with other believers that feeds our spirits and empowers
us for the daunting job of motherhood. Could
this be the root of our unrest? Have we
allowed the uncertainties of these times to take our eyes off the God who saves
us and to distract us from our divine calling to serve His people? Let’s not throw up our hands in defeat or
fold them in apathy during these days when we’re apart. Maybe, instead of scrolling and comparing
each other’s Facebook feeds, we could pause to pray or send a text of
encouragement to a friend with drooping arms…
Today, as I
celebrate my twentieth year as a mother, I am flooded with a myriad of rich
memories I’ve made with my children. It
amazes me how a couple of decades can mellow and sweeten what I recall about
the often-traumatic days as an exhausted, new mother with postpartum
depression. What I wouldn’t give to
revisit my 21 year old self, give her a gentle shake, and promise her that she
would indeed survive the tantrums and sleepless nights. I’d reassure her that the spunky little
daughter who was feeding bees to her baby brother would grow up to be a
passionate nurse and that the little boy who couldn’t make it through his first
grade math lessons would graduate summa cum laude and earn scholarships to an
honor’s college. (It remains to be seen
what will become of my vivacious twins who ride the ceiling fan and pick our
locks with flossers, but I can hardly wait to find out!) Looking back, I would gladly relive even the
most difficult days in order to snuggle the baby versions of my adult children
just one more time, to enter into their antics and messes, or to simply laugh
with my husband at the end of an interminable day, instead of dragging him down
with me into my slough of self- pity...
My mom is a thousand
miles away from me on this Mother’s Day, so I comfort myself with treasured memories
of the hundred times she held my hand and rocked my babies. One of the important lessons Mom taught me
that we have power over the narratives we tell ourselves. With a slight adjustment of our “lens,” we
can transform a limited, bleak viewpoint into a panorama of joyful, childlike
expectancy and hope. We can airbrush
even the bleakest pictures with humor and grace to make them beautiful! We can bemoan the disaster our kids left
through the house when they “cleaned” with “Styrofoam,” or we can laugh at the
blizzard and add this crazy snapshot to our album of hilarious memories.
Take heart, you
mamas who are in the trenches with me! The
same God who defeated the Amalekites through the ministry of trembling hands
has promised to renew our strength, lavish us with new mercies every morning,
enlighten us with wisdom when we ask for it, and when we find ourselves
isolated, support us with His own “hands.”
“Like as a father teaches his children, so
the Lord teaches them that fear Him. He puts His arms upon them. Marvellous condescension!
God Almighty, Eternal, Omnipotent, stoops from His throne and lays His hand
upon the child's hand, stretching His arm upon the arm of Joseph, that he may
be made strong!” (Spurgeon)
