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Comments and Letters
Good Evening Ladies,
I just finished reading the Newsweek article about Mother Madness, and the response article by Mrs. Chancey. I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for having a sound mind in an insane world. I was shocked by the Newsweek article with the statement "so stay-at-home moms can have their own lives." I lost my life 16 years ago, when Jesus Christ graciously saved me. I don't want that life back.
I have four children that my loving and supportive husband and I adopted from the foster system. We were hit immediately with the call and beckoning of structured events. We said no. No to soccer, television and organized playgroups. We also said yes to fellowships with our friends to go to the park and play. Yes to reading a book, watching mom cook, clean, and love her husband, and yes to Jesus' plan for our lives. Sometimes it does get a bit crazy here in our house, things don't go as planned, but our house is built on a Rock, and He never wavers. ~ Anne P.
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I haven't read the original on which you commented but thank you for this article. The description of busy motherhood is so much like my life. I was touched by the comment about Titus 2 mentors. A major reason why I went back to work after my first was that I felt completely unsupported at home in my new role. My husband was very helpful but I really needed a Titus 2 mentor.
My Mother would have helped and was a great teacher earlier, but the ravages of Multiple sclerosis dementia were beginning to tell. She had taught me as well as she was able but laterly her abilities to teach decreased and by the time my son was born her advice became "odd". My Grandmother, a lovely Christian lady, had died a few days before my son was born and various aunts were helping my Grandfather or otherwise out of action.
I really didn't know what to do at home coming from a regimented life as a junior doctor to a baby with colic and reflux. I hated the coffee morning round and the fact that Christian women sat around in each others houses eating brought pizza and gossiping so I went back to work leaving my son with a Christian who I felt could do so much better than me. I didn't really know people who homeschooled or who allowed the Lord to control their family size. It was when I met people who stayed at home in this way that I realised that there was a point to being home and that the bringing up of one's children is a precious gift.
The problem is that once one is back in a professional post one's commitments become such that one cannot leave. We put our children in private school and whilst the younger ones could be moved, our eldest is very unhappy about being homeschooled and dh isn't at all sure we could meet his needs at home. I have to work part-time to pay the fees as living here, in London, is very expensive. Going back, we wouldn't make the same decisions now but unpicking them is very difficult. Dh reminds me that we did what we thought the Lord would have us do at the time.
To the present, we try to bring the children up in the nuture and admonition of the Lord. I want the children to suffer as little as possible from this life style which means that I work very hard not just with work which is part-time but with trying to make the house a home, teach the children as much as possible, at least try to be hospitable and try to bring up my daughter not to make the mistakes that I have made and to prepare her to keep house, have children and homeschool.
I was moved by the challenge that you received to be a Titus 2 woman even if there were no encouragement in return. This is a challenge to me. The Lord expects us to be faithful even if our circumstances are not those we would choose.
Sorry this is so long. Thank you for the challenge.
With Christian love,
Sarah
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Thank you so much for addressing Newsweek's "Mommy Madness." JUST LAST NIGHT, I stumbled across that article, and was almost speechless after I read it. I e-mailed it to [a friend] and said "can you believe this???" I thought your reply was so poignant and reflective. Thank you!
Kelly C.
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Dear LAF,
I am a regular visitor to your site (have it bookmarked) and read of the "Mommy Madness" feature in Newsweek magazine and on your site, too. As an older mom who shunned much of the feministic mentality (and paid a high price for it) I am awestruck of the mothers depicted in the article.
My first question to these moms is "What is your problem?" Obviously, they have bought hook, line, and sinker all the feminist/materialistic mentalities fostered by our present culture and now find it difficult to be a mother within those flimsy parameters. Who wouldn't?
Even as a liberal, I find much of their exhortations shallow and self-serving. While I don't think the notion of better child care is so terrible, I feel too many of these mothers believed they would smoothly segue into motherhood without a hitch - because some TV sitcom they watched when they were kids said they could. And now they're finding it not as pleasant as they figured. Well, that's called life.
While my mother, actually, stepmother was a homemaker and left the family while I was still in my teens, I followed her ideals and wanted to be a conscientious mother when I grew up and got married. Sadly, the times were not as kind as I'd hoped and I encountered more resistance to traditional values as the years transpired.
There were no role models available, and every young woman my age were either ensconced in college (I attended a short while) or on some career fast-track. I found myself not fitting into either category and found no solace even at home with my own husband. Though we had a child, then later, another; it was apparent that on some superficial level, my husband enjoyed me being at home, but inwardly chafed at my not earning a paycheck.
When I had my first-born, it seemed my whole world view changed from the moment I held this warm, loving babe in my arms. Suddenly, there was no place I needed to be but beside and close to this precious angel from God, I even called him "my little cherub". It was as if I passed into a different portal into another universe. I didn't miss my old job for one moment, even the camaraderie I'd shared with my co-workers seemed light-years away. It's so tragic when I see mothers over these past 20 or so years completely bypass that mental construct God placed in our minds when mothers gave birth. I'll admit - I wasn't a bona fide career fast-tracker, I would have thrown over my job at the drop of a hat anyway - except the birth of my first child affected me in a way I could not have predicted.
I think these women who have self-altered their own emotional lives are now paying for it in ways THEY couldn't have imagined. I know of a woman who is pregnant and expecting her first-born in three more months. She went from a cohabiting single woman to a mother now having to consider child care, and she is scraping by on her and her fiance's incomes. I can't see her juggling a new baby and bouncing right back to work. When I've told people I stayed home with my kids, I get all kinds of strange looks, like "Were you some sort of fanatic? Or too poor to work?" Actually, it was probably more the second reason than the first. This gal above is barely adapting to the idea of being a mother and is now going to have to face leaving her baby behind. While I'm happy for her, I'm also struck with a sense of tragedy for what's to come. Another co-worker, a married mom of two, a 5-year-old son, and a 1-year-old girl, is a "career mom" and is advising her on how to find the "right" day care, etc. She is the quintessential mom of the articles of late.
I also find it striking about the moms who feel they owe it to themselves that they "need" to dress like 20-year-olds, and worse, act like them. I am fifty years old and while I'm pegged for much younger, I am proud of the years I've inhabited on this planet and don't feel one bit of shame or derision because of it. I am also trying to get back into shape, and look forward to when my looks match my outlook. While I don't delude myself with reclaiming my once-shapely figure, I will be happy with a resemblance thereof.
Who taught these women how NOT to grow up? Again, I can guess - TV. Suddenly, it's not so cool to be a person of authority, even a parent. Well, I have a healthy respect for questioning authority, but by the same token, growing into parenthood crosses all classes, spectrums, and belief systems. One time my daughter asked me if I were jealous of her active life, I replied, no, I'm happy that you have friends, that's one of the things I'd hoped for you and your brother. However, if I'd been a child your age and knew you then, maybe I might have been. But that's only because my life was so sad and depressing next to yours.
I think some of these mothers find it hard to step out of the limelight that their teen daughters occupy by dint of their youth. I've seen mothers who think of themselves as their daughters' rivals, rather than their elders. When they birthed their children, their minds were still in high school instead of seguing onto the next level of emotional development. I was happy to have left behind what semblance of childhood I'd had when I left home and married, so I was looking forward to the next phase in my life, being a wife and mother. I didn't mind being seen as an authority figure, even if it was just within my own family. I think these women completely bypassed that phase in their own development, and they are now reaping the results.
If your emotional state is so hinged on your looks and appearance, you are not prepared to be a mother. As it happens, I am now almost an empty-nester. My two children are getting ready to leave home, and while I will relish the quality time I'll have when they leave, I'll know I will have done a good job when they finally enter the world. I don't regret one iota of the route I've taken, and I have two lives as testimony to that end.
Finally, I appreciate your advice to counter this disturbing trend. Older women are vitally necessary to assisting new mothers in raising their children. I counsel a younger mother I know, and although it always doesn't go the way I'd like it to, I know my intent is well-meaning, and that some goodness will filter through to the young minds I'm helping. When I was younger, I'd wished there had been older folks to help me, and I thought in a perfect society, there should have been.
Thank you for your input on this article, and for allowing me to express my views on your site. God Bless.
Lily H.
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