A Woman, A Wife and a Mother (in That Order)

Yesterday I read an excellent blog post on The Fussy Baby Site: Rejoining the World. The gist of the post was that your life should not center around your children. It's not healthy for you and it's not healthy for them. And while it seems impossible to take time for yourself and for your relationship with your partner in the early months and years of their lives, it's vitally important. Sean Sutton, the author, writes,

It’s okay to hunker down in the short term, to recognize the immediate, acute needs of your new young family. But it isn’t healthy in the long-term.

In North America we already drink the Kool-Aid that says we are solely responsible for our children’s’ upbringing, success, and happiness – as though the rest of the world in which they spend so much of their time has very little to do with it.

I would venture to say that our single-minded obsession with our kids does little to help them grow and understand themselves and the world around them.

Believing that our kids cannot learn to thrive without us is as dangerous as believing that we cannot thrive without them.

From the moment our children are born, it’s our job to start letting them go, a little at a time. When we teach them to take risks, but assure them they have a soft place to land when the fall, we are teaching them to be human, teaching them both to strive for what they almost dare not wish, and to support those around them when support is most needed.

But to truly teach these lessons we must teach by example. In short, we must reach for our own heights, demonstrate our own grace in failure, and engage in the communities around us.

They don’t need you to just be nannies –a nanny is a position, a job, not a person, and certainly not a parent. Children need parents. And parents are individuals first, and nannies second.

My mom has often reiterated what Sean has written here, although in a slightly different way. She said that our relationship with our husband/wife should always come first. Number one because your kids look to you as an example. The marriage they see before them is the marriage they think is a) what marriage is like and b) the kind of marriage they will emulate. Number two, your kids will one day leave the nest and if you haven't been nurturing your marriage for 20+ years, you will have a pretty sad and empty relationship with your spouse.  You'll be married to someone you don't really know anymore and you will be all too aware of this when you no longer have your children to keep you busy.

I want Jr to see a healthy, loving marriage. I want Jr to see a woman who loves, who receives love, who takes time for herself, who gives to her community, who spends time with God. 

This is the ideal. But man oh man, it's hard sometimes. Hubby and I do argue from time to time. It's not always easy to find a babysitter to go see a movie on a Friday night or to find the energy to have sex (not to mention shave my legs!). I haven't played the piano in such a long time (because it's too loud to play while Jr naps and she doesn't like it when I play when she's awake -- I'm not that bad, honest!). And while we do go to church, I find it difficult sometimes to find the energy and time to do my bible studies and most nights we forget to say grace at dinner.

Before you have kids, there are a lot of things you say you'll NEVER do and a  lot of things you say you will most DEFINITELY do. 

And then reality kicks in.

But what Sean writes and what my mom has always told me is something I will strive for.