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If you're anything like me and most of the moms I know, the voice of mommy guilt is loud and persistent. She's constantly judging your choice of snacks, schooling, technology, entertainment, expenses, and activities.
The provoking circumstances are always a little different, but whether you're wrestling with the question of bottle versus breast, home education versus public, or Twinkies versus kale, the question is the same: “Am I a good mom if I choose _______?”
Please allow me to state the obvious: If you are even asking the question, “Am I a good mom?” then the answer is already, “Yes.”
The truth of the matter in this dilemma is the luxury of a western, first-world culture. We are singularly gifted with both freedom and resources that allow us to:
- CHOOSE if we want to work outside the home, breastfeed, or home educate.
- spend our time and thoughts on whether or not we should eat paleo or carb-tastically because most of us don't wonder where our next meal will come from.
- evaluate video games, movies, and music for how much violence is “too much” violence because our children will likely spend their day tomorrow in education, not in battle.
- weigh western medicine against homeopathy because we have an abundance and variety of medical professionals within a phone call's reach.
- wonder about co-sleeping and cribs because our children have a roof over their heads and a warm place to sleep.
May I suggest that fretting over whether this decision or that one increases or lessens your “goodness” as a mother is a selfish and futile diversion?
A bad mother doesn't wonder if she's a good one. A bad mother who intentionally and maliciously uses, harms, neglects, or abandons her children doesn't ask herself, “What can I do to be a better mom today?” If you're even remotely concerned with whether or not you're a good mom, and if you have the luxury of asking, then you are one.
Meanwhile, our sisters around the globe who will never know the luxury of such “problems” as we have are good mothers too. The mothers who struggle to provide any kind of food, shelter, warmth, medical care, education, and peace for their children–but who sacrifice of themselves to find those things–are good mothers.
Believing that whether or not we are good mothers lies in our decision on today's hot-button issue implies that the women who never have the opportunity to even make such a choice are bad mothers.
Let me challenge you with the thought that our goodness as mothers is not rooted in the decisions we make on any one topic, but in our commitment to Christ. Vastly secondary to that is our commitment to our husbands (if we have one) and to our children.
When we are feasting on the Bread of life, abiding in the peace that passes understanding, resting in the relief that comes from casting our cares upon Him, educating ourselves at the feet of Jesus, and exhaling prayers with each breath, there is grace for ourselves and for each other to allow much variety in the little things of our earthly food, education, and sleep choices.
If you make whatever choice you make because you think it is in the best interest of your child(ren) and in your best obedience to Christ, then sister, you are a good mom. The beautiful thing about this is that following Christ in and through our motherhood can persist through poverty, strife, sickness, unrest, oppression, and persecution.
I feel I should clarify that I know that choices about nutrition, education, discipline, and medical care are important, have lasting effects, and deserve our attention, care, and caution. However, the decisions we make on any of these issues should not give birth to lengthy diversion into the topic of our qualifications as a mother.
None of us is qualified to do this hard thing of motherhood, and yet in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, because of the grace of God, we have all we need to do it and do it well. That should be all the confidence and reassurance we need on this topic.
A consequence of seeking to validate our competency as mothers by the decisions we make is the modeling of this behavior to our children.
Do they see us turning to the Word to speak to us about our value and mission? Do we live as though we believe we are intimately loved and known by name? Do they know a mother who knows that her worth is not in her deeds but in the image of God that is within her?
Do we model that we truly know and believe we have not earned our salvation or our Father's love for us through things we toil at on this earth? Do our children observe us answering the various calls and tasks God has for us not based on our abilities, but on His promise to accomplish His purposes by His power?
The things on which we base our opinions of ourselves and our tasks teach our children to base their opinions of themselves on those same criteria. Has your criteria come from the Creator who made you and the Truth in His Word, or from your performance in earthly tasks and decisions?
I spend the time I need in prayer, discernment, scripture reading, and discussion with my husband to make a decision on whatever issue is at hand. But I am trying to discipline myself to then spend any remaining time I would have spent mentally wringing my hands over whether I am a good mom for making such a choice (or whether another mother who makes a different choice on the same issue is a good mom) in prayer.
I pray for the woman so lost in darkness, pain, and sin that she wounds her child, for the woman across the world who desperately wants to give her child everything and yet can give nothing, and for the children of these women.
And I pray for the example I set for my son in how I think of myself.
Turning the focus away from ourselves and toward the women who will never know the luxury of questioning, and to the women so lost that they don't even think to ask the questions, will reduce our temptation to judge and be discontent, quiet our insecurities, increase our compassion and awareness, direct our attention to questions of eternal significance, and even still the mommy wars.
We are in this together with Christ and with each other, and that already gives us a tremendous advantage. Let us not waste it by spending time asking questions to which we already know the answer.
