The Exclusion of Motherhood

I sat there, while a 20 year old college student defiled my entire existence as a mother. Her ignorance spewed out of her mouth, like beautiful drops of poison, disguised in equality and freedom. Her words floated through the air and landed on my daughter, and she could feel the pain of it.

Out loud she said, “Thank you for sacrificing your life, mama, so I could be the incredible woman I am today, without wounds and insecurities and trauma. Thank you for depending on daddy to take care of us and giving up your desires, so that we could obtain ours.” My loving, joyful daughter starred at the 20 year old college student, with steam coming out of her ears, and then excused herself to go to the restroom to escape the eruption that was rising within her.

The college student continued to tell the young women in the room that men, essentially were useless and that they are wasting their time being in relationship with them and depending on them.

It is amazing how skewed a person’s perspective can be. Her close mindedness was wrapped in the epidemic that your way is the only way and there is no room for other perspectives. She spewed her hate over all the students there, who were all negatively affected, in some way.

It would be easy for me to lash out words that would totally obliterate her mindset and have her in tears. It is easy for me to bring people to a place of reckoning, when they diminish my life and calling. But for the first time, I felt sorrow, I felt a deep sense of sadness for her and her future children, if she chose to have any.

All of my life, my choice to be a homeschool, stay at home mom, has been diminished by other women. I have been told that I am foolish and uneducated and stupid and close minded and not enlightened. I have been excluded, shamed, made fun of and even scolded for my choice to raise my own children.

Motherhood is a gift. An incredible, wonderful gift. It is a blessing to be in a marriage with a man who loves you so deeply, that he is willing to sacrifice, so that his wife can raise his children. When a husband and wife choose to live in a one income household, especially in California, it is extremely challenging. However the rewards of being the one who actually molds and shapes your children to be amazing humans is priceless.

I did not want other hands on my children, telling them who they are or are not. I did not want other voices speaking death or rejection over my children that would disfigure their souls. I did not want their peers to dictate their worth or their place in this world. I did not want teachers to tell my children they were not enough because they did not accept the indoctrination of government agendas, through the public education system. I did not want media and social media to tell my children they could never measure up to the false images that were projected daily on the screens.

These children of mine are treasures from the living God to nurture and cherish and raise up. They are not burdens or write offs or annoyances that I needed to get rid of. They are my life. An expression of my husband and me, in love and with purpose to raise up the next generation. And I chose to be a part of their every step, every joy, every sorrow, every hope, every rejection, every dream, and every hardship. Hand in hand I walked with them, I talked with them, I gave them life to hold onto and believe in.

If you choose to work, that is your choice.

But don’t diminish or belittle my choice to stay home with my children and raise them. If you are all about women’s rights, then why do you exclude the mother’s rights to stay home with her children, as if it had no value? Don’t shame me or tell me I am a weak woman for raising my children. On the contrary, it takes great strength to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, without breaks or vacations. It takes great strength to educate your children and teach them integrity and honesty and inclusion of all people.

Some of the most outspoken people I know about discrimination, stand for equality for all… except if you are a stay at home mom. Then there is no equality, because, woman who stay home are “weak and foolish.” It such an ignorant mindset to think that women, who exercise their right to raise their own children are not intelligent. In fact, women who choose to stay home with their children are some to the most intelligent women I know, for many reasons. The biggest reason is that they are investing into the future of our city, state, country and world. They understand the big picture and sow into the lives of others, so that we can change the epidemics in this world that destroy lives.

So, the next time you think about excluded or diminishing the life of a mother, who chose to stay home and raise their children… perhaps you should do some research on how different those children are from those who were raised by society. Perhaps you should take some time and learn how to value others, who aren’t like you, and learn the value of those of us who gave up our childhood dreams for a new dream that invests in the future.

Motherhood is the greatest gift a women can receive, and actively participating in that gift is an epic adventure that shifts the atmosphere to bring new ideas and discovers that were never indoctrinated into the minds of their children. It creates open mindedness and creative thinking in ways that could never have been acquired had they sat in rooms being force fed the same agenda as every other child next to them. Motherhood is the flame that lights the fuse and watches it slowly move to the inner most parts of their child, until it explodes into purpose and calling for their lives.

I am so grateful I had the opportunity and choice to stay home with my children and be called “Mama.”

My job is done, mostly. My children are adults, married and about to graduate high school. I will no longer have minor children in my home. My job, as an active participator in their lives is over. Now I sit on the sidelines, as a coach, watching them play the game of life, and yell from the sidelines advice I have still to give as they navigate adulthood.

I will always be an advocate for mothers to stay home, it is a dying profession, which is causing a major negative impact on our society. I hope to encourage and value women who are considering or are already staying home with their children. And I will always speak out against women who belittle and exclude the beautiful calling of motherhood.

Playing in the mud

Life is messy.

It is not a neat organized, well planned event.

No matter how well we fake it, present it, package it- it’s a mess.

It is messy in our childhoods, messy in our love lives, messy in marriage, messy in parenthood, messy in friendships, messy in extended family, messy at school, messy at work.

It is the way the world works. Broken, falling apart, always dying. There is no hope in this world that can fix the messes. No joy in cleaning up the messes.

My life is a mess. It has always been a mess. From the moment I was brought into this world. Parents, not long after marrying, barely hanging on. Yelling, screaming, fighting; my father’s unfaithful heart broke my mothers. Messy. Divorce, depression, fear; my mother’s broken heart began to break ours. Messy.

At a young age, my innocence was stolen from me. Messy. Trying to find love and acceptance. Messy Falling in love with the wrong person, at too young an age. Messy. Giving too much of myself away. Messy.

I believed that life, was a fairy tale and that my prince would swoop me up from the messes and take me away to a castle far far away and all the messes would stay far behind me. My creative imagination captivated me and allowed me to live in Wonderland. My time there lasted only a year, but I found my Prince. His name is Jesus and he rescued me for the messes of reality.

In steps the man I was to marry. I was not attracted to him, I did not love him, yet the Lord told me he was my husband. I trusted my Prince and stepped into an adventure likened to Alice in Wonderland, falling down the hole into a place I could not even imagine in my mind.

For a moment in time, I felt safe and calm, brushing all the messes of my life under the rug. And for a time, a short while, we presented a clean, well-organized front.

The messes of my life and his, began to seep out from under the rug and our life became messy. In our most noble attempts to follow the Bible, trust God and believe Jesus, the messes of our lives created havoc in our marriage. Arguments, disagreement, words that can never be taken back. Forgiveness, repentance, washing our hands in the redeeming love of Jesus. Finding a way to live in the mess.

Not long after, children adorned our life and the messes from our own childhoods began to make their ways into our family. Fighting hard to keep the messes off our children, we became more of a mess. The arguing-refrained, turned into fear; the disagreements-kept quiet, turned into depression. Still the messes grew and grew in our little family. On a physical front, emotional and spiritual.

Trying to look good for church, we brushed the mess under the rug, smiled and waved at the perfect, plastic church people who maintained a clean, tight, organized life. Inadequacy wrecked our lives. At work, at home, as parents and lovers.

Then one day, as if a messenger from heaven came to deliver the message, hope came. The day was hot and miserable. The water was rushing form the hose and the kids were staying cool. Slowly the planter box filled up with water, as they played. I sat there, watching them slip and fall in the mud, laughing with a deep contentment. Mud flying everywhere, they giggled and slipped and threw the mess everywhere. Splats of mud smashed on the outside of the house, water spraying up into the air and spotting their dirty faces with hints of clean. Mesmerized by the beauty of innocence, wallowing in the mud, transfigured my mindset. Their joy spilled over into their us, thier parents, who threw off the image of clean perfection. We indulged in the simple wonder of contentment.

That was the day I began to delight in the messes. I began to delve into the messes. My vantage point was altered and the messes became an opportunity to play, to laugh, to be content. It was a life moment that would become my life motto. It was as if God was preparing me for the next part of my life. For not long after we encountered the messiest time of our lives.

Following dreams, losing dreams. Facing reality of poverty and loss. Insecure, angry, hopeless. Fighting, not arguing, fighting and yelling and screaming. Homelessness, fear, death. Being swallowed up in the abyss of grief, sorrow overtaking me. Oppression, continued poverty, more death. Guilt, shame, regret.

In the middle of it all, were my children. The ones I wanted to spare from the messes of this life. Standing right in the middle of it, my children experienced an indescribable mess. And, as if prophetic, I watched them play in the midst of it. The mess saturated their being, but it was just mud. It was just a time. The mess is still very present in their lives. It covers them from head to toe. But they have learned to find the joy in the mess, it is not debilitating. They have learned to be content in the mess, it has not destroyed them. They have learned to make the mess fashionable, and walk around without explanation of the mess.

In my attempt to keep my kids from the messes of this life, they were immersed in it. In my passion to give them more, the Lord reached down and showed me that “Life is the messy bits!” It is the stuff that defines us, that grows us, that shapes us. It will never be clean and tidy, it will always be a mess.

And so I delight in the messy bits of life. I find ways to play in the mud. I do my best to see things from the vantage point of my little children, who took the dirt of life and made it an adventure.

Life is a mess, but Jesus cleans us up. He wipes our faces so we can see, He cleanses us from the filth.  We will get dirty again, because this journey is long. But there is a promise that in eternity, the messes will no longer exist. Everything will be neat and clean and orderly as Jesus cleanses us from the filth.

Until then, I will trudge through the mud, finding new ways to play. New ways to make mud pies and mud baths and mud castles and mud art. I will embrace the reality that life is a mess, and I, I was made to play in it.