Motherhood appreciation starts with mothers who show appreciation. An unpolished essay.

An excellent Matt Walsh blog post defending Stay at Home Mothers floated around on Facebook last week and it really got my wheels turning (in a good way). But then the comments/response in a few post threads made me sad. So much guilt, attacking, ugliness, between mother readers. The message was getting lost.  Here's this great guy, defending what we do, and here are the mothers tearing ourselves down. Here are my thoughts about all that. 

Whether you are a mother who works outside the home or inside the home, hear this: 

You are doing a great job. 

You are doing enough. 

You don't need anyone but you to defend Motherhood. 

My opinion does not matter. 

Wait. What did she say?! 

I agree with the Matt Walsh article. It is well written and it stands up nicely to society for the hard work (yes, work. Mothering is a for real job) of being a Mother. I can't shake a feeling that the article, and many others that are similar, while well intended are written for the wrong audience.  They're directed at the outward opinion of Motherhood, and I want to look inward.

Truth: Motherhood is not a highly revered calling in today's world.  

I don't think there is any one specific demographic that is immune to this kind of thinking. It isn't the working mom's fault. Not the fault of women who have no children. We cannot blame men, either. I sometimes feel like these great essays that proclaim the greatness of our work are being shouted at or shoved upon the wrong crowd.  These essays have a great message, but the message is getting mixed up in the delivery and the contention is dividing mothers instead of bringing us to support one another.  Mothering is about love. It is not about whether or not you are the best kind of mother (what is that, anyway?), a nursing mother, a working mother, a home schooling mother, a mother of 7, a mother of one, or a mother to none. (I know many women who have no children of their own who still respect the role to mother and care for other people.) Working mothers are attacked just as much as stay at home mothers.  

So. What do we do about it? 

The glory of Motherhood, in general, is forgotten, misunderstood, under appreciated, and under valued and we are hurting ourselves by making some mothers lesser than others. Comparison is becoming a cloud of distraction and masks the greatness of our call.  Let's work together.  If we want the world to love our job, let's stop ranking ourselves against each other and just place the calling of motherhood on a pedestal where it belongs.  

Remember when I said, "My opinion doesn't matter?"  Well,…it matters to ME, but my opinion about how you mother really shouldn't matter to you. We aren't here to give scores and tell the world how each other are doing at the job.  We can only rank the job itself...the experience and opportunity, not the people participating. 
Right now, I give Mothering a 10. 

If all we can control is how we feel about ourselves and we want the world to respect and love our job, then WE need to remember to respect and love our job. 

It has to start with us.
Do we realize the importance of our role? Do we express this realization in a way that can change the thinking of the world and affect it in a positive way? 
Ever log onto Facebook to see it littered with complaints from mothers about children or mothering? Perhaps by people who've forgotten our job is a 10 and are ranking Motherhood a 2 today:

"UGH, when does school start again?", "oh no not another snow day!", "I need a break", "I'm going to lose my mind if I have to spend another day stuck at home with these kids," and the like. I understand that these comments are only proof of the extreme difficulty of our jobs. I also see a real problem here: It's not the outside world persecuting us to a lesser role. We already HAVE the greatest role and our words often don't express that we respect it. We are becoming our own oppressors and we are raising a generation of Motherhood oppressors. 

Do we want to raise more people who don't value what we do? Do we want to raise people who think they are not worthy of our attention? When we focus on how the world sees us, instead of how our Creator and our children see us, we teach our children who our master really is, and they will look to the same source for acceptance. 

Lets stop trying to change outside opinions about motherhood by talking about how hard it is. Let's change our own opinions and then talk about how awesome Mothering is. Let's ponder how much we love and appreciate the opportunity to be creative, let's be nurturing with our divine gifts and talents and share that joy with our children and others.

Here are a few ideas: 

1) Don't tell your children you wish they had school today. Just don't. Even if you think it and feel it. Don't say it. Don't say that thing you feel only 5% of the time, because what you say places that value to motherhood 100% of the time.  Start the praise of motherhood in your own mind and in your own home. If you can only enjoy it 95% of the time, that's ok. But please don't use the challenging and disheartening and even discouraging 5% as a weapon against the greatness of the call. You can still ask for and accept help without complaint, too.  

2) When it's good, say it's good. It's ok to say, "I really loved being a mom today because I helped my teenager make a good decision about something that has been affecting her for weeks." Instead of "Wowee, we might not both survive these teenage years!!!" 

Instead of, "I will never sleep again. Last night was the worst. Baby was up all night and would only go to me." Try, "It feels really good to know I was the most important person in the world to my baby when he wouldn't let anyone else hold him at 3am. I was the only one with the skills to comfort him. I am trusted with this job and I am doing it."  

And for "My kids will not stop whining!!!" Lets just see that for what it really is: someone (or all of them) are a combination of bored, tired, hungry, sick and or irritable, and this is how they are telling you about it. Try, "My children come to me when they have a problem or need something because they know that I will help them solve their problem." Because isn't that what's actually happening? 

What would happen if we as mothers changed our own thinking about motherhood and children? I'm not just sugar coating reality with a Pollyanna positive spin.  I'm giving our job the credit it deserves.  Motherhood is a divine calling with glory and power to create and cultivate. Let's remember that responsibility and  gift when we are dealing with something difficult.  

What if we granted motherhood its due value not by pointing out the difficulties, but praising our power to do good for mankind? What if we taught our children to value motherhood? 

And what if we remembered that the rewards of mothering don't come from the approval or acceptance from other adults but from the people we mother?  

3) Remember that understanding motherhood means understanding it isn't about us. Motherhood is a job of love and service and it can be done in more than one right way. We all mother differently and that's ok. We don't need to be offended by the way another mother raises her children because we have different children. I mother each of my own 4 children differently. Remember that mothering is not about fairness or being the same.  It's about giving children what they need to succeed. The only common ingredient in every mother's parenting formula is love for her child. Don't fault other mothers for doing their job and don't fight the world that there's only one right way. Offer other mothers support to keep on keepin' on and forget what world says about how you're doing. Our job performance is based on whether or not our children and the rising generation see the value in what we do.

4) Don't wait for praise from society. Again, we already know it's the greatest job out there and that we are lucky to have landed the position. Don't complain about our job. If we want to teach the world to love and appreciate motherhood and children, let's vocalize what we love and appreciate about motherhood and children. 
Teach yourself, remind yourself, and teach your children and raise them to respect and understand our great work.  Motherhood appreciation starts with Mothers who show their appreciation. A future generation will reap the reward: when mothers no longer express the need to tear down or step upon one another to find a higher place in the social climb. We might not be around to see that day, but that's ok. It's not about us, anyway. 

You are doing a great job. 

You are doing enough. 

You don't need anyone but you to defend Motherhood. 

My opinion does not matter.