It has taken years for me to build up the courage to write on the internet. I have wanted to write for the purpose of putting my thoughts and feelings of motherhood into writing. I’ve been contemplating motherhood in today’s world and find it an interesting paradox. You may have observed that being a mother in some cases is much more like managing than mothering. The home has become a three-ringed circus of hustle and bustle. Have you ever heard others or yourself say that you feel like a taxi driver? Shuttling the children to one activity followed by another, then back home in the evening just to rush to get homework done and some kind of a dinner on the table. It seems that all we do as mothers is “survive”. And yet we put our heart and soul into this work of being a mother. We would do anything to help our children succeed. Is that why we feel we must continue this way day after day? Will all this activity really help them? All of us ask ourselves these things. I hope that here we can discover some of those answers.

Motherhood is the most sacred and important calling in our lives. “No other success can compensate for failure in the home.” — David O. McKay. I know this to be true.

I find motherhood to be quite enjoyable. To me, motherhood is the ultimate challenge of body, mind and spirit. I love spending time with my children and I miss them when we can’t be together. Of course I have good days and bad days, highs and lows. That is life. Growth and strength come from adversity and trial. Motherhood is not easy, however it is worth it.

There may be many and varied reasons one might not enjoy being a mother. One may have had a hard childhood and grown up with a “less than perfect mother” so you feel you haven’t been taught how to be a good mom, or you may have the opposite where you felt your mother was so perfect you couldn’t possibly follow in her footsteps. I have felt these same feelings. One of the things that has helped me with these feelings is realizing that I am not my mother. Our missions and our ways of doing things differ. Heavenly Father sent me children who need me to be who I am, with all my short comings, to help them prepare for their missions on this earth. We can’t compare ourselves to each other, not even our mothers.
We may also have difficulty being a mother when we have times of extended illness, physical limitations or mental and emotional problems. Depression is something that make everything difficult. I have had times in my life when I have struggled with all of these limitations. These are learning experiences. These have been the times when I have had to take a good look at myself and face the way I feel about being a mother, being a wife and who I am. When I have faced my feelings, acknowledged my limitations, and realized that God was truly the one in charge of my family, I found peace in the midst of my trials.

Finding peace and joy in motherhood is an ongoing journey for me. One revelation that is helping me is that I am a steward of my children. That they are God’s children and I am here to help them. He is in charge of them, ultimately, rather than me. Knowing this is a relief in some ways, and it helps me to remember how to treat my children.

Filed under: Announcements, Journal Entry