When you picture a great mom, likely one you know comes to mind. That mom. That mom you just literally stare at like, “How does she do it all?” Let me tell you about a mom that many moms still to this day shake their heads and say, “I don’t know how she does it?”
This mom rises before sunrise.
She meditates & reads her Holy Book.
She folds or starts laundry or both.
She prepares her husband’s lunch and even fills his water bottle.
To wake the ten children, she uses music. She gave birth twelve times. Two of the babies are in heaven, but she carries those with her, too. Mom sings songs to them in a sweet soprano voice, the same voice that sang the Hallelujah Chorus and countless solos during college. If the singing doesn’t work, sometimes she adds the piano. Her voice elicits groans in the sleepy teens and smiles in the littles. Slowly, one by one, they descend the stairs. The oldest (seventeen years) fell asleep working on homework last night in the comfy recliner chair, so she raises her head and sighs, trudging to the refrigerator.
Then, instead of rushing the children to school, mom encourages them to eat their breakfast. They either eat a simple meal of cream of wheat or some fiber-filled cereal, not that sugary stuff. They then begin their work in waves. Mom teaches reading exercises to the littlest two, and the older kids head off to their chosen couches and desks, or for the oldest two, they take off in a rusty 1988 Chevrolet (old cars build character) for dual credit college classes. The local college offers college credits at a discount rate for high schoolers. You may have guessed by now, but on top of caring for a double-digit brood, this mother homeschools, too.
The mother mentioned above is mine. I grew up with a kind and gentle mother. She was both whimsical and young at heart, yet firm when needed. She rarely raised her voice. Other than God and her husband, she put the kids first. She infused music into her many daily chores to make them go faster. I remember her singing along to Amy Grant while sweeping the floor cheerfully.
My mother loved to teach, and perhaps that’s the biggest reason why she decided to homeschool. She taught us so much more than academics, though she excelled at that, too. She did her research and always knew what co-op would be best suited to enroll us in for subjects with labs like biology or language. All of us graduated, and several of us went on to get advanced degrees. At least one answers to the name Doctor, and more will.
She also taught us how to cook for a group of 20 without batting an eye and how to bake bread, including milling and other tedious food preparation methods. She let us experiment with any new recipe we found, no matter how messy. She loved sensory fun and never shied away from mud and glitter. She even let us splash in the rain puddles without a single sigh over the stains or resulting laundry.
She let us make crazy concoctions in her best mixing bowls because it was fun for us. I remember making chocolate soup and adding paper flakes for texture. She didn’t scold, just asked how it tasted.
Mom had a master’s in social work and, because of that, determined that our childhood would be protected and innocent for as long as she had a say. And it was. We played outside and put on plays, climbed 30-foot trees, and spent the majority of our waking time in nature. We learned responsibility by caring for siblings and for our pet rabbit, cottontail, and dog, Karl. We all learned best differently, and Mom figured out how. She taught all ten of us how to read.
Dad often worked late hours and had a very active job with the airlines, so his parenting role was mostly spiritual guidance and reading together for family devotions before we ate dinner. The amount of housework my mom shouldered in the early years was somewhere around 99%. Yet, she never complained. She told us motherhood was her calling.
When I got married and became a mom later in life, I felt that being the second of ten kids would give me a jump start. I knew the tricks to bottle-feeding and diapering wrestling toddler boys. I had sleep-trained under my mom’s guidance and even potty-trained one younger sister. I was beyond ready.
Perhaps it was this overconfidence that made reality that much more shocking. The feeling of being a mother and the intense love I felt from the moment I birthed my sons both fulfilled and terrified me. My mind went haywire with all the scenarios that could happen. My body refused to expel all the tissue each time, causing hemorrhages that required inpatient stays for me and surgery with my first. It felt like even my uterus refused to cooperate!
I remember seeing an Instagram clip from the movie A Night’s Tale about one year into motherhood and wanting to laugh at the bitterness of it all: “You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting.”
Often I would have flashbacks of my mom using her strengths and feel so woefully inadequate. While talking it over with my mom, I realized these memories mostly began around my elementary and even junior high years. Being “in the trenches,” or when the kids are not yet elementary is when memories aren’t so fully formed and linear.
Mom reassured me that mostly what they will remember are in little bursts like how on family vacation to Florida we built a sandcastle for three hours. My five-year-old Blake mentions specific moments like jumping in the pool, or when we make cookies together. Those early memories are more feelings-based. Likely they will remember the cookie baking, not the dish doing after.
Letting go of the idea of replicating my mom’s biggest achievements, such as homeschooling all her kids, released me to find my strengths. Public school was a huge gift to us during the preschool years, and I discovered that distance was just what my brain needed to have time and space to breathe. When my son came home, I was that mom I wanted to be! We went on creek stomping adventures, made fun foods, went to museums, and eventually prepared for the birth of little brother.
Now, Blake attends all-day kindergarten, which gives me time to connect with Titus, who is now one year old. Titus gets to come with me on errands, then we have lunch, and he gets a solid nap before we pick up his brother.
Writing this piece helped me remember my favorite parts of my mom that I can emulate. She still loves learning. She returned to work when the youngest few kids attended school full-time. She and my dad decided that was their best option and embraced it. Mom loved working in the school district and being paid to undergo training like trust-based relational intervention. She uses this with the grandkids, and it’s amazing! Mom is young at heart and willing to admit when she makes a mistake. There are things she would do differently, she says that now. But she focuses on what can be done today.
Remembering how intentional my mom was about words of affirmation with us as kids, I’ve been trying to add in affirmations whenever I remember throughout the day and at night. This week, I gave Blake a huge hug out of the blue and told him I was glad to be his mama. He hugged my neck and said, “Me too! Mama, you’re like sunshine on a cloudy day.”
I pray my son remembers the sunshine even on cloudy future days. I will never be my mom, but I will be me, and that’s how God chose it. Thanks for making such big shoes to fill, Mom, and thanks for walking alongside me so that as I grow, I can do it in my own way. I love you