motherhood

Missing the Mom Gene

/ jdunderwood / 5 Comments
Yesterday Patrick squatted like this and asked, "Mom, can you do this?" Um, NO.

Yesterday Patrick squatted like this and asked, “Mom, can you do this?”
Um, NO.

“How did this happen?” I ask Dave when the house is particularly noisy and chaotic (which is much of the time). “How did we get so many of them?”

Fourteen years ago, when we were nearly eight years into our marriage, we’d actually begun talking about having our first child and then we discovered she was there, splitting cells like crazy in my belly. Seriously, though, God tricked us into all the rest. Three years after Em was born we’d just about made the decision we were supposed to be a one-child family when, surprise! Four months later the ultrasound technician shocked us into laughter when she said, “I assume you know you’re having twins.”

My father-in-law often jokes the Lord gave us two-in-one because if He hadn’t, we would never have had a third child, and He nearly wrote the edict for Patrick’s adoption on the wall to make that entirely clear as well.

It doesn’t really matter how they all happened. They’re here—as are Judy and Kelly, our two international students. I’m a mom—whether I planned it or not. I love them, deep down in my gut, all the way to the ends of my fingernails, and with a ferocity that surprises me at times.

But I didn’t exactly “plan” them (that word makes me laugh!), and I’m not an especially nurturing person. I’ve never read a parenting book cover to cover; I don’t put little notes in my kids’ lunches; I completely space out sometimes about their activities; I tell them, “yes, eat the cookie” because it might allow me to push back dinner or—I admit it—get by with fixing a snack instead of a full meal.

When my kids were little, my mom kept sending me outdated  Parenting magazines from the lobby at my dad’s office until I asked her to stop. All the pictures of “good” moms making cute crafts with their kids simply made me feel guilty.

Thank heaven, we’re past the “cute craft” stage, but I don’t do what I’m supposed to in this one either, it seems. Not long ago a co-worker complimented me on getting all my international students’ school paperwork in before the deadline.

“I have to,” I told her. “I have this two week window in the late summer when I drop everything else and do all my kids’ school ‘stuff.’ If it doesn’t happen in that window of time, it doesn’t happen. Don’t ask me for things in October. The window’s closed, and I won’t do it.”

Her eyes got a little goggle-eyed until I told her I was kidding.

But I really wasn’t, not completely.

I don’t enjoy volunteering at my kids’ school activities. I’ll read to kids, but that’s about all I like doing. No one has EVER asked me to be a room mom—there’s a reason for that, you know. Last year I sent in a special day snack to the wrong kid’s class and I completely forgot to show up for kindergarten lunch relief one day.

All of this can make me feel like I’m not a good mom, that other moms are better, but I’m not writing this to ask for affirmation  or for advice on how to be more nurturing. I’m writing it because I think a lot of other moms the feel the same as I do.

Last week a friend told me, “I think I’m missing the ‘mom gene.’” At her son’s football game the week before, the team mom passed out lanyards with laminated photos of the individual boys. My friend’s immediate thought was, “How did she even think of that?” but then she realized all the other moms were oohing and aahing over the pictures.

“What’s wrong with me?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I told her. I was talking to myself, too.

And because I think we’re not alone in this, I’m talking to a whole bunch of moms (and dads) who get stuck sometimes on who they are not as a parent instead of who they are.

I am mom to Em, Jake, Maddie and Patrick. I am host mom to Judy and Kelly, acting as a support to their beloved mom, Josie. I am equipped with a specific and correct ‘mom gene’ to fit each of these kids and their needs and personalities. I can trust God didn’t forget to complete my DNA; He didn’t match me with the wrong kids; and He doesn’t require me to act like some other mom to be a good mom—the right mom—for the ones in my home.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying this is easy—far from it. Parenting Em is different from parenting Patrick or Maddie or Jake. Daily I need wisdom, grace, patience, and love—most of all love.

But even in motherhood’s perplexing and frustrating moments, even when one of my own children says to me, “Well, so-and-so’s mom does it different,” I can know that “so-and-so’s mom” would not be a better fit for  my kid.

Because the best mom for my kids is me .

Even when I send the special snack to the wrong classroom.

A blast from my past–this one is for all you moms with little ones

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This was written Pre-Patrick, so I had to include a picture of all four of them! Such crazy days! (Not that they're less crazy now--just different).

This was written Pre-Patrick, so I had to include a picture of all four of them! Such crazy days! (Not that they’re less crazy now–just different).

I am a mom with 15 month-old twins and a 4 year-old. Much of my day is spent feeding meals, straightening my house, doing laundry, and entertaining children. It sounds simple, but I have never had another job more challenging. Throwing trash away has become an intricate maneuver. The trash can first received a lid, then was moved to the top of a counter, and now is hidden in the pantry where I must perform basketball-worthy faking moves to open the pantry door, toss in the trash (another athletic skill, this one requiring hand-eye coordination—ha!), and close the door—and all this without some wriggly body intervening. The same or similar feat is required when negotiating the bathroom door, the refrigerator, the under-the-sink cabinet, etc. The stereo and computer were another issue entirely until I got smart and enclosed them in an armoire—thus creating another “door” situation. The poor dog’s food has been moved four times until finally being relegated to the basement, and his appetite is now at the mercy of my memory and time (another “ha!”). Our dining room chairs are not where they should be; i.e. they are not at the dining room table. The youngest child figures herself a centerpiece.

When the smaller two collapse into exhausted heaps—and I desire to do the same—the four-year-old beckons. “Read to me, sing with me, let’s play,” she says, and then, “Now it’s Mommy-and-me time.” And the Grand Teton of laundry becomes Mount Everest as I capitulate and remind myself of that old “The house can wait” ditty.

It’s a life so full of blessings it can feel like a nightmare keeping up with them, the nightmare of the overwhelmed, under-equipped heroine faced with three ultra-endowed foes. But when this is at its worst, I sometimes indulge in the horror’s anti-equivalent, my fantasy. In this I am equipped, with x-ray vision, super strength, lightning-fast speed, night vision, a stretch arm, you name it, and I can endure a chaotic afternoon imagining myself as Super-Mom.

With x-ray vision I could locate that missing shoe, stray lunchbox, roving child, etc. Two minutes prior to the we-must-leave-now-or-we-will-be-late moment, x-ray vision would be exceptionally handy. It could also avoid many trips to the doctor or emergency room: “Nope, that arm’s not broken, just badly bruised.” Of course, it could also prove when a trip is needed! “So that’s where my diamond ring is!”

Super strength sounded particularly good the day I forgot the stroller and had to carry both twins the long hike from the parking lot to the library, but I’ll be honest; most often this figures in the nightmares every mom really has, the “What do I do if my car plunges into water with me and my children in it?” terrors.

More helpful, though, in the day-to-day routine would be lightning-fast speed. I could clean my house in ten minutes, run my daily five miles in four, fix breakfast in two, and all this before seven in the morning. I could catch my fearless child mid-trip between treetop and ground, run the kids to Grandma in Alabama after lunch and be back in time for a date with my husband, and bring in some extra cash as a professional marathoner.

044Night vision would enable me to locate that stray pacifier at two in the morning and not kill my shin on my son’s ready-steady indoor tricycle on the trip back to my own room. Even better, a stretch arm would allow me to locate said pacifier and soothe its owner without leaving my bed at all. Supermom’s choices are endless.

Always, however, at the zenith of my imagined glory, the wax melts and reveals to me exactly what and who I really am, just a regular mom with three energetic kids. Just a mom, like all others, who is trying to develop real super mom powers: X-ray vision to see into my kids’ hearts and read their minds, super strength to carry or push or pull, lightning-fast speed to be there when I’m needed and give space when I’m not, night vision to soothe the tears and fears away, arms that can stretch long enough to hug all three every minute of every day, and—the most important supertrait of all—protecting, trusting, hoping, persevering love.

God’s generosity in the middle of my mess

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I posted about “the mess that is me” on Thursday morning and then had a horrifically messy mothering day. Okay, maybe “horrific” is too strong, but by the afternoon I was whining like a petulant child. “God, why on earth did you give me four children when I have no real nurturing skills? Not only am I going crazy, but I’ve got to be damaging them! I fuss at them for using snotty tones with each other, but they’re only copying mine. And then I get frustrated and yell! They’re going to be scarred for life.”

Guilt to frustration, frustration to guilt—back and forth the pendulum swung.

Dave came home near the end of my apologizing to Jake. Jake gave me one of his incredibly grace-filled hugs and left and Dave asked, “What’s up?”

I explained: argument between children; I’d intervened; was fussing at PJ for breaking his promise—again—to his brother and sister; then Jake interrupted, twice; and I yelled at Jake. My conclusion: “I’m an awful mom!”

To which my husband said, “Hon, kids are resilient and God is good. They’re fine—and you need some time alone. I’ll leave ahead of you (

Judy and Kelly, our international daughters, have been home with their parents for almost a week now. Em made these brownies for them just before they left. Love you, girls!

Judy and Kelly, our international daughters, have been home with their parents for almost a week now. Em made these brownies for them just before they left. Love you, girls!

end-of-season soccer party for the high school team Dave coaches) and I’ll take some of the kids with me.”

We had this conversation in the basement bathroom, where I was getting ready. For about five minutes after, there were the usual back-and-forth sounds on the floor above me. Then, suddenly, nothing! None of PJ’s running/stalking footsteps (how can a kid who only weighs 45 pounds make so much noise just walking?), no music blasting, no singing, no talking. Dave had taken all four kids plus the extra friend with him!

Silence. I breathed deep and gave thanks and took my time getting to the party.

When I arrived, I hung out with several soccer mothers and decided to be honest when asked, “How was your day?”

Several gave honest answers in return and real conversation rather than small talk happened. Women a few years further along in their mothering journey shared real advice and they did NOT tell me to “treasure these years—they pass so fast.” (Not that it isn’t true—it’s often just not real helpful in the middle of it.)

At the end of the evening, I left refreshed—and more grateful.

After the kids were in bed, I checked email and found a link to a blog post by Donald Miller in my inbox: “How to Avoid a People Hangover” (here’s the link: http://storylineblog.com/2013/06/04/how-to-avoid-a-people-hangover/), an article about how he, as an introvert, has to have his alone time. I read it to Dave. “This is me!” I said.

He gave me the look. “Haven’t I been telling you that for years?”

“Yes, but I’ve always felt guilty for needing alone time, but when I hear it from someone who also needs it—who feels drained creatively when he doesn’t get it—it’s like permission.”

He gave the look again.

I fully believe that motherhood is a calling from God.

But it’s GOD’s calling. By that I mean that HE is ultimately responsible for it, and though he’s called me to be one of the two primary caregivers for these four, He doesn’t expect me to never take a break.

In fact, He made me to need alone time.

Donald Miller affirms that he needs time away from people. I call kids “people on steroids.” At 9, 9, and 7 (and sometimes even at almost 13), they don’t understand boundaries; the bathroom is still not off limits; when they call “Mo-om,” I’m magically supposed to answer, no matter what.

That’s all good, wonderfully good.

But so is the fact that I’m an introvert who feels re-charged with alone time.

And God knows all that.

How good, how incredibly good He was to me on this quite-messy past Thursday. He knew what I needed and He provided it.

And in my being able to receive, I learned more about how generous He is, right in the middle of my messiness.

suburban gratitude

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Dave bought me this sign for Christmas and I hung it in our family room. I think (I hope) it describes us well.

Dave bought me this sign for Christmas and I hung it in our family room. I think (I hope) it describes us well.

I’m working on chapters three and four of our adoption story, so I spent a couple hours this morning sorting through emails I sent out during 2008 and 2009. Some of those were specifically about adoption matters: court dates and home studies and official documents, but many others were simply newsletters about our family.

Em was seven and Jake and Maddie about three and a half in the earliest updates (January 2008); the last one I read was written six months after Patrick and I came home from Uganda (September 2009). I wrote about funny things they said (like when Maddie was pretending to be Jake’s mommy until Jake, fed up with bottles and blankets, ran away from her, crying, “I all growed up now, Maddie. I not a baby any more”). I wrote about daily routines that I’d forgotten, like Patrick coming home on the preschool bus in Kansas. He would bring his backpack inside, tell me to “Close eyes, Mommy,” and then show me each paper he’d worked on that morning, one by one. Then we read his new library book—they went every day—TWICE. And all this before lunchtime. I wrote about life lessons they were learning, like when Em got the teacher she did NOT want and her words three weeks into the school year: “Mom and Dad, you were right. I think God did want me to have Mrs. Farney. I really like her.”
The emails made me a little sad. Those times are gone, and life with my kids isn’t so simple anymore. It’s not full of long Saturdays spent at home or morning playtimes at the park. They’re growing up and away—just as they should be—but I was suddenly a little nostalgic.
And I was also grateful—for something I don’t think I’ve ever before been grateful for. I was thankful for all the driving, the times in the car, the back and forth to this activity and that practice that consumes so much of my life these days.
Usually this is one of the things I hate most about life in suburbia. Twenty-minute drive here, thirty there, another fifteen…
But my kids are captive in the car—right there with me, right there with each other. And we talk about our days and we listen to good books (yay for audio books), and we sing, and we spend time together, and they can’t escape, and I can’t get all busy with housework or writing projects. And when it’s me and just one of the kids, we get quiet, let’s-really-find-out-what’s-going-on time.
Hmm. Maybe there are other things on my “hate” list that I can learn to be thankful for.

a cycle of gratitude

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No! Not ours! Em and Maddie oohing and aahing over baby Silas, son of Aaron and Jody. He’s very adorable.

Last week my kids attended a Backyard Bible Club. On the last day, as we parents came early to listen to the kids sing the songs they had learned during the week, I overheard a young mom behind me say to another mom, “Oh, yes, I have four children, ages 5, 4, 2, and 7 months. And we’re trying for a fifth. I just want another one, you know. They’re so precious.”

My shoulders slumped. That’s not my sentiment at the best of times, and it certainly wasn’t last week, as I was focused on unpacking my house. At one point in the week, I told Dave, “You know, it’s real easy to forget that one of the major reasons I’m getting this house organized is to make a home for our kids.  It’s ironic that much of the time I just want them out of the way so I can get it done.”

In church yesterday, as I took notes on the sermon, I also wrote this in my journal: “Help! I don’t want to be a mom right now. I want to be a child, YOUR child, Lord. I’m tired of the responsibility, the constant need to do so much and be so much to these four children. I can’t do it. Please, Lord, hold me like a little child, pull me close to your chest and help me to rest. To do this job of being a mom, I need to be Your little child.”

The sermon yesterday was on the first part of Colossians 4, in which Paul tells the church at Colosse (and us) to “Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.” Our pastor had a lot to say about this and the verses that followed (check out his blog at craigsturm.wordpress.com), but he said this about the “thankful” part of that verse: we should be thankful for the very privilege of prayer itself.

I connected that to the prayer I was writing in my journal. What an amazing thing that I can cry out to the almighty God of the Universe with a prayer like that! I have His attention. He bends His ear to my helpless, self-centered appeals.

Today I read the hymn “All for Jesus, All for Jesus,” in which the hymnwriter Mary D. James (1810-1883) takes this idea a step further. Here’s the last stanza:

Oh, what wonder! How amazing!

Jesus, glorious King of kings,

Deigns to call me His beloved,

Lets me rest beneath His wings.

All for Jesus! All for Jesus!

Resting now beneath His wings;

All for Jesus! All for Jesus!

Resting now beneath His wings.

I love that line: “(He) deigns to call me His beloved(.)” I can be thankful that, as His beloved, I can pray to Him about everything.

And I can be thankful that my prayers for help are answered, that in being His helpless, needy child, I can parent more and more in the way He wants me to.

Gratitude for the privilege of prayer itself. Gratitude for the deeper relationship it draws me into.

Prayer: a cycle of gratitude.

Embracing service–really?

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NOTE: In this entry, I’m using motherhood to show how I’m learning to serve; however, I’m not claiming it’s harder than other kinds of servant hood. Whenever I’m tempted to think that my call to serve is more difficult than others, God sets me straight by letting me encounter someone who’s REALLY learning it! Blessings to all of you who have been given extraordinarily difficult servanthood roles.

Here are five out of the six: only Nina missing.

Is it possible to embrace a life of servanthood? Really embrace it?

I think I would have said yes before I became a mom. I never knew what a selfish person I was until Em came along—and then three others. Before that I had my areas of service—to students, players, youth group kids—but all of them had end points. The school day was over at 3; track/volleyball/play practices by 5:30; even ferrying youth group kids home didn’t take past 10, and I returned to a quiet, peaceful home with only myself and a very capable husband to care for. And even when the stress really built, I knew summer was coming—eventually.

But motherhood is 24-7, 365-days-a-year, with no sick days.

And I don’t think I’m particularly gifted for it. I still resent (I generally hide it well) getting up in the middle of the night for sickness or fear of the monster under the bed. Some mealtimes come, and I think, “Again? I just fed them! When are they going to start doing this for themselves?” The other day I told Dave, “Next year I will not be a MOP (mother of a preschooler) for the first time in 12 years!” and I said it like I’d earned a badge—till I realized it’s not exactly an accomplishment; it’s pretty normal.

But how do I embrace the nitty-gritty of servanthood, the stuff I do that nobody ever notices or thanks me for?

Thinking of it as service to others doesn’t help me much, even though Romans 13:8 says for us to think of ourselves as being in debt to others, continually paying it out in love.

I pervert that idea way too easily.

I begin to think—“Really, it’s them who owe something to me! Look at all I’m doing for them—and getting nothing in return! The least they could do it act grateful.” I get grumpy and bitter.

I’ve also tried the no-emotion approach. “I’ll just do it and try not to think about it, simply think of it as a job that has to be done, laundry as something to be checked off the list.”

But that doesn’t work either. Because it still turns to a bad attitude, and because I’m called to do everything “heartily!” Like I’m doing it for the Lord. With joy! With a sense of purpose!

The only solution I can think of is the one that Paul and Peter and Mary used. They called themselves “servants of God.” I’ve often thought of that in the context of BIG tasks (like Mary’s: she was about to bear the Son of God, and Paul’s: evangelism to an empire and martyrdom—pretty big deals!) But what if I think of all my “little” tasks as direct acts of service to God? What if I could do them FOR Him and WITH Him, enjoying communion with Him in the simplest acts of washing the dishes or turning socks right side out.

Would that transform my attitude toward them? If I could say, “Yes, I am wiping down my little-boys-have-been-using-it toilet and I am doing this because it pleases God.”

That sounds a little hokey, but it sure beats the alternatives.

There’s still a problem.

I can see this is the best way. I WANT to be a servant of God and see all things, even the small ones, as acts of service for Him. I DESIRE to do it all heartily.

But I can’t.

I can’t force myself into it or cheerlead my emotions into getting excited about housework or another trip to the grocery. All I can dois acknowledge that I can’t and say, “But that’s what I want, God!”

And THAT place of need is where God comes through. He already helped me to see more correctly than I was; He gave me the desire to serve Him; now He will also provide the energy and the joy.

I can do ALL things THROUGH Him who strengthens me.

Even the small things.

What a way to start the day

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Jake and Patrick were doing some kind of chant-dance. I just asked Patrick what they were saying in this picture. "Ooh-ha, ooh-ha. Something like that, Mom."

As usual Jake was the last one to get out of the car when I dropped the kids off at our carpool meeting spot. Just before he closed the door, I turned around in my seat and said, “Bye, J-man, have a great day.”

He gave me his impish sideways grin. “Goodbye, elderly mother.”

I started laughing. “What?”

“Wait.” His eyebrows wrinkled. “What does that mean?”

“Old,” I said, “very old.”

“Oh.” He was visibly thinking, and for a second I thought I might get a compliment, or at least an apology.

Not this morning.

“Well, it is true, Mom. You are really old. Bye.”

It’s a good thing I taught middle school years ago and developed a thick skin. I’ve discovered I need one as a mom, too!

Cleaning Confession

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Dave took me to Vermont over Christmas break to celebrate our 20th anniversary. On one of our hikes, I found this natural "cross" on a tree.

In high school, I would leave nearly empty glasses of sweet tea in my room. When my mother discovered the green-fuzzed results, I told her they were science experiments. I regularly lost library books only to discover them, weeks overdue, under my carpet of clothes. In college I roomed with another self-proclaimed slob, and we posted a sign that said “Enter at your own risk.” (We really didn’t but we might as well have. No one dared come in.)
I didn’t get much better after I married. Dave shuffled my piles of books around, and once I stashed three days worth of dirty dishes in the bottom of the microwave cart because I’d invited people over for dinner and had more mess than time to clean.
When we moved overseas, though, I changed. The knowledge that people could drop into our apartment at any time (and they did) made me aware of how our home looked. I cleaned thoroughly every weekend, and I straightened messes daily. When we returned to the States and had our first child, I became a little obsessive. I hand-mopped the kitchen floor twice a week, wiped behind the clawed feet on the ancient tub, and freaked out over stray hairs in the sink. Dave suggested I get a part-time job before I drove us both crazy. I did—but I still liked cleaning.
Now, though, I hate it.
HATE it!
With six kids and their friends and the dog running through our house, cleaning is a constant battle that’s lost before it’s even begun. Why mop the floor when four sets of feet are going to cross it before it’s dried? Plus, it’s a thankless job. My kids NOTICE when dinner’s late (actually, they start asking about it at four in the afternoon), but I could put up a flashing neon sign announcing that I dusted, and they wouldn’t see it!
A few months ago I realized that every time I cleaned, I griped. “I could be doing a lot of other things.” “What’s the point of this?” “It’s not going to last.”
And if I got through the griping and did real cleaning, I turned into a bear! “Don’t you spill anything on that stovetop! I used 409 on that thing!” “Why are there crumbs on the coffee table? Can’t you see that I CLEANED!?”
Something didn’t seem right. I began to wonder if a clean house was worth having kids that twitched when they smelled PineSol because they knew it meant I would start hollering about one mess or another.
So I stopped.
Not the hollering—I still do that sometimes about other things.
No, I stopped cleaning.
Seriously.
I. no. longer. clean.
Well, not to the point that I FEEL like I’ve cleaned.
I may straighten. I may tidy. I may “neaten things up.”
I may even “organize.”
But I don’t CLEAN.
I don’t sweep an entire floor; I pick up the dust bunnies in the corners. I don’t scrub an entire bathroom; I grab a baby wipe and go after the yellow spots (those of you with boys know what I mean.) I don’t mop; I give Patrick a wet rag and tell him to paint pictures with it on the floor. I figure I can live with the “blank” areas of the canvas. When my girls dust, I don’t go behind and find the spots they missed.
I don’t clean.
And I think my kids appreciate that.
I hope.
Because there is a definite flaw to my system: my house isn’t really CLEAN, not even for three minutes every month.
But I’m learning to live with this. I’m still practicing hospitality. I figure I’m providing a self-esteem boost for my friends. They can walk in my back door and think: “Well, I guess my house doesn’t look so bad after all!”
I remind myself there IS an end in sight. In five years my youngest will be eleven. No more Legos on the stairs (ouch); no more Barbies on the dinner table; no more toy fire helmets on the couch; fewer spilled cups (I hope).
Five more years!
Maybe I’ll clean then.