WITH or FOR?

So I realized that at last week's MOPS meeting, I was trying to make a point and got myself mixed-up in the middle of it! It really is more of a heart-issue, so I suppose the actual words don't matter as much as the concept but I still thought I should clarify.

I was trying to convey the difference between a mother who is at home WITH her kids and a mother who is home FOR her children...

When I was a little girl, I was the second of eight children raised on a farm. (The oldest 4 of us were born inside 3 1/2 years. I kid you not.) My mom and dad struggled mightily to make ends meet, so they were always busy doing life, sometimes just to survive and keep food on the table. My mother who is a wonderful nurturing person, expected us even at a very early age, to get ourselves up in the morning, get ourselves dressed, she'd make us breakfast and then we were either to help with our chores or go outside to play. Sometimes if she was really busy, she gave us instructions not to come back in the house "unless someone's bleeding." I think she was only half kidding.

But my little-girl heart always knew she was there.

I realize times are different now, I'm not saying we should live our lives in 2011 exactly this way. In fact, the downside is that the economic realities of our life made it a rather stressful way to live out a childhood, especially for my younger siblings who got in for the worst part of it.

My point here is, mom wasn't there WITH us, she was there FOR us if we needed her. There is a big difference. My mom expected us to be as independent of her as she was of us. She did not hover over us, or find us things to do (in fact, if we ever dared to mention the words, "I'm bored" she'd simply say, "Oh, I can find you something to do. " We knew that meant work! So we didn't get bored.) She didn't measure her worth as a mom by how much she did for us or for how many activities she got us involved in. She expected us to stand on our own two feet after it was clear that we could.

Her primary relationships were with other women, mainly her sisters. I used to love to go with her to "Sister's Day" and listen in on my mom and my aunts' conversations, learning the latest happenings or gossip of the neighborhood. It never occurred to me to be a part of those conversations: I instinctively knew this was mom's adult world, and I would get to be a part of it when I was an adult. Not before.

My mother was a mother when we needed a mother. Otherwise, her life was that of an adult woman, doing what she needed to do each day.

The next few paragraphs are quoted directly from "The Family of Value" by John Rosemond. He relates a time when he spoke to a group of young mothers and said this to them:

"You women serve and serve and serve children who become increasingly demanding and petulant. You are no different from the mother of yesteryear. There are times you wish your children would simply leave you alone. You realize that 99 percent of their pestering is completely unnecessary. But you serve, thinking that if you do so just a little longer, they'll finally get enough of you and leave you alone of their own volition. But they don't. The more you serve, the more they expect you to serve, and the more they pester. Finally, you crack. You scream. "Just for once, I beg you, leave me alone!" Then, you feel...

Guilty!!

And there's only one way, isn't there, to discharge the guilt, and that's to serve. In fact, at this point, you must serve in double time so as to do proper penance for your sins.

But the worst thing that's happened to you women is that in the course of trying to be the best mothers the world has ever seen, you've forgotten how to be wives."


TO BE CONTINUED