"... no, I'm no supermom" (Scrubs. You know.)
Just had a conversation about this with Dani...
Andrea J. Buchanan: I definitely think just about everyone can relate to having moments of feeling overwhelmed by parenting, especially in the early years, and it absolutely is something difficult to talk about. I was just talking with a group of women at a reading this weekend about the vulnerability of parenting .... It's important to be able to vent about these moments, just as it's important to be able to share our happiness and joy over other aspects of our experience. Traditionally, though, mothers have been expected to only talk about the latter, and voicing our frustrations with some of the more difficult moments can be tough - we expose not only our ambivalence, but our vulnerability.
Why is it so hard to admit you are having a hard time raising kids 24/7? Because it means you probably don't love your children.
Posted at 07:51 AM on February 24, 2006
I don't think anything is harder than three small children. I now have five but three was the hardest. The only support I had was from those who were committed to motherhood. That didn't include my extended family, who thought we were nuts. Sadly, all who commit to children 24/7 are countercultural and have to face the fact that there is little support or understanding.
Now I have the joy of a public ministry, simultaneously with my teenagers being in "police beat" in the local paper and the school officials clucking over their bad choices in high school. I can hear them fuss behind closed doors: "If she didn't have so many, or if she spent less time preaching to others and more paying attention to her own..." Ah, humility, humility, humility.
I formed my children, taught them the faith, and now have to let them apply their own free will to their choices. Painful, nail-biting time. NO sympathy from the pew-warmers or peanut gallery -- but also no regrets. God knows our efforts and our hearts. We will turn the tide with our fidelity to what is right. Little lamps would be unnecessary if there were no darkness. And it's very dark out there.