motherhood/family/parenting

Important things for mothers to do:

• Sit quietly a little while everyday, preferably outdoors or within view of it.  Contemplate how large creation is, and then remind yourself how tiny it is compared to the Creator.  He holds your problems in His hands.
• Stop. If you find yourself busy all the time, find some place to stop.  Cancel an appointment, a get-together or a trip.  You can’t sit in a quiet place unless you stop first.
• Smile. I find it true that the more life is lived, the more we have to be reminded of the simplest things!  Sometimes we’re tired, irritated or worried and we need to make a conscious decision to smile–it will tell our children and our husband that everything is still going to be OK, and that’s a very important thing for them to know.
• Touch the people you love.
• Play a game.  With your husband, your children, yourself–just play one.
• Go outside. It miraculously removes a lot of stress.
• Paint your toenails–or, if you’re like me, have someone do it for you 😉
• Find a Bible verse to meditate on throughout the day.  Talk about it with your children.

Important things for mothers to say to their children:

• “I love being with you.”
• “You make my day better.”
• “You’re a gift.”
• “I’m so glad God gave you to us.”
• “God has a great plan for you…don’t stop serving Him.”
• “There’s no place I’d rather spend the day than with you.”
• “You make me laugh.”
• “What I want more than anything on earth is for you to “seek first the Kingdom of God”.

In my boldest of moments, I’ve not come close to this candidness about the role of women and motherhood.  Take it for what it is, but it’s hard to deny that much of Dabney’s predictions have come true; only it’s hard for us to see, mainly because all of us have at least some of the “debauched” disposition he describes…and notice, there is nothing of insult or demeaning in his words; just blunt reflections on reality.

By R.L. Dabney

“But now, what will be the character of children reared under such a domestic organization as this? If human experience has established anything at all, it is the truth of the principle announced by the Hebrew prophet when he declared that the great aim of God in ordaining a permanent marriage tie between one man and one woman was “that He might seek a godly seed.”   God’s ordinance, the only effective human ordinance, for checking and curbing the first tendencies to evil, as domestic, parental government.

When the family shall no longer have a head, and the great foundation for the subordination in children in the mother’s example is gone; when the mother shall have found another sphere than her home for her energies; when she shall have exchanged the sweet charities of domestic love and sympathy for the fierce passions of the hustings; when families shall be disrupted at the caprice of either party, and the children scattered as foundlings from their hearthstone,–it requires no wisdom to see that a race of sons will be reared nearer akin to devils than to men. In the hands of such a bastard progeny, without discipline, without homes, without God, the last remains of social order will speedily perish, and society will be overwhelmed in savage anarchy.

The very traits which fit her to be the angel of a virtuous home unfit her to meet the agitations of political life, even as safely as does the more rugged man. The hot glare of publicity and passion will speedily deflower her delicacy and sweetness. Those temptations, which her Maker did not form her to bear, will debauch her heart, developing a character as much more repulsive than that of the debauched man as the fall has been greater. The politicating woman, unsexed and denaturalized, shorn of the true glory of her femininity, will appear to men as a feeble hybrid manikin dwarf, with all the defects and none of the strength of the male. Instead of being the dear object of his chivalrous affection, she becomes his importunate rival, despised without being feared!”

Devotions, Advice & Renewal for When Motherhood Feels Too Hard

“The eBook? AMAZING!!!!! It’s what you need, I guarantee it!” -Jennifer, Renewing Housewives

$4.97

or get the Kindle version

This picture of Kyla has little to do with the post, but I like it 😉

I find it barely amusing that most people disdain looking to the past for any example by which we might pattern our lives, and yet past generations–intellectually, morally, spiritually and every other way–put us to shame when we compare.

I personally love gleaning wisdom from those brilliant and stout figures of history who raised exemplary children, fully understanding that their dedication to such a task would have profound, generational influence on the entire nation.  

Abigail and John Adams  were such figures.  I just had to share some of their thoughts and insights about Abigail’s role as a mother and wife…

In this thought Abigail wrote to John, can you hear the contrast in what was taken so seriously then and how today we almost embrace the opposite “wisdom”?

“I have always thought it of very great importance that children should, in the early part of life, be unaccustomed to such examples as would tend to corrupt the purity of their words and actions that they may chill with horror at the sound of an oath and blush with indignation at an obscene expression….”  (emphasis mine)

And what does the modern parent say?  “Children need to be exposed to “real life” (read:  anything and everything) to learn how to cope in the world.”  

(Yes, the Adams children were homeschooled 😉

Here was John’s tender instructions to his wife as his children’s teacher:

“It should be our care to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in these an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue.  If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives.”

And how did Abigail perceive herself and her role?  Not very different than many of us…

“I am aware I have an important trust committed to me, and tho I feel myself unequal to it, tis still incumbent upon me to discharge it in the best manner I am capable of.”

John’s letters continually express his admiration and love for his wife, and reveal how this couple was able to live out the biblical picture of marriage (he was the overseer and guide) yet keep a mutual equality and respect for one another.  

It was a recipe for greatness.