Most women still want Motherhood. A lot even want to be able to stay home with their children. But there’s something pressing on us. Many pressures to pursue more than just being a mother. Just being a mother is no longer enough.
“Yes, my wife is JUST a mother. JUST. She JUST brings forth life into the universe, and she JUST shapes and molds and raises those lives. She JUST manages, directs and maintains the workings of the household, while caring for children who JUST rely on her for everything. She JUST teaches our twins how to be human beings, and, as they grow, she will JUST train them in all things, from morals, to manners, to the ABC’s, to hygiene, etc. She is JUST my spiritual foundation and the rock on which our family is built. She is JUST everything to everyone. And society would JUST fall apart at the seams if she, and her fellow moms, failed in any of the tasks I outlined.
Yes, she is just a mother. Which is sort of like looking at the sky and saying, “hey, it’s just the sun.” Matt Walsh
Our flesh under the burdens that come with motherhood would have us escape. Our own flesh tells us there has to be something more than this. This is far beneath me. This is about to drive me insane.
“They [Women] are led, subtly but surely, to look on the mothering they do as a mere necessity – even a penance – and they live as if they were reserving their real enthusiasm for something else, usually unspecified.” Robert Capon
And of course there is what the culture, or our own friends and neighbors tell us. Communities certainly have little praise or help for women whose full-time occupation is staying home to Mother.
I read this article yesterday. It echoes the thoughts I have several times a day. I miss the village. I miss the times when what I do all day was the norm. I can only imagine what that must have felt like. When I would have been surrounded by other women who were in the same boat.
Now, my “village” is in my computer. My village is only cyber, but it is real. For that I am so thankful. I don’t know the loneliness that would exist if I didn’t have a community of moms online, but there is still the loneliness isn’t there?
I feel that loneliness when I’m out with my family and we are the sideshow, I feel that loneliness when library reading days are cancelled due to low numbers of children available during the day, I feel that loneliness when I learn that all the mothers my age go off to work everyday.
Our own communities make being a full-time mom very difficult.
I wonder sometimes if those days will ever return. Will there come a day when more women will decide perhaps we were better off 100, 200 years ago? Will we decide that perhaps women were better off back in the kitchen with the children? Will “the Village” ever be a part of my life or my daughters’ lives again?
*You can read some follow up thoughts on this topic on this post Re: Comment on I Miss The Village Post.
