Motherhood     

Women who are consumed by resentment have difficulty seeing the world as it really is, as well as putting their best-self forward for the good of their children.
As I started to realize the meaning of motherhood, I found my ability to be happy for others increase.
As we acknowledge the things we envy, we can also recognize that those we envy are likely not in reality living the lives of perfection we imagine. I had a bite of the maple donut and it was nothing to write home about. Everyone’s life has tragedy. The perfectly-put-together mother might in fact have depression; the world-traveler may contract cancer in four years. As JP often reminds us, “Life is often suffering” and if we get respite from that we should enjoy it because “the flood is coming.” Perhaps, if we saw the full reality of people’s lives we would not begrudge them those bouts of happiness and success when they come.
Envy is rooted in the other “internal sin”, pride. A focus on self will always lead to comparison – the fuel for pride and envy. C.S. Lewis said, “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others.” Pride is feeling superior for having more than others and envy is disdain for those who have more than you. Envy is competitive. Women can find competition threatening, we would rather cooperate. Women need unity; we need to feel we are working together for a common goal.
Due to the material ease of life in modern times, we have the luxury of selfishness. Producing an heir used to be important enough to tear down religions and nations. As life becomes easier, our priorities shift, our own importance grows, often at the expense of children. Our choices are now focused on our own perceived happiness rather than creating a posterity. Today children are a choice, and one that often disappoints. But why? Isn’t motherhood supposed to be ultimately fulfilling? Why are so many mothers fed up and so many children unprepared for adulthood?

Mothers as Artists or Gardeners?

When we are handed our precious newborn, we see in them limitless potential. We may think of them as a blank canvas – the life and experiences we create for them working together to produce a masterpiece. However, this perspective can put undue pressure on parents to be artists; one wrong stroke and the masterpiece is ruined. This also assumes that children come into the world as a blank canvas – but their nature comes with them. We parents can have a remarkable influence on our children but their personality and interests are their own.
A more appropriate metaphor and mindset might be to view our child as a seed – of unknown variety. We are the gardeners, responsible for nourishing our young sapling. We take extra care as it puts down roots. As the plant grows, we consistently watch for weeds and add nourishment. However, as it matures, if we continue to shield our tree from the wind and rain, it will actually prevent the development of strong roots. Strong roots are made in adversity. Our seed may grow into a orange tree or a palm tree but the strength of the tree is dependent on our nurturing as well as its own experience persevering in the storms of life.
Jordan Peterson calls pathological version of motherhood the “Devouring Mother”. This mother devours her children’s potential along with her own fulfillment. JP focuses a lot on the danger of the overprotective mother, protecting her children out of their own competence. However, I would like to add another, and seemingly opposite, proclivity of the Devouring Mother that JP rarely mentions: neglect. Neglect is equally destructive to children and does, in fact, result in the same ill-prepared and unhealthy young adults. The Neglectful Mother abdicates her responsibility of clearing the weeds from impeding the growth of her young seedling. Her children are left mentally unprepared for the challenges of life. Overprotective and neglectful devouring mothers live in each of us.
They are the ying/yang of motherhood.

What’s interesting is that as bad as over-protection and neglect seem, they are necessary as well. There is a place for protection and there is a place for neglect in proper parenting. A 6 month old desperately needs to feel safe in the arms of her mother. A 10-year-old boy needs to be “neglected” so in his boredom he can think deep thoughts or construct forts in the woods. However, used improperly, protection and neglect can make motherhood unbearable. One may, in fact, lead to the other. Push too hard one way and there will be recoil. Overbearing Mom quickly burns out from a hard day of unproductive micromanaging and control. Guess who’s there to give her a break? Neglectful Mom.

Overprotection

Devouring the Roots – Over-protection

Our culture needs to rethink our concept of a “good mother”. Often we see the ideal mother as a kind-hearted woman endlessly concerned for and serving her children. However, this mother often ends up producing shiftless little monsters with no respect for her. This is the bad side of women’s “agreeable” nature. This is compassion turned to vice.
“Look, you have to understand that you are a danger to your children no matter what. You can let them go out in the world and be hurt, or you can overprotect them and hurt them that way. Here’s your choice, you can make your children competent and courageous or you can make them safe. But you can’t make them safe because life isn’t safe. So if you sacrifice their courage and competence on the altar of safety then you disarm them completely and all they can do is pray to be protected.”
The problem is that we mothers HATE to see our children suffer. It is our biological urge to protect them. Sometimes women take their role as protector of infants too far and make motherhood much harder than it needs to be. When mothers extend the timeline of compassion beyond its necessary borders it impedes competence-building time. We don’t want to make infants out of our children.
Modern moms unnecessarily complicate life. Babies can be an incredible burden if we make them that. We can let them sleep in our bed and disrupt our romantic life. We can buy every contraption possible for their clueless benefit, draining our resources. We can give-in to our toddler’s every irrational demand to avoid a tantrum, creating an unlikable child. These “compassions” result in a child who drains our good-will. When my husband and I lived in Hawaii as poor college students, we had a tiny apartment on the North Shore. When we had our first child his possessions included: one laundry-basket crib, 5 pair of PJs, and a pacifier. He was the chunkiest, happiest baby I have ever seen – and easily fit into our meager budget and lifestyle. In my experience, babies need very little other than loving and unselfish parents. If we give them much more than that, we are creating our own burden.

There is also another kind of overbearing mother though – and if we are honest we are all guilty of it – controlling. A lot of controlling behavior is passed off as a virtue. “Let me make that sandwich for you sweety”, says the mother looking to maintain her spotless kitchen. Your child’s development is more important than your clean house. Jordan Peterson says you should never do anything for your child that they can do for themselves, even if it means waiting 10 minutes for your toddler to get her pants on. You sacrifice time and expectations but the reward is that the child actually matures. My 6-year-old still puts his shoes on the wrong feet literally 75% of the time. Did I think at this point he would have mastered it? Yes. But doing things for our kids actually keeps them from learning. Jordan Peterson said in a recent video, “For knowledge to be your own you have to integrate it with your own experience. You have to see how that applies to your own case and then have a story to tell about it. “ We must find the answers within ourselves for them to belong to us. If we shield our children from potentially difficult lessons, we are keeping them from integrating this knowledge into their own character.
Children love making their own way and resent mothers who hover. My 4-year-old daughter gives me a death stare if I attempt to buckle her seat belt. My physically-capable son wants to climb the tree unhindered by my warnings. Kids know they are better off doing it themselves.

The Encouraging  Mother – Producing Resilience

In our day of “Snowflake” young adults, retreating to their safe spaces and coloring books at even the hint of tribulation, we need to get serious about building resilience in our children. “A resilient person is capable of standing up to things in the face of fear and moving forward voluntarily, convinced of their own competence and ability to prevail,” JP. The idea of “building” anything in our children sounds like a lot of work. However, the unexpected surprise of motherhood is that less is often more, particularly in teaching our kids resilience.
“Don’t bother children when they are skateboarding”. For me that translates to: don’t interfere with the fight breaking out in the front-yard football game over pass interference. JP says parents must have a certain dimension of “detached harshness”, allowing for the development of independence and unchecked mistake-making. Creativity and learning only happen when kids make mistakes and resolve them independently. Having mom around greatly reduces the chances of that. Sometimes it is difficult to know when our presence is needed. The question I try and ask myself is, “Is my involvement helping or impeding my child from learning a lesson.” I am surprised by how often the honest answer is that the child is better left alone. This is a step in the right direction towards more joyful mothering; managing the trifles of a child’s life makes mothers want to just disengage entirely.
Although our modern children have vastly different worries than those our ancestors, and are missing fewer teeth, there are still a multitude of fears and hurdles in front of them. Fortunately, when we overcome one trial, we gain the courage to face others. As JP says, When you face a fear forthrightly “you don’t become less frightened, you get more courageous, which is way better than being less frightened because there are lots of things to be frightened of, so if you are more courageous that does the trick.” The tribulations faced by the children of the Dark Ages likely strengthened them for the responsibilities of adulthood. Today, we should allow our children to face and even seek-out challenges, teaching them to return to us for encouragement.

Devoured by Weeds – Neglect

I do have sympathy for parents like this Hollywood director; his kids are so young and little kids are hard. It’s more difficult to find fulfillment in the early duty-filled days raising young kids. As JP said, “If mothers didn’t fall insanely in love with their babies they would throw them out the window.” However, if we are patient in the early years and attempt to build a strong relationship with our children, the blossoming of our little trees is truly glorious to behold.
If we let selfishness drive us to neglect our responsibility, weeds of vice and addiction will quickly build up around our children and choke their potential. These weeds are become increasingly prevalent as modern society degenerates. Everyone else is letting their boys play hours of Fortnite and their girls waste life on Instagram; can it really be that bad? Yes. I won’t site the studies here, but I believe we need to be rebels against a culture that is intent on producing the narcissistic and addicted. But some may say, “Isn’t that overprotective of you? – you can’t protect your children from our culture, you must socialize them into it.” I believe that it is parents’ responsibility to shield our young children from the “weeds” that could damage their soul and lead to bad habits and possible addiction. As my children get older, if I have passed values on to them, I am confident they will use their reason and courage – built through personal experience – to be rebels against the destructive elements of our modern age.

The Encouraging Mother – Building a Pristine Relationship

Selfishness is the common lot of man. However, having a child is God’s way of pushing us out of our natural state. Suddenly, with our God-given love, we push our selfish desires aside and re-prioritize our lives. This can be a painful process. It is more difficult for some than others . Some people can take things too far and make their children supreme, inadvertently turning them into narcissists. The balance is found when we shift our priorities and make the sacrifices needed to produce competent and virtuous children This “reorienting” process will not be as painful as one required to produce a “masterpiece” child of our own creating.
If you are not enjoying spending time with your kids, you are doing something wrong. JP says, “You need to keep your relationships with your kids pristine.” This stuck with me. I have found applying it makes motherhood easier. This may seem counter-intuitive since keeping something pristine is difficult. But because of the sovereignty of the relationship, I know I need to let everything else go. It is impossible to maintain a “pristine” relationship while simultaneously criticizing children’s every imperfection, or while micromanaging the dream of getting them into Harvard. My focus is the relationship above all else. This does not mean I give my children their way for the sake of the relationship, quite the opposite. Children who don’t have boundaries don’t respect you, and that is no relationship at all. But I do accept them for the “variety” they are, orange tree or palm, and replace previously-held expectations in exchange for appreciation of their unique traits.
The truth is, it doesn’t take much. JP weeps when he explains how little encouragement people actually need, but often don’t get. I don’t need to be involved in the daily minutiae of my children’s lives. The key is to keep our limited interactions optimal and meaningful. As we do this, our children will grow in character and moral fortitude. As we parents attempt to improve ourselves, we can let our example do much of the teaching for us.

Check Our Motivations

Why did we decide to be mothers, considering that we now have the luxury of that decision? Do we want our children to leave as capable young adults, or subconsciously want to keep them near us always? Do we want to be gardeners, tending a growing tree for the greater good of mankind? Or are we attempting to selfishly paint a masterpiece for our own glory? If our attitude is the later, we will very shortly become frustrated with parenting. If we attempt to make our child’s life a work of art, it would be folly to include suffering in the landscape. When the underlying desire for children is selfish, we quickly get disenchanted with the often-selfless reality of the undertaking.

Today, as a woman of faith, I firmly believe that my children were sent to me for a reason. I believe God choose me as their mother to help them fulfill their unique propose. I have many failings and there is much my children will have to learn from other sources. However, I have unique talents and sharing them with my children brings me so much joy. My son and I watch WWII documentaries together; my daughter and I plan adventures. As I attempt to use my God-given talents and interests to raise my children, I notice something miraculous start to happen. As my children grow, I see myself less as their gardener and more as a fellow tree, growing beside them and experiencing the peace and storms of life together.

Motherhood as Joy

We need to defeat the Devouring Mother in us all. Let’s stop attempting to shield our children from the difficulties of life. Let’s stop retreating into selfishness in the face of self-imposed expectations of motherhood. Let’s allow the trials of life to be the teacher of competence. Let’s have our love, talents, and “pristine” relationships do the work in developing our children’s character. Let’s let-go of the rest. And then, when it comes time for our children to face the toothaches and pains life, their mother will have prepared them well.
Your main job as a parent is to socialize your child in the first four years of life”. Those early years are critical in building resiliency, emotional attachment, teaching values and guiding their perceptions. In an interview with Dave Rubin Jordan Peterson talked of the criticalness of the first 4 years of the child’s life. “You have little kids for four years, and if you miss it it’s done! And that’s that. That period between 0-5 is a peak experience in life and it isn’t much of your life and if you miss it – it’s gone! You miss it at your peril and you don’t get it back.”
I have become convinced that we mothers must take responsibility as the change-agents in today’s society. It is not the people sitting at the top of some patriarchal hierarchy, the Social-Justice Warriors, or politicians who control the masses – it is simple women who when asked the question – “What do you do” somewhat shamefully reply “Oh, I am just a Mom”.

Why do we do that? Why do we act ashamed when we confess to being stay-at-home moms? This bugs me. Starting a blog took months of convincing from my husband because as “just a mom” I kept saying – “Who would ever read what I wrote, no one would take me seriously”. I am a confident and opinionated woman. I am not playing victim. But the fact is, mothers don’t have a seat at the table when discussing society. Teaching children is rarely mentioned in podcasts about our degenerating society. The role of the family is not brought up on the Nightly News. Mothers aren’t seen as important, because, why would we be – according to modern feminism mothers are sell-outs. Those who can’t cut it in the “real world” become moms. The modern world has taught us that the role of motherhood is as lacking in influence as a daycare worker – and equally fulfilling. So I decided to write a series of posts highlighting how Jordan Peterson’s insights can help mothers take the power back and save the world. After that series of posts, I hope to move on to other great thinkers – psychologists, theologians, and philosophers. My hope is we can take some of the vast knowledge accumulated over millennium and relate it to the most important work women can ever do – raise the next generation. In the words of William Ross Wallace, “The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.”
As mothers, we are in a the position to immerse our children in moral truth and guide them as they strive to reach their ultimate potential; this is where the power of motherhood is exhibited most. With a clear sense of right and wrong, they can navigate the chaos of the world. As we tell our children scripture stories, point out positive examples, and live authentic lives: our children will notice the patterns. They will find strength in the alignment towards good. I believe this moral compass will never leave them. They may wander from the path, but that sense of purpose and truth will be as a “Judge and a Redeemer” calling them back. “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
B.Northrop