She marched out onto the floor and stood at attention, and I was in awe.
I don’t know why my daughter’s confidence still shocks me, but it does every time. When she steps onto the mat, she is so sure of herself. Though she’s nervous, and she doesn’t always execute every move perfectly, she possesses a confidence in her abilities that seems so beyond her eight years.
A large part of her determined attitude is simply what she was programmed with at birth. From the day she arrived, she has been strong willed, stubborn, and brave. As a toddler, just barely able to walk, I’d find her in all manner of places and positions.
I’d walk into the kitchen and find her on top of the counter, no chair in sight, and she’d smile like, “Look at this awesome thing I did.”
I’d look out the kitchen window and see her sitting on top of the basketball goal…nine feet in the air…over asphalt…and she’d stare at me like, “Yeah? What of it?”
This is who she is, this daughter of mine. She’s gifted and brave. But she’s also a little girl, and so vulnerable to being swept up in the tide of a world that waits to tell her she isn’t good enough – that she should be better, prettier, faster, stronger, and smarter if she wants to be noticed.
In this fast paced world, we as parents have a monumental task ahead of us. How do we raise confident children in a society that is buzzing around us at lightening speed? Even more specifically, how do we raise confident young women in a world that values beauty over brains – a world that says a woman’s worth only travels as far as her accomplishments take her?
Raising confident girls requires so much more than simply telling them to “Reach for the stars.” We should tread carefully when we tell our daughters that they can do anything they want with a little hard work and perseverance.
Too much of that message and we’re bound to set them up for some disappointment.
I want my girls to walk confidently toward their passions and to work diligently within their skill sets. I want them to step on the mats of life and not think about the chatter around them, because there will be chatter. In a world that is constantly moving, constantly changing, always telling them they aren’t enough, I long for them to know that their worth is far more valuable than what they see in the mirror.
My goal is not to raise girls who think they can do whatever they set their mind to. It would be unfair to set them up for that kind of failure.
Instead, I want my girls to know that they can accomplish whatever it is the Lord has purposed for them to do.
I want them to walk confidently in the path that the Lord lays before them, and to embrace each challenge as a gift. And more than anything, I want them to chase after God. I want them to pursue Him, and as they do so if it leads them to a high powered position in the corporate world, then that’s wonderful.
If it leads them to become stay at home moms, that’s wonderful. If it leads them to the mission field, to the sports arena, to the classroom, to fame or to obscurity – that’s wonderful.
My message to my girls will always be, “Seek the Lord above all things.” Beyond that, I will point them in the direction of their natural bent and pray that the Lord grant them the success that He has purposed for them. Raising a confident girl isn’t about telling her she can do whatever she sets her mind to do. There’s no Jiminey Cricket standing by waiting to grant her heart’s desire with the wish of a star.
I don’t want my girls to have confidence in their abilities – I want them to have confidence in the Lord.
This is my prayer, and as I pray, I will forever be on the sidelines cheering them on, marveling at their talents, and praising God that I get to be their mom.
I sat in the nurses station and glanced up at the wall. That’s when my heart sank.
Hanging on the wall was a poster that only confirmed, in my already emotional postpartum mind, that I was somehow failing my baby – that I had, in fact, failed all my children. It was my fault. I didn’t try hard enough. I didn’t eat enough protein or drink enough water or take enough vitamins.
Or maybe it was just me. I wasn’t enough.
Post pregnancy hormones are no joke. Rationality can slip right past us on any given day as we feel ALL THE FEELINGS all at the same time. So when confronted with posters like this one taken from the website Breastfeeding.com, a mother who is struggling to breast feed her baby is ripe for confusion and worry.
Poster from Breastfeeding.com
Before I had my first born, I thought the biggest hurdle I’d have to cross was natural childbirth. Once I got through that process, I assumed I’d be home free.
No one ever told me that breastfeeding was difficult.
While most women get their milk within 3-5 days, mine didn’t come in until day 8, and even then it was very little. In the meantime, my child was starving. He screamed hysterically day and night until I finally called the pediatrician and she had me start him on formula supplements.
I visited the lactation consultants, once again checking all pride and shame at the door as people I didn’t know had their hands in sensitive areas.
I took all the vitamins they suggested and ate the foods that were supposed to help increase milk supply. I drank gallons of water, laid around with a heating pad on my chest, and fed my baby every three hours, pumping in between feedings in order to stimulate more production.
Nothing worked. Within a month I was exhausted, my baby was still hungry, I was bruised from all the pumping, and I was an emotional wreck. As I sat in my chair cradling my newborn, I sobbed endlessly until my husband sat down beside me and told me to stop.
If only it were that easy.
I have tried and failed to breastfeed all four of my children. I would venture a guess that I’ve tried harder than most people. The work I have to do to produce a small amount of milk is astounding, and it’s unrealistic for me to maintain that type of schedule.
Posters and propaganda like the above do not help women like myself, or any others who either cannot breastfeed their children, or choose not to. So perhaps instead of pumping us full of fearful, and scientifically unsound, statements we could approach the topic of breastfeeding from a more gentle and understanding point of view.
Here is what we know as absolute fact:
– Breastfeeding is the safest, healthiest option for an infant if the mother is able to do it. It is scientifically proven that breastfeeding provides a child with excellent antibodies, and with a nutritionally balanced supply of food.
– Breastfeeding is cheaper. IT IS SO MUCH CHEAPER!
– Breastfeeding allows mother and baby to bond in a special and unique way. (Although feeding a child a bottle allows you to bond in different ways as you look into her eyes while you feed her.)
Here are the incredibly loose, and sometimes incredibly false, arguments presented:
– Breastfed babies are smarter.
Bull.
Brigham Young University released a study recently that gave insight into why breastfed babies score higher on IQ tests. And it has little to do with breastmilk.
Breastfeeding mothers tend to respond to their babies emotional cues, and they often begin reading to their children earlier (at 9 months of age).
“It’s really the parenting that makes the difference,” says lead study author Ben Gibbs.
So maybe instead of telling formula feeding moms that their children will be dumber than their breastfed peers, we could simply encourage ALL parents to adopt these obviously healthy parenting techniques.
– Breasted babies are leaner for life.
Ridiculous.
Once again, there are assumptions being made here that don’t take into account a number of other factors, namely both genetics and environment. The claim that a breastfed baby will learn to regulate his or her own eating habits for life simply because he was given breastmilk is ludicrous.
A child will learn lifelong healthy eating habits from parents who teach them. Parents who model healthy living will raise leaner children. Perhaps more breastfed mothers live their lives this way, but again, this has nothing to do with breastfeeding and everything to do with the parenting mindset. To connect the two is irresponsible.
– Breastfed babies are healthier and have fewer ear infections.
I can count on one hand the number of ear infections that all of my children have had in my eleven and a half years of parenting. Not one of my kids has had tubes put in their ears. Save from the obligatory yearly colds and illnesses that get passed around schools, my children have not been sick.
And they were all formula fed babies.
– Breastfed babies have lower risk of childhood leukemia, MS, allergies, and heart disease.
Once again, there is very little research to support these claims. Yes, a lack of breast milk could contribute to these things. But there are other risk factors that are much more likely including genetics, environment, and prolonged deficiencies in nutrition.
The fact of the matter is that it is simply irresponsible to put that kind of fear into a mother’s head when you have so little science to back up the claims. To make her feel that her choice not to breastfeed, or her inability to sustain it, will result in an obese, sickly child who has a lower IQ and is unable to properly bond to her is fear mongering at its very worst.
Image by Avodah Images.
At the end of the day, if a mother is feeding her baby, she is doing something wonderful. Nourishing a newborn will inevitably require some sort of sacrifice. For breastfeeding mothers, it’s the sacrifice of freedom. For formula feeding mothers, it’s the sacrifice of finances.
But we are feeding our children, and what a miracle it is! We have options, and that’s a good thing. I’ve said on more than one occasion that I am so thankful for formula, because were I born in a different time, keeping my children alive could have been devastating.
So let’s stick to sound science, stop pushing fear on one another, and applaud the effort that it takes to sustain our newborns.
You’re doing a good thing in feeding your babies, Mamas. A very hard, good thing.
I have a confession: I desperately miss the carefree days of blogging at Minivans Are Hot. It was time to move on, and I’m glad that I did, but I do miss that space. I miss the random and ridiculous, and all the laughter.
So I decided that this space is going to have to lighten up a bit every now and again.
Here’s the thing – I’m really not that deep. I don’t find great meaning in each and every day. My life is crazy. It’s a fight to keep my head above water most days, what with ALL THE CHILDREN, ALL THE TIME. Seriously, there are kids everywhere right now. I feel like Miss Hannigan.
Everywhere I turn, I can see them.
And then there’s the laundry. Lawdy, all the laundry. As I folded clothes tonight, I tried to think of something I could write that would really encourage and bless the internet, and you know what I realized?
Laundry is just laundry.
I can’t always find a Jesus-y application in a pile of clothes. (Wait…hang on. I’ve got it. The clothes were dirty, but they were made clean, just like our sin made us dirty, but Jesus washed us clean.)
*groan*
Okay, that was awful.
So I don’t have something super deep to share today, and there are so many reasons for that, one of which is the fact that I am completely and entirely distracted by the roaches in my kitchen.
Because they have apparently made a nest somewhere in my kitchen, and I’m fairly certain that nest is somewhere inside, or above, or under, or behind my microwave. Which can only mean one thing.
It’s time to burn the house down.
At least that was my suggestion, but Lee said I should call the bug man first and see if that works. Seems like a waste of time when we could just torch the place, but I figured I’d give it a try just to make him happy.
I killed three roaches around the microwave the other day. Yesterday, when I opened it to reheat my coffee, another one came crawling out between the glass panes, then he turned and laughed in my face because he knew he scared the bejeebus out of me, but I couldn’t smash him.
He then proceeded to do a little jig while I pawed at the glass, trying to figure out if I could somehow kill him without breaking it.
The bug man is coming out tomorrow, and I’m perfectly content with him taking a hatchet and a blow torch to the microwave, or really to the entire kitchen. We don’t need a kitchen. That’s what restaurants are for.
So there are the roaches who are distracting me from any deep thoughts. Then there’s the whole not sleeping all night thing, which leaves me sort of fuzzy most days. There just isn’t enough coffee.
And I mentioned ALL THE CHILDREN, ALL THE TIME right?
Sweet kids. I love them so much. But we’re going on day four with daddy out of town, and my brain cannot ingest any more talking, and three out of the four really enjoy the talking. They have words they want to share, and stories they want to tell.
Detailed stories. So many details, all of which I am apparently supposed to remember. Then they all start talking at once, and I go into a zone. Then suddenly Sloan is waving his hand in front of my face and yelling “Earth to mom!” Which they all think is hilarious, and they laugh while I stare at them blankly, trying to remember what they were saying…and their names.
And did I eat anything today? Sometimes I forget to eat, which is probably fine since THERE ARE ROACHES IN MY KITCHEN!!!
There’s also the baby, God bless her. She’s wickedly adorable, and a welcome distraction. Until she starts crying.
So let’s see, I can’t think of anything deep and profound to say because of the children, the roaches, and because I can’t find Jesus in a pile of laundry.
I did, however, write some pretty words for Extraordinary Mommy this week. Words about gratitude and family, and tender moments with my daughter. So if you want more pretty words, join me over there.
But if you want nonsense, stick around. I’ll be here, babbling semi-coherently until Lee walks through the door.
Have a good weekend, everyone! Go have some fun! Pour a tall drink! Share a laugh with friends! Talk about everything and talk about nothing, and when you do, think of me.
I’ll be here, digging out from under the laundry and listening to all the words.
“Mom, I don’t get this problem. I need your help.”
“Mom, does the ‘Y’ at the end of this word make the ‘EE’ sound like ‘happy,’ or the ‘I’ sound like ‘cry?’
“Mom, I can’t find my (fill in the blank).”
“Mom!”
“MOM!”
“MOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!”
And then the baby screamed for an hour.
It was one of “those” days. You know what I’m talking about. The kind of day that doesn’t contain enough coffee to make life not feel like a freight train crashing around on a Tilt-a-Whirl. Like you’re being squished and pressed in from all sides, and also on top and from the ground up.
It was a day that came after a night that was too short, and several times interrupted by a baby with a bird mouth who couldn’t find her sleeping groove, and so eating was her go-to coping mechanism.
And so many cries for “Mom.”
As the day drew to a close, I found myself dragging through each motion. With daddy out of town, it all falls on me. Gymnastics, soccer, meals, homework. On a good day, I can rock our schedule with gusty flair, but on a fatigued day, I move a bit like an elephant in quick sand.
I slogged my way through the showers and the late night studies of multiplication tables, my eyelids so heavy that Tia finally looked at me with deep concern.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “Your eyes look weird.”
We’re working on tact with that one…
As I warmed up the baby’s bottle, while quizzing Tia on her math, and listening to Sloan tell me about the new book he was reading, Landon tugged on my shirt.
“Mom?” he asked, eyes all big and hopeful.
“Just a minute, buddy.”
“But…Mom?” He pulled on my shirt again.
“Hang on, babe. I’m listening to Sloan right now. Tia what’s 8×4?”
He leaned against my side and waited for a brief moment before tapping my arm again. I sighed and look down. “What, Landon?!” I was exasperated. He could tell.
He motioned me down so he could whisper in my ear. “I love you,” he said softly, then he smiled wide, thin lips stretched across soft cheeks.
You can’t have him, friends. He’s all mine.
With a lighter heart, I finally got all four (four!) kids settled into bed, and I stood in the middle of my kitchen for a few moments, relishing the stillness and quiet that is rather elusive in our home these days. I felt almost giddy at the thought of my own warm bed waiting for me, and I began preparations to make my way to it.
“Mom?”
I turned to see Tia standing in her doorway. She came padding out and tossed me an impish grin. “I need to get a drink,” she said.
I sighed. “Okay, but be quick, alright?” I was exasperated. She could tell.
“Okay,” she said, then halted. “But I also want to tell you about the rainbow.” She looked at me, her eyes so big they made her look like a Disney princess. How could I say no? I nodded my head reluctantly.
“Did you know that the first color in a rainbow is red, but you can’t see it because just above it is blue, and the red and the blue blend together, and that makes the first stripe look purple? Isn’t that so cool?” Her smile was so wide, and her eyes so delighted to share this information with me that, once again, I felt my fatigue roll off my back like the droplets of water that streak across the windshield.
To all the exhausted, overwhelmed, stretched-too-thin moms out there, I raise my glass to you. We’re fighting the good fight, heels dug in, determined to enjoy this ride called motherhood. We’re told to cherish each moment, but the moments all blend together into chunks of time that feel like they’re just.too.much.
But like the red and the blue of a rainbow, those blended together moments actually make something new and beautiful. They make motherhood.
We’re doing this, friends. We’re living this mothering journey, and it isn’t really glamorous, and perhaps we get exasperated more than we should, but at the end of the day we know we’re loved, and we learn really cool things about rainbows.
So we tuck those brief moments deep in our hearts, and they become the fuel to get us through the next day, and the next night, and the one after that, until we find ourselves on the other side of this journey. I understand why older women tell us to cherish this time.
They know that on the other side of mothering young children, we miss the magic in a rainbow.
I had big plans for after Annika was born. Because I’d done this baby thing three times before, I just assumed that life would go back to the way it once was, forgetting completely that babies change everything.
There was, of course, a small part of me that new it would be tricky these first few months. But I was only thinking of it from the vantage point of being fatigued. I figured that I would just live tired for a little while, but that’s no big deal, right? I mean, I can do tired.
I also knew that a little more would be required of me as a mother. Whereas the older three can all bathe and dress themselves now, and are relatively independent in the day-to-day tasks of life, I knew that having a baby would be a set back in some of that mothering freedom I’d come to enjoy.
Friends, I forgot completely that babies require just about every ounce of your strength from sun up to sun down, and even a bit of the moonlight hours as well. I mentioned in my last post that Mother’s Amnesia is a real thing, and I had it to the hundredth percent.
I forgot that an eight pound human being needs almost constant care, and that the fatigue nearly obliterates your brain cells. I didn’t just ignore that little fact, I TOTALLY FORGOT IT.
Which makes it laughable that I thought I could just go on with life as it once was, completely uninterrupted.
I don’t say any of these things to complain. In fact, I am about as content and joy-filled as I possibly could be. I am absolutely, madly, deeply, and fully in love with that baby girl, and holding her in my arms feels like a blessed privilege. The weight and warmth of her little body against mine make every sacrificed moment worth it.
But I am also overwhelmed. I feel both sentiments in equal measure.
We are slowly falling into somewhat of a routine these days, and for that I am grateful. She wakes up only once at night, and she is figuring out how to nap during the day. These are good things, and they are gently giving way to more structure in my days. I haven’t yet figured out how to make it to the grocery store, and the house is in a perpetual state of disarray, but no one has starved and we aren’t in need of intervention from the TV show Hoarders just yet, so I think we’re in good shape.
This is just the tenuous art of motherhood that slipped my mind fully. Somewhere between Landon growing from toddler to preschooler, I forgot that life with young children is a beautiful hard.
In addition to the daily crazy, I have a career to nourish now that I didn’t have when my other three were babies. I love what I do, and while I’ve scaled back considerably in the last year to focus more on my family, I still want to nourish and grow this part of myself that I feel God has led me to. So I’m learning and practicing this tenuous art of motherhood and life and creativity.
I’m remembering and I’m growing, and I might be eating a little too much chocolate, but there has to be room for too much of something right now, and the chocolate is at my fingertips.
I’m happy, and I’m busy. I’m overwhelmed, and I’m content.
This is life right now, all rolled up tight in a mess of wants and needs and not enough sleep. There are moments when I want to run away, but they are far outweighed by the feeling that I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Maybe you’re there, too. Maybe you forgot, or maybe you didn’t and you’re simply in that joy-filled overwhelmed phase of life where it seems impossible to accomplish all that needs to be accomplished in a 24 hour period of time.
I’m here to say I get it, and I stand in solidarity with you. I wish we could get together and share a cup of coffee and a plate of chocolate together, but that would somehow require both of us to leave the house. So instead, I raise my mini-Hershey bar to you and offer a proverbial pat on the back.
We’ve got this, friends – this beautiful, messy, hectic crazy life.
Now excuse me while I go take a two minute shower because I hear the baby stirring and I am DETERMINED to wash my hair today!
Six weeks ago, we welcomed our fourth child into our family. It’s been a whirlwind month and a half as we’ve adjusted to having a baby in the house once again. I forgot how much work small babies are. Mother’s amnesia is a real thing, and it is the only reason that the human race is still alive, because bringing a baby into this world is insanely difficult.
I was actually surprised how fully and completely I had forgotten that.
Annika has brought a lot of joy to our home. She has filled a void in our family, and given us a sense of being whole. Perhaps not complete, as I will never completely close the door on adoption as an option for expanding our family. I just can’t say we would never do it, but for now I can say that I feel whole, whereas a year ago at this time I did not.
When we found out we were pregnant, I began to pray that the Lord would reveal his mercy and grace to us through this child. My heart was still in a place of tenderness after the terminated adoption, and I laid a fervent prayer before Him each morning as I fought through morning sickness, through discomfort, and through the insane heat of the summer months.
“Reveal your mercy through this baby.”
As Lee and I batted around name ideas, I continually returned to “Annika.” Every time I said it out loud, I felt a swell of joy move through me, and when we found out we were having a girl, I just knew that was supposed to be her name. Once we’d settled on the first name, we moved to the middle name and I suggested such options as “Hope,” “Grace,” and “Joy.”
None of those felt right, though, and we ultimately decided we wanted to honor Lee’s grandmother by giving Annika her name. Annika Rachel immediately felt right, and we were able to pray for her by name.
And still I prayed for mercy and grace as the Lord continued to heal my heart.
Shortly before Annika’s birth, I decided to look up her name to see what it means. I probably should have done that first, but I didn’t. I just loved the sound of the name. I didn’t even think to look up the meaning in the early months.
It didn’t matter, because the Lord in His goodness gave us the name we needed most for this daughter of ours. The name Annika means “Gracious, Full of Grace, Mercy.”
There is not doubt in my mind that this child was meant to join our family for such a time as this. Her arrival has brought the sweetness of God’s grace and mercy into our lives, and each night as I feed her in the quiet dark, I pray that the Lord will reveal His grace and mercy to others through her.
We are tired these days. Life is crazy, and somedays (most days?) I am entirely overwhelmed with it all.
But I’m covered under the banner of mercy and grace, and each time I pick her up, I’m reminded that God is so very good.
