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Visiting this week with a mom I’ve long admired, I learned about a few challenges that await me when I attempt to parent my kids through their teenage years. (And I thought I had it rough, with my three youngens!)
One of her mothering puzzles inspired this week’s question. A teenage daughter has declared that she does not want to be a mom, does not want to marry or have children. Apparently, the whole business seems like too much work with not enough rewards. My friend says, “I think she needs to see me having more fun.”
Naturally, the decision to be a mother is the choice of each individual woman. But it’s also natural for a mother to hope that a daughter will follow in her footsteps, looking forward to the day when she will learn some of the many life lessons that are clearly learned through the experience of mothering. Finding a way to instill this desire in our young daughters can be difficult in a world that is hyper-focused on self-promotion and rewards.
So, I throw the question out to you.
How do you show your kids the “fun” side of being a mom?
How do you teach them to value the rewards that come from parenting?
I was one of those highschool kids who, regarding the odds against life-long successful marriages and family life, looked into the future with horror. However, after plunging into Family Science in college and now with baby number 6 well on the way, I’m very grateful for the incredible devotion my mom had to homemaking activities. Tried “by the fire of growing up,” they naturally became the activities I love to do too.
One of the most interesting Family Science classes I took was one on Infant Development. During class our professor would share various research results with us. One research project in particular tracked pregnant mothers and their child rearing habits and then tracked the pregnancy and child rearing habits of the children they’d given birth to too. Pretty much everything from emotional responses to nutrition to style of bonding (or the lack there of) was replicated save in a few cases (areas people had chosen to study and practice new traditions for).
Later I was amazed to see results from my own parenting assessment and how much they matched my mothers! It helped me see the many, many things to be grateful for and it also clarified areas I could personally choose to develop through study and practice. I’m grateful for my mom’s devotion and also for the ability to study and practice the traditions I hope to add to my children’s upbringing. Although the traditions we’re given are tremendously powerful, study and practice have been proven to be very powerful, new tradition builders too.