Happy Mother’s Day!
Alright, it’s five days early; doing things early is about the only way I can make sure that they happen on time these days. I have two toddler girls, and when this publishes I will be too busy with the new baby, and recovering, to write something timely. This is not to complain, this is to try to set the (light-hearted) tone. I’m always late for the time I aimed at, because there is so much to do, and it’s all important. I never considered how important even my rather minor housecleaning was before I got violently ill and could barely leave my bed for a whole day. The house was barely fit for human habitation, let alone for the girls. A lot of being a mother amounts to holding back the forces of disaster, generally in very undramatic ways. Undramatic disasters, too, though things don’t have to be impressive to be harmful and worth fighting.
There’s a lovely section in the Catechism on the duties of family members; as with most things, it can be simplified down to “love them.” That simple instruction is incredibly hard. Especially if you don’t much like children. When I say “I don’t like children,” I don’t mean it in the sense that I dislike children as a group; I mean that I don’t like people just because they happen to be children. I care about them, because they are people, but I don’t have that “oh my goodness, kids, I love kids!” response that some people are blessed with. I also do not mean “I don’t like children” in the sense of “I didn’t want to be a mom.” As far back as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be Mom, possibly because my mom is so awesome. (I was also, as far back as I can remember, told that it wasn’t an acceptable goal. That might be my next topic, but I’ll stop digressing now.) Being a mother has been a bedrock desire when nothing else was sure, even as I learned how big of a job it was.
Children are a huge responsibility, and one that you do not control. You can control risk factors; you can — and must — teach them, as the CCC link mentions, preferably by example; you can do everything right, and they, as children of God, can still choose to do the wrong thing. Free will can be painful. You can teach the kids God’s law, but you can’t make them follow it. (Nothing quite like feeling empathy for Himself in Eden. Sure, it’s a tiny shadow, but very interesting.) To quote:
2221 The fecundity of conjugal love cannot be reduced solely to the procreation of children, but must extend to their moral education and their spiritual formation. “The role of parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute.”The right and the duty of parents to educate their children are primordial and inalienable. 2222 Parents must regard their children as children of God and respect them as human persons. Showing themselves obedient to the will of the Father in heaven, they educate their children to fulfill God’s law.
Sticking to empathy, but flipping over to loving a child that does choose to follow God’s law perfectly, Mother Mary is an obvious topic for meditation on Mother’s day. (I expect a flood of Mary articles, and they’ll cover a lot of ground.)
In this case, I’m focusing on the incredible pain of your child doing the right thing, and suffering for it. I pray that none of you have had a child really suffer, but one of the most horrifying days I had was a direct result of my daughter trying to help by copying me, and spilling detergent into her eyes. (She’s absolutely fine, thank God, and I think we went overboard in making sure it never happens again.) Again, such a tiny shadow to what Mary suffered as to be nearly mocking, but it was plenty big to me. A recent human interest story, about a Cardinal’s mother who is scared he’ll become Pope and she’ll never see him again– her health not being up to a visit to Rome — is initially amusing (68 year old’s mom says she doesn’t want him to get a job far away!) but deeply touching on consideration. The lady doesn’t question that her son would do the job God might call him for, even as she openly hopes — to borrow a phrase — that the cup will pass her by, and she won’t lose her son to the job of taking care of the world.
Not everybody’s results will be so sure, and even good results will have some pain. Humans mess up. If — no, when –– mom messes up, people can be greatly harmed. And it’s your job (with dad, and the rest of the family, but it’s still your job, even if it’s shared) to try to protect the kids without stunting their growth.
Knowing how incredibly important the job is can make it very tempting to avoid the responsibility altogether. God knows that weakness in us. That’s why we’re told to be open to life.
2366 Fecundity is a gift, an end of marriage, for conjugal love naturally tends to be fruitful. A child does not come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the very heart of that mutual giving, as its fruit and fulfillment. So the Church, which “is on the side of life” teaches that “each and every marriage act must remain open ‘per se’ to the transmission of life.” “This particular doctrine, expounded on numerous occasions by the Magisterium, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act.” 2367 Called to give life, spouses share in the creative power and fatherhood of God. “Married couples should regard it as their proper mission to transmit human life and to educate their children; they should realize that they are thereby cooperating with the love of God the Creator and are, in a certain sense, its interpreters. They will fulfill this duty with a sense of human and Christian responsibility.”
Keeping with my back-and-forthing (getting an idea why I have to get a week’s running start to get there on time?) we also must not view children as something we’re entitled to. (As I mentioned at the start, a much bigger risk for me.)
2378 A child is not something owed to one, but is a gift. the “supreme gift of marriage” is a human person. A child may not be considered a piece of property, an idea to which an alleged “right to a child” would lead. In this area, only the child possesses genuine rights: the right “to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his parents,” and “the right to be respected as a person from the moment of his conception.”
2379 The Gospel shows that physical sterility is not an absolute evil. Spouses who still suffer from infertility after exhausting legitimate medical procedures should unite themselves with the Lord’s Cross, the source of all spiritual fecundity. They can give expression to their generosity by adopting abandoned children or performing demanding services for others.
The point is: even before you get to the part where you are actually raising kids, motherhood is a big job.
So why don’t you do something for your mom, for mother’s day? If nothing else, pray for her, and thank God.
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