Motherhood

In 2011, my husband and I made the decision for me to give up my career to stay at home to take care of my daughter. We had talked about it before marriage and my husband knew it was something that I wanted. However, we also wanted to be financially secure. After we had our daughter and I went back to work, it wasn’t long that we both felt it was best for me to stay home. She wasn’t receiving the care I felt she deserved and who better knows their child and their needs than a mother. When I was little, I would watch Little House on the Prairie and I fell in love with the storyline. I loved the idea of a dad that worked hard to provide for his family and a mom who stayed home to educate, clean and bring up the children. And the children had nothing but respect and admiration for their parents, and grew up well-behaved, well-mannered and faced life’s biggest challenges together with their family.

The thing is I didn't have that growing up. I didn't have the mom and dad that worked hard to support the family. I didn't have the mom that stayed home and cared for her children. Instead, my parents got a divorce when I was 13 years old and my mom worked two jobs to provide for me and my sisters. She worked really hard to make sure that we had a roof over our heads and food on the table, but I always felt as though something was lacking.

There was an age difference between my sisters and I. When they both went away to college, I was still in high school, left alone at home to tend to myself and my own studies while my mom was working.

I'd like to say the way I was raised didn't shape and mold me as a parent, but I would be lying. It made me hard, angry, yet determined to grow up to try to do everything different for my own kids and my own family.

Deciding to stay at home was a major life-changer for me. As much as it was something that I wanted to do, I didn't prepare myself for the financial and other stressful changes it would have on my life.

There are always the “what if's” in life. What if I was still working and bringing in the income that I was? What if I was working at least part-time and providing a little, and at the same time having some time away from home? But all of these “what if's” and all of these challenges didn't affect me as much as the judgment I faced and often feel from other moms.

After my son was born, two years later, I realized that the biggest part of this entire chapter of my life that was missing was Jesus Christ and Blessed Mary. They were not the center of our family and completely involved in the decisions we were making. Once that became the main focus of our days, I started seeing things slowly changing in our lives. However, I still find that the biggest struggle is seeing what needs to be changed in me, and putting in the work needed to do so.

As much as I wish I wasn’t, I’m still sensitive to what people think and what people say, regardless of whether I feel like what I’m doing is right or wrong. I feel the judgment from other moms and friends on how I choose to raise my kids-whether it's because I'm too strict or too lenient; whether it's because I yell or talk softly or whether it's because I choose to spank or use the corner as my way to discipline.

If I do something that another mom does not do, I feel like I see a quiet smile or silence on the outside, but somewhere in their head they are judging me. There is within me that sense of wanting to fit in; of wanting to be able to vent and be on the same page as others and not feel like you're being criticized or judged as a mother. That’s one of the things I have to change-I have to work on not caring so much about what I think others feel: because in the end, none of it matters. I ask others for advice in the areas I struggle and I pray, read and learn to educate myself on how best to raise my children. I spend every day with my children, and ask God to grant me the strength, patience and guidance I need to raise them as I should and as they need.

Mothers are beautiful. They are unique in their devotion to their children and it is unlike any other devotion I have seen. You can even look at Blessed Mary as an example. Look at her devotion and faith as she raised Christ with such love and care. She took care of our Lord as a baby, as a boy, and even as a man. She knew where His life was going to lead and she did it faithfully, humbly and with such grace and compassion.

Often times I find myself sitting back and wondering if she yelled and if she lost her cool. I would love nothing more than to imitate the woman that Blessed Mary was with her Son. And that is probably the biggest struggle that I have in life – I have started to see how my faults and sins affect my children. I am not perfect, as the Blessed Mother was, and I do not want my faults and struggles to overshadow my love and devotion for them.

Other than Christ and my husband, there is no one in the world that I love and care about more than my daughter and son. Every moment and everything I do in my day and in my life is in hopes of making them better people in some way. There are some days which are great – days when I see such hope and love and determination in their eyes. And then there are days that are bad – days where I see sadness and tears.

Those are the days that are the heaviest on my heart. That weigh the most on my soul and that make me question everything about who I am and who my children are going to see me as.

It's at those moments that I look up to Heaven and I ask for the intercession of Blessed Mary to pray for me and to pray for my children.

No mother is perfect. No mother is without faults. No mother is without self-judgment. The burden is heavy to carry the weight of your children on your shoulders and to pray for them and hope that one day when they grow older they can look at you in their life and say “Thank you, Mom. You have made me everything I’d wish I would be.”

That is a legacy I wish to leave for my children and my family and that is what I want my husband to see when he looks at me as his wife, and the mother of his children.