I, too, love Sarah’s laugh. And I, too, have noticed that the Sarahs and the Hannahs play such bit parts that they leave little on which to model ourselves. Which, in my view, leaves us free to be the women we’d rather be, anyway.

In my case, that means that temples and visiting teaching and clean kitchen counters are important, but so is chocolate milk and a good library book.

If there is any kind of laundry duty or ironing required in eternity then I want to be human forever! At least here my kids will eventually leave home (and do their own laundry) and when my husband dies I can live in a mumu and bunny slippers if I wanna!!!!

href=”http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-homemaking11oct11,1,1377755.story?coll=la-headlines-nation&ctrack=1&cset=true”>

You know, it’s important to remember that the scriptures don’t tell us a whole whopping lot about the Hannah’s and the Sarah’s…but one of my favorite scriptures is where upon hearing that God has promised that she will conceive and bare a son she doesn’t clasp her faithful hands to her heart in gratitude for decades worth of prayers answered…she bursts out laughing!And then when the “Lord” asks why she laughed..( isn’t God capable of doing anything?) she LIES and says “I did not laugh!” It made her VERY human to me.

I think sometimes we lose the horizontal hold on the big picture. We look at our children and think that their rebellions or lost opportunities somehow indicates that we are horrible parents, but not ONE among us would reflect upon our Heavenly Father (or mother) in that way would we? Is God a horrible parent because his children exercise the gift he gave them (agency) in diverse and often wrong ways? Is it possible to truly relish joy if we haven’t felt agony? Would we be able to appreciate the small successes of our children if we had not mourned with them through much larger losses?

As a mother with two teen girls (19 and 18) two “tween boys, and some little odds and ends thrown in there (some more odd than others)I promise you that this much is true…”it ain’t over till it’s over”. I have a couple of kids that have morphed in and out between human and sub-human form in a manner that might prompt some into the field of genetic research. But the teen daughter that can go from a Defcon 5 to a 1 in 60 seconds because her hair isn’t perfect is the same daughter who noticed a “sad” woman sitting alone in a restaurant a few months back and secretly paid for her dinner. The child who can spin her head around 360 degrees is also the one who adopted a needy child for “Shop with a Cop” and forked out almost all of her own paycheck to cover the end total.

I guess what I mean to say is…we can only teach our children to do the best THEY can with the tools that WE have and trust in God to make up the difference. It isn’t the Holy Ghost telling us that we’re failures, or imperfect or even witches of the highest order…(I plan to take up that whole PMS thing with Father the first chance I get trust me) it’s Satan. God doesn’t make us feel depressed and worthless…that isn’t His nature. And it isn’t His nature to allow the quality or lack of someone’s mothering or fathering skills to be applied as an excuse for our children’s ultimate attainments. THEIR agency is just as responsible for their lives as ours is for ours.

The best thing I have taught my own children (so far) is that adults make mistakes too. And when they do, adults should apologize, repent, and try to be better. And their children should forgive and do the same. If you don’t teach your kids how to fall flat on their faces and then get back up and keep going with grace and humility, someone else will…and they won’t love them nearly as much as we do.

Hugs
P.S. I TRIED to teach my kids that when adults make mistakes they should be sent to their rooms and grounded for months on end with NO visitors…but they drew pictures of emaciated and naked crayon children and slid them under the door on Mother’s Day….sigh…

I really do–

I have the opposite problem of most people.

I really love my children–

but I have two VERY special needs children–

I homeschooled, and my older special needs child was such a challenge that I was exhausted all the time–

he wanted VERY much to serve a mission; his IQ wouldn’t let him, but his IQ didn’t prevent him from joining the army–and I taught him to be non-militant–

so, there’s a bit of heartache there.

He spent years wearing a white shirt and having a homemade missionary tag on; he would walk around with his scriptures all day saying, “Elder _________ is coming to dinner today and will be teaching you”–

I did ALL the important things; I started reading him scriptures aloud from day one–and had classical and Mo-Tab on all the time–

even if I didn’t like them–

And he has broken my heart again and again; THAT part of her talk hurt me, but I don’t feel vitriol towards her; she is making some good points; our world has become child/home/family unfriendly–

I wish I could have had the kind of son who COULD have served a mission; that would have been really nice–

I have one *normal* child, and life is hard for that child, with two demanding and struggling siblings–

I have made so many mistakes; I feel deeply inadequate–there are many reasons.

After the heartache of almost 23 years of mothering and feeling like a complete failure I LOVE a well-baked pie, a nice pot of soup and a clean house. The pie won’t get up in the middle of the night and leave the house and do _________. The clean floor won’t get onto a bad internet site. Deliberately. The pot of soup won’t spend the entire day trying to provoke argument in every other person in the home.

You can clean a house and it will stay that way (sort of)–for a reasonable amount of time–at least it would if the people who are difficult would allow it . . .

it won’t throw the soap in your face. You can scrub a floor and it won’t throw the water back on you–

etc.

I like keeping a house, because the house doesn’t talk back–

I like cooking a meal, because I can SEE that I have done something. I don’t have to be around people or get paid to do it; it just feels very primal–very basic . . .

and satisfying.

So, for once a talk didn’t make me feel guilty about liking to clean house and cook–for once; I was astounded; for years I had been put on guilt trips about “rocking my babies, and babies don’t keep–dust go to sleep”–

when I wanted very much to scrub the floor, but I went ahead and rocked and I rocked willingly and I enjoyed it, but I couldn’t see why I was BAD for wanting a clean house–

why couldn’t I scrub the floor while the baby played happily and STILL rock the baby and not feel guilty? This talk came 20 years too late for me.

So I say, good for Sister Beck–

the missionary haircuts and the white shirts . . .

*in another world*

(we read the scriptures, sang the hymns, listened to the right music, read the right talks, had FHE, did devotional, etc., etc., etc.–and there has been no MTC experience for us–oh, my aching heart . . . )–

having a happy family an idolatry–sounds like liberal Lutheranism in the 1960s–honest; look it up/check it out . . .

I think that is silly–

just an excuse not to care about the family; we all make mistakes, but we don’t have to institutionalize our mistakes–

Whoever said that hiring housecleaning help is demeaning to an *underclass*–thank you . . .

I will look up that book it speaks to exploitation and stratification; it’s about time–