The Heart of Mothering

Written by Elisa Morgan and Carol Kuykendall

This article is courtesy  ParentLife magazine.

In the nursery down the hall from her own bedroom, Laura rocks her 2-month-old baby back and forth. “Why, my little one, must you choose 2 a.m. to be most wide awake and demanding?” she asks with mock irritation.

“But you are still so cute and cuddly,” she adds, snuggling him closer. In the last hour, she has fed him, changed him, burped him, and rocked him, but still he whimpers, unwilling to give up and give in to sleep. “What else do you need, Travis?” she asks softly.

Of course, there are no easy answers to Laura’s questions, just like so many of the questions she has faced in her first few weeks of being a mother. She strokes her son’s cheek, and he pauses to give her the slightest crooked little grin, even in the midst of his whimpering. She thinks about how much she loves this baby and loves being a mom, but she also wonders if she has what it takes to be a good mom. How will she know what her child needs most, and will she be able to give him what he needs? She continues to rock, back and forth, reflecting on the answers.

Zoom forward 18 years. It is 2 a.m. again. Same room, same child, same mom. And again, Laura is rocking back and forth on her knees as she bends and tapes the last of the boxes that fill her son’s room. She looks up at her boy, standing tall above her, as he carries the boxes out, one by one, to the hallway.

Tomorrow morning these boxes will be loaded in the car for the first trip to a college campus.

Laura kneels beside the last half-filled box, wondering what Travis might still choose to take from his home of 18 years. As he wanders around the room, she silently offers a prayer for her soon-to-be-gone son.

“What else do you need, Travis?” she asks softly.

He shrugs as he takes a couple framed pictures off a shelf and gently places them on top of the clothes in the box. “I’m not sure, Mom. I just know I’m not sleepy yet.” His voice has the slightest tremble in it, but he turns and gives her a familiar, crooked grin. “Thanks for staying up to help me. Maybe that’s what I need most right now.” With that, mother and son tape the last box carry it out of the room.

Like Laura, you want to be a good mom, even though you are not always sure what that means. You want to give your children what they need when they need it, and you are often overwhelmed with all the questions and choices and conflicts with your own needs. You wonder: “What does my child need most? What does my child need right now?” Through the years, the circumstances change, but a mother’s questions remain the same.

But with the passing of each year, you begin to gain confidence in your answers. You realize that what your children need most is simply your love, lived out in relationships with them. That is what matters most. So in spite of your confusion, doubts, and struggles, you learn that you can give them what they need most.

God creates all of us with a need for love, but children are not born knowing what love is. So no matter how old your children are, they need you to give them love – different kinds of love at different times. Love matters most, and love is the heart of mothering.

MOPS International (Mothers of Preschoolers), a world-wide organization that meets the needs of mothers of young children, asked more than a thousand moms, “What does your child need most?” Not surprisingly, variations of the same answer were given, “My child needs my love…my attention…unconditional love.”

But another question arose from the mothers’ responses: “What if I know what my child needs, but I’m too tired or impatient or busy to meet my child’s need at that moment?”

The truth is, you cannot meet all of your children’s needs all the time. Moms have needs, too, and sometimes your needs bump into theirs. But what you learn through the years is that you meet your children’s needs by helping them understand that you have needs, too. In spite of a few bumps, you still can give them your love; that is what they need most.

Though you retain the title of “mother” for a lifetime, you spend only about 18 years actively parenting your children. And when the day comes to help them pack up and be on their way, you realize that it is not the stuff that can be stored in boxes that matters most. It is the stuff stored in their hearts, the memories of love shared and relationships built and experienced. No matter where they go, your children carry your love with them.

Adapted from  What Every Child Needs by Elisa Morgan and Carol Kuykendall (Zondervan) ©1997 MOPS International.

Elisa Morgan is President of MOPS International and hosts MomSense, a daily radio program. She is the author of many books and co-authored  What Every Mom Needs and What Every Child Needs with Carol Kuykendall.

Carol Kuykendall is Director of Communications at MOPS International and author of  Loving and Letting Go and  Give Them Wings.

Share your thoughts with other readers:  Post Comments   Rate this Article