Musings of a Reluctant Mother

A reluctant mother is one who loves the idea of having a baby, but once waking to the ice-cold realities of exhaustion and self-denial wants to turn back. A reluctant mother has bouts of both exploding anger and untamed affection. A reluctant mother is someone who despises society's suffocating expectations and unrealistic images of the perfect mother; and who forges her own path of finding who she is uniquely as a mother, though oftentimes with much fear and frustration. I am a reluctant mother. Motherhood is the hardest thing I've ever done. Most days I want to throw off the fetters of motherhood and be free again. Despite that, it's one of the best things that has happened to me. I want to know this life ...

that God has placed in my arms. And I am experiencing the wonders of new birth because of him and because God takes my raw frailty and selfish ugliness and transforms it into a dignified strength and selfless love. That is my hope and for that I press in, though still often reluctant.

Ever since Jed was born and I was thrust into the ominous world of motherhood I have wanted to expose the lie that new mommyhood is all frills and cuteness. Damn those Target catalogs! I thought having a new baby would be cute, and even now when I see a new mom with her new baby, I think, "How cute! I want one.... oh wait." How is it so deceiving? It still baffles me.

Lately, as Jed has entered toddlerhood and needs daily activity, I've wanted to get creative and try new things. I have an image of the typical, American, stay-at-home mom that I dreadfully want to avoid. She does all the crafts on pinterest and finds all the mommy and me classes and creates the coolest science experiments. And she doesn't mind the messes of paint and glue and dirt and spends her child's naps creating an elaborate dinner for her family.

Though I know this person probably does not exist, there's this terrifying expectation that this image is someone to live up to. I'm rebelling against her. And I'm also not going to throw in the towel and just go back to work. I think that I can do this mom thing in my own unique way. I want to be authentically me in this new world of motherhood. And while I'm still figuring out what this looks like, I thought it would be good for me to have a place to play with being a mom. This blog is intended to be a place where I can vent honestly about the difficulties of motherhood, a place where I can explore and reflect on Jed's unique giftings and interest, and a place where I can experiment and create new ways of doing motherhood. Here we go!