The Culture of Motherhood

I am going to digress on my story for a bit and write about two things that I feel made this whole experience even more difficult than normal for me. First, was the subconscious belief that the more children a mother had, the better of a mother she is.  And second was my religious culture that created in me the belief that a woman's highest calling is motherhood. I know the second one in particular will cause people to raise their eyebrows, but I am going to honestly share my reasons here.

So, first, the subconscious belief that the more children a woman had, the better mother she is.  I didn't realize for a very long time that I felt that way.  My mother raised ten children.  My grandmother had ten children.  I always grew up thinking I would have ten children, and then thus be a good mom. I see other women around me and (without realizing it) was judging them on their capabilities of Motherhood by amount of kids that surrounded them.  In my mind deep down, I assumed that the women with six kids were more righteous and more Christ-like than a woman with two kids.  But then I had one child and that was hard.  The second one came, and life was even harder.  The third one came and I didn't know how I was going to survive.  But, I still felt that I was failing.  And, deep down, that was one of the reasons I wanted to adopt.  If I couldn't have more kids, then surely the answer was to adopt.  Because I wasn't going to be enough of a mother unless I raised ten kids. But, that wasn't what happened.  I had to realize that I was only going to be a mother to three children, and I had to recognize then overcome the feeling that I would now never be enough of a mom.

That wasn't the most hurtful feelings though.  In my religious culture, I was taught from the time I was a little girl that motherhood is the highest calling for a woman.  I don't necessarily disagree with it; I do believe that Motherhood is the most selfless service a woman can give.  But, if it's the greatest calling a woman can do, and I don't really enjoy it, does that make me a sinful or terrible woman?  And, on top of that, if God doesn't trust me with more than three children, does that mean I'm not worthy enough?  I actually got my answer by seeing some of our friends who are not able to have children at all.  The husband and wife would make INCREDIBLE parents.  I truly believe that God gave them that trial for other reasons -- not because they are not worthy of parenthood.  So, the same had to apply to me, right?  I'm not less valuable as a woman because I only have three kids.  I can still do good in the world.  God can still be happy with my contributions.

Actually, I'll tell you something honest about all those things; I still am trying to convince myself.  It's hard.  Really hard.  There is one woman in the town where I live that I absolutely feel inferior to -- in every way.  And if I listed out all of the reasons why I deep down feel that she is superior to me, one of the first ones is that she has more kids than me. If you feel the same way, I want to talk about some of the quotes about motherhood that are often shared in church that have a way of making many of us feel less valuable or even unworthy.

First of all, in the Relief Society declaration says that we will find "Nobility in Motherhood, and Joy in Womanhood."  I actually silently giggle each time I say that.  There are moment of joy in motherhood, but overall, it's a tough journey. 

"Motherhood is more than bearing children. … It is the essence of who we are as women." -- Sheri Dew
Wait, so does that mean if we don't bear children, then we aren't true women?  No! A resounding no! Motherhood is the essence of it -- a show of it -- but it is not the defining factor.  God created woman in a special way -- with soft hearts and soft bodies, with tenderness and gentleness, and with compassion and love and open arms.  Those are all used in motherhood, but motherhood isn't the only time in life when we use them.
 
“May I say to mothers collectively, in the name of the Lord, you are magnificent. You are doing terrifically well. The very fact that you have been given such a responsibility is everlasting evidence of the trust your Father in Heaven has in you.” -- Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
The thing that I needed to remember here is that this quote was given to encourage the women who are struggling with the tough job of managing little children; it was not given to discourage those without children.  But, if you're like me, all I saw in this was that God didn't trust me enough to give me more responsibility.  Please, remember that God loves you so deeply.  He may already know that you are capable and that is why he is giving you the trial of longing for something so deeply.  Only God knows his purposes in your life.

"During my professional career as a doctor of medicine, I was occasionally asked why I chose to do that difficult work. I responded with my opinion that the highest and noblest work in this life is that of a mother. Since that option was not available to me, I thought that caring for the sick might come close. I tried to care for my patients as compassionately and competently as mother cared for me."  -Russel M. Nelson
What I read in this one is that God doesn't trust me much in the highest and noblest calling in this life.  That seemed a pretty deep wound to inflict.  Motherhood certainly requires a sacrifice higher than any other work in this world.  It also has the power to influence other lives. But it is not a redeeming ordinance.  Parenthood is not a requirement to get to heaven.  Mother Teresa, for example, never bore children, but that did not keep her from doing good in the world.

So, whether you have no children or a few, whether your children have left home and you feel like your good work in the world is over, or even if you never married, please know that God sees you as an incredible woman with good work to do.  He loves me and he loves you.  We are not less in his eyes.  We just have different work to do and different trials to learn.  And that's ok.

Journal Entry -- 5 January 2014

I have had a very difficult time sleeping because Jim [my husband] and I have some huge decisions that we have been considering.

One thing that has been on my mind is the foster care application we've been working on.  Something very interesting happened with it on Thursday.  I was supposed to drop off the application a few days earlier, but it hadn't worked out.  So, I stopped by the office to drop off my application.  As I talked to the social worker, [who I'll call Rebecca], she told me that just a couple of hours earlier she got the information on a little boy that needs a home.

She told me quite a bit about the boy.  His name is [Preston].  He is four or five years old.  He is white with brown hair.  He sounds darling.

Rebecca did warn me, though, that he is a handful.  The doctor said that she thinks Preston is ADHD and is somewhat mentally delayed.  The Doctor did say, though, that she believes Preston can easily catch up with the other children.

He has been living with a foster family that is Hispanic.  They speak Spanish in the home.  He also has three other boys int he home so there is quite a bit of fighting and aggresiveness.  So, most of the concerns that Rebecca had, she attributed mainly to the environment of the home.

As a family, we have started to pray about Preston.  I feel that of all of our decision in our life right now, this is the biggest.  I feel so burdened with this decision on my shoulders.

Journal Entry -- 29 December 2013

***This journal entry was written while we were in the training and application process of being foster parents.

There was a quote from my training for foster care that has stuck with me.  The teacher had said, "If you can't accept their past, you are going to have a difficult time accepting the child."  This has really hit my heart deeply.  This has meant to me that I will have to forgive somebody that I have never met for horrendous things done to a child.  That seems impossible.  But, I've realized that I can do it with the help of the Lord, and with a lot of love for the child.

My biggest fear through all of this is that I will become cynical.  The teacher of the classes I went to was horribly cynical, and it was difficult.  I don't want to be that way.  I am grateful that I have switched to a Foster Family Agency with a social worker who is a positive and kind and fun woman.  I truly believe that it is the right thing.  I truly hope I can do some good in this world.

I have noticed, also, that with the learning and experience of being a foster parent has helped me greatly to be a better parent.  I am absolutely grateful for that.  I hope that it continues to help me know how to be a better parent for my children and for foster children that come into our home.

Preston

The amount of strength that it takes to write about our experience here is sometimes overwhelming.  That is why it is so long between posts.  I've been working on a 12-step program to heal some things in my life, and one of the steps requires making amends and asking forgiveness from those you have wronged.  After working on that step for over a year, I realized that I had not asked nor given forgiveness to myself.  I've spent time the last two weeks working on a letter to myself asking for forgiveness. This post is going to be one of the more painful ones to write. I need forgiveness from myself for this.

Early in our process of foster care, just after I finished the second round of training, we found out about a little boy that I will call "Preston."  We kept him on our mind the whole time.  He was the youngest of five children (if I remember right).  He had been homeless for most of his life with his dad.  The mom had abandoned all of the children and most likely died of a drug overdose.  The state had no idea where she was.  Two of the children were in institutions for mental or physical disabilities.  We were told Preston was on the scale for Autism, but we felt capable of handling that.  We wanted a second son so badly.  In hindsight, we were blinded by our desires.

We met with Preston a few times.  It wasn't perfect, but we felt that we could help him in any way possible.  We felt that part of the reason he had so many struggles was because of the type of home he was living in.  The family who lived in the home ran foster care as a business.  They would take in as many children as possible, the children would spend all day watching tv and playing video games, and the family gathered all of the money.  I hated sending him back to that home each time after we spent time with him. They didn't even speak English in the home hardly.  I don't mind Spanish speakers, except that Preston is an English speaker.  So, he was rarely spoken to, and never spoke to others. In fact, when he did finally get to move to our home (at 5 years old), he had never ridden a bicycle or a scooter. It was heartbreaking watching him play outside.  He didn't know what to do except watch tv and play video games.

Ok, I don't think I can write more tonight. I'll write more soon.

Beginning the process

I've had a very difficult time writing here. Even though it's been a couple of years since this experience, the feelings are raw and painful. Very painful. But, it's time for me to heal. So, I am going to start at the beginning.

I never planned on being foster parents.  My parents had foster children when I was growing up.  Some painful things happened.  But that will be another story for another day.  What I'm saying, though, is that it wasn't my plan.

However, God put some kinks in our plans.  We planned on having a big family, but we found ourselves with three children and a strong inspiration from God that we were done there.  My heart was broken from that.  I don't think I can quite explain the heartache a woman gores through when she cannot have more children.  Only women who have experienced this can know.  What makes it more difficult, though, is that we had two girls and then a boy.  Our little boy asks for a brother almost every single day in one way or another.  It breaks my heart every single time. His pleadings are what drove us to consider foster care.

We began the process of certifying as foster parents. It was a very long process.  First of all, it was so much paperwork.  So much!  Then, there was the training -- 27 hours of training.  I drove to a town 2 hours away every week, multiple times a week for training, and didn't get home until 11 pm at night.  The training was intense, too.  I think the hardest part of the training was the teacher.  She was so negative about foster care after having been a social worker for so long.  I didn't want to become like that.  However, we felt driven to move forward with the process, so I completed the training.

Then, we found out about a local foster family agency and decided to proceed with them.  I had to do the training again.  I completed that and then we began working on the house study.  That was where we hit another snag. We found out that the third bedroom in our home couldn't be used as a bedroom because it didn't have an egress.  Since we only had three bedrooms with three kids and us, it caused some real problems.  To make a very long story short, we ended up spending $14,000 to remodel our home so that we could foster children.  And, that was the beginning of our fostering challenges.

It was a discouraging time.  I wanted so much to have a little boy join our family.  I wanted a brother for my son.  And we kept getting delayed. But, we persevered, and we did eventually get certified as a foster family.  That felt wonderful.  However, our problems didn't end there.  

The Beginnings

I have wanted to write a book on our experiences for a long time. We were foster parents for only about a year, but the emotional and physical toll it took on us was overwhelming.  Even still, more than a year later, I am searching for answers and healing.

However, a book seemed overwhelming.  I wanted to share our experience to help others, and perhaps encourage change, but I realized I needed to do it in small steps. A blog seemed like the perfect way to go. I will be sharing some personal things, and I want to encourage anyone else who has a story to tell to be free to do the same thing -- send me your story if you are willing for it to be posted on the blog and I will do so.   Or, if you just need someone who understands, feel free to write to me, and let me know you want your story kept private.  I will read and reply to each story that comes to me.  I will carefully monitor comments on here and help protect all those who are sharing personal struggles and triumphs.

Let's heal together and help heal the system.