Mother – all our lemmony things

Her name is Jasmine.

Actually I think her name is something else but she told me she likes to change her name every day for fun. I guess yesterday was a “Jasmine” kind of day.

She loves the color purple. She wants to be a soccer star when she grows up.

She smiles all the time and pretends she’s a princess. And yet–life is hard for her.

Throughout the day I learned that Jasmine’s sister died, her mother can hardly take care of her, and she’s never met her dad. So she comes here after school to play, get help with math homework, and have something to eat.

I wasn’t sure what to expect yesterday when I went with my company to do volunteer work at a group home. But I certainly didn’t expect to meet Jasmine–or any of the other twenty-something kids who seemed to just blow in with the wind.

These kids come every day after school since they have nowhere else to go. They’re wandering souls not yet immune to the poison of a hard world. My heart couldn’t help but break as I scanned the room that day. A group of teenage boys sat alone at a table playing a card game and erupted into laughter and playful jests as soon as someone won. A toddler sat on someone’s lap, his shirt soaked with apple juice. A group of young girls with braided hair and pink shoes formed a circle in a far corner, talking with their hands. So many kids. So many struggles. So little moms.

And then, of course, Jasmine broke my train of thought.

“Do you have kids?” she asked me. I shook my head no.

“Well, you can be MY mom now!” she exclaimed during snack time.

And the words struck me.

Maybe it struck me because I’m not yet a mom–and because of medical reasons, it’ll be awhile before I am. Maybe it struck me because motherhood always went hand in hand in my mind with pregnancy, painting a new nursery, or driving a car strapped down with car seats. It never really struck me before that moment that I can still be a mom. So can you.

$help with math$

It really is the most sacred calling.

I have a world against me on that opinion– I realize this. You might be too.

Bloggers, columnists, extreme feminists and modern-day thinkers join in a fight against motherhood. Motherhood is restricting, they’ll say. Motherhood is a 1950’s approach to oppressing women. Motherhood, some say, is for those women who don’t have any other ambitions in life or for those who wind up chained down. And with this line of thinking we slowly forget what being a mom even is. We forget that it’s all about reaching out to someone who needs it. It’s about selflessness. Mentorship. Nurturing. Compassion. God’s work.

I think back now to not only my amazing Mom, but the countless other women along the way who loved me, taught me, sacrificed for me, and wound up on their knees for me. They were women who had no children of their own, women who had quite a few mouths to feed at home, women who were young, women who were so old that I only remember them in my early childhood memories. They were women who taught me patience or music or writing well or faith in God. Women who stayed after school to help me with long division. They were strong, selfless, beautiful women consistently taking on the role of mother. Those are the women I remember.

We aren’t called to live a life dedicated to ourselves. It’s never the reason we came. And I’m tired of living in a world where selflessness is equated with weakness.

Elder Holland once said in an address, “The work of a mother is hard, too often unheralded work. Please know that it is worth it then, now, and forever.”

It’s always been worth it.

Eve understood this when she stepped out of Eden just so we could be born. Sarai understood this when Abraham told her their generations would be as numerous as the stars and she thanked God for it. Mary understood it when she rearranged her entire life and lost friends and a good reputation all to make way for the Savior. Jesus himself understood the value of motherhood when some of the last words he spoke were to John, asking him to take care of his mother. From the beginning of time we’ve been reminded of our responsibility to God’s children and the eternal principle of it. Why have we forgotten?

Be the woman that changes everything for someone. Jasmine’s simple, childlike plea reminded me of the urgency of it all.

Whether you have six children or no children, whether you grew up in a home with a mother who loved you or a home without one present–be someone’s rescue, if only for a period of time in their lives.

Be someone’s mom.

Oh, and I promise you–it’s not old fashioned to change the world.

It happened this weekend.

Someone asked me some of the questions that I hate more than anything in the world. Even more than sushi and awkward first dates–*and that’s a lot, by the way*.

“So…you’re a writer, but not a reporter? Didn’t you go to school for broadcasting?”

“Have you published all those novels you write yet?”

“Is there a reason you write on a blog? Does it further your career?”

“Are you working toward a promotion?”

Yeah. It happened. Wham, bam, all at once. And I bet you a dollar (because that’s all I’m willing to bet at this stage in my life) that you’ve had the same thing happen to you in some way or another and it made you feel like a deadbeat slob. At least it did for me.

(I thought me eating an entire tub of ice-cream was fitting for my whole deadbeat comment)

Now, let me paint a picture of where this happened. A whole bunch of us–family and some friends–were gathered at my parent’s house this weekend and some of us hadn’t seen one another in a while. And if we had, we hadn’t had the time in a while to sit down and go over the many events of our lives. So this was the perfect setting to talk about everything. There was plenty of time. Yay..

More often than not it’s no problem talking about my life and I’m excited to tell people about what I’m doing. I’m excited about the awesome place I work and who I’m married to and my little apartment with a blue wall and two bunny cages. Life, to me, is an adventure every single day and exactly what I want. But every now and then someone (usually with very good intentions) stumbles across my path and reminds me that there are a million things I STILL haven’t done. A million things I thought I would have done by now, too. And it’s easy to slip into the “Wow, I’m 23 and really haven’t checked off those goals that I wrote down when I was 12.”

The good-intentioned person who asked all those questions and twisted their face in an odd, “Oh, okay. That’s nice” kind of an expression probably didn’t know that he/she stirred up all of these insecurities in me, and I’m sure they’ve already forgotten about the exchange. I mean, my insecurities are my fault and no one else’s. But this made me think of everyone else in my age group who might be battling the same kind of thing. Every generation has bigger obligations on their shoulders. Their parents want them to do better, just like their parents wanted THEM to do better. And on one hand, it’s a good thing to have goals and expectations and shoot high. But on the other hand, if we focus so much on what we haven’t done yet, we forget that it’s all about the process, and it turns destructive.

And even more than that, we can forget that our happiness in life shouldn’t be valued on how much of our checklist we’ve checked off.

“Are you going to get your master’s?”

“Are you married yet? Well, do you want to be?”

“When are you going to buy a house instead of rent an apartment?”

“Do you have health insurance yet?”

“Are you using what you went to school for at your job?”

Questions. Questions. Questions. And sometimes, they fill our heads because of our own voices and not even the voices of others. Some people think that my generation is one to feel special, entitled, and self-righteous. That can be true with some people. But I also think there’s a side of my generation that feels hard-pressed to meet a status quo and to compete to be known and recognized and to contribute in some amazing, never-before-heard-of way–because that’s who we’re SUPPOSED to be for the world, right?

I look on my social media feeds and I see people in my generation who are all over the map. Some are holding newborns in their profile pictures and some are holding trophies. Some are starting companies and others are unemployed and looking to get back into school. Some are buying wedding dresses and others are designing them. I don’t know what kind of questions all these people face. I don’t know what kind of questions they may even ask themselves. But they usually spell out success to me. Most of them are doing what makes them happy or what will lead them to happiness eventually.

So what if that new stay-at-home mom on my Facebook page once told me in high school that she’d be a pediatrician by 25? Maybe her dreams changed.

So what if that kid who wanted to be an engineer decided that he’s happiest when he paints? He might get a lower salary, but his spirits are higher, I can bet on it.

You see, Twenty-something, you and I have a journey that’s all our own. And we’re not called to fit a mold that other people–or even our younger selves–created. We’re supposed to gain success that ultimately brings happiness, even if that means our dreams change or the dreams we’re still pursuing are a little bit slower in the making. Life is meant to be lived one day at a time and goals are to be achieved one step at a time.

Yeah, I’m a writer and not a TV reporter right now. I happen to love my job and besides, I have to write because writing is like breathing to me.

Yeah, I blog. And it helps me more than anyone probably.

No, I don’t have kids. But I’m an aunt–to 22 little kids. And it’s the best thing in the world.

Yeah, my health insurance sucks. And so does 95% of the country’s right now.

Yeah, I’m in a one-bedroom apartment and none of my novels have been published. Yet. But I still write novels. Every gosh darn day.

I’m successful because I’m happy.

So, to the Twenty-Something who’s reading this–are you not exactly where you thought you’d be by now? Well, good. That means that this whole journey thing is working for both of us just like it should.

Move forward. Find joy on the path, not just at the path’s end. And you’ll always be exactly where you should be.

I’d bet my “twenty-something” salary on that one.

Tag: Mother

To the 20-something: Not where you thought you’d be in life? Perfect.