elizabeth agonized over her decision to return to full-time work in 2010 as a certified financial planner. she feared that her children would not transition well to aftercare, and she was right. seven-year-old A confessed that she “has never felt so lonely in her entire life.” W, age-five, regressed and started wetting his pants at school every day. “we were all grief-stricken,” elizabeth laments.

in her book perfect madness, judith warner describes the silences that fell in her interview groups with mothers because,

“there are things that are sayable and unsayable about motherhood today. it is permissible, for example, to talk a lot about guilt, but not a lot about ambition.” there is an underlying assumption that we “cannot really challenge the american culture of rugged individualism… we lack the most basic notions now of what a different kind of culture might look or feel like” (31-32).

elizabeth broke the silence and confided both her guilt and her ambition to her dear friend angela, a teacher by trade, who was working part-time in addition to the full-time responsibilities of raising her two nine-year-old boys. together, the two hatched a plan that does challenge the american culture of rugged individualism. elizabeth withdrew A and W from aftercare, and angela quit her part-time job to integrate A and W into her family’s weekday life.  

 elizabeth admits that she did not put much stock in the initial chatter about such an arrangement. “how would this mother of two be able to go to three different schools every afternoon, much less herd this group of four children?” she questioned. “i knew i could never do it myself.”

but in december, angela made it clear that she was serious about the idea of caring for A and W. she approached elizabeth with a proposal, and the two talked candidly about fair compensation, day-to-day details, and looming fears. 

“i will always remember sitting in [angela’s] kitchen making this agreement, and the enormous feeling of relief that washed over me,” says elizabeth. “i started to cry; i was so grateful. when angela responded that ‘we are helping each other,’ that really resonated with me. we’ve been helping each other ever since.”

angela describes the process as an easy decision, informed, in part, by her own experience of returning to full-time work when her boys were five years old. “it was tough on them. they would cry and pitch fits whenever they had to go to aftercare. elizabeth’s situation struck a familiar chord,” she explains. “her family was in need, and i was in a position that allowed me to help her. i am very comfortable looking after children!”

on a typical day, angela fetches A from school at 2:45, drives eight to twelve minutes to pick up her boys, S and L from school, and finally makes her way to a third school to pick up W. once her honda accord is packed to the gills, the entourage returns to elizabeth’s house, and the older kids finish their homework. angela uses this time to practice numbers, letters, sounds with W. she even unloads the dishes if they’re clean! all of the children have after-school activities that vary throughout the year. A currently plays soccer soccer on wednesdays and S has basketball on mondays and wednesdays. for a change of scenery, the group gathers at angela’s house on friday afternoons, snow days, holidays, and other vacation days during the school year.

“the kids get along pretty well,” angela muses. “they are like typical brothers and sister. not every day is perfect, but it’s always an adventure! A and L play very well together. W really looks up to S, and S takes being a big-brother-type seriously. he is always talking about W, and he even taught him how to shoot a basketball and jump rope.”

both angela and elizabeth credit the the success  of their arrangement to continued flexibility and open conversation. they have tweaked the details of their partnership as needed. angela recommends this kind of innovation only in cases where “both moms communicate openly and go with the flow. nothing is ever the same twice with this many kids in the mix. everyone is growing and evolving, and i think it’s important to keep this in mind.”

both moms describe the entire collaboration as a MakeShift moment. from impromptu rainy day walks that combat cabin fever, to the occasional depositing of children at elizabeth’s office, the little crew of six is making it all up as they go. 

on collaberative mothering, perhaps elizabeth says it best:

whenever i watch a show on lions or elephants or primates, i get sad.  i see how other creatures nurture their young together. other creatures have not forgotten that it takes a village, a pride, a pod or a pack, to raise young. yet in our “modern” society, we have alienated mothers from each other, and mothering has become quite an isolating experience. having this relationship with angela makes me feel like we, as mothers, are helping each other, the way god intended.  it is such a blessing to me.

my post today is an essay i wrote for a fabulous blog project called “a liberated life.” vanessa and sarah solicit and post essays wherein women of every age and stage chronicle their joys and concerns along the path toward liberation.

here’s an excerpt, but you’ll have to scurry over to “a liberated life” to read the rest:

Liberation, as it turns out, is not as simple as a dream job or a grad school diploma, or a positive pregnancy test, or a happy home. In fact, I cannot even begin to envision what a liberated life might look like for today’s mothers, whose souls brim with enough passion and opportunity to fill a warehouse full of moon bounces and inflatable slides. There is an anxiety that comes with motherhood that has far outgrown the widespread dreams for balance and the tired juggling metaphors. Scientists study it, and talk show hosts allude to it, but this anxiety, for the most part, remains undefined.

how would YOU define a liberated life?

one of the best parts of facilitating this little makeshift blog is that readers regularly send me recent and provocative articles about the state of modern motherhood. thank you, and keep ’em coming!

the last two articles i received are friction-inciting commentaries on the cultural construction of motherhood. one deliniates the high child nurturing standards held by american women. the other investigates the high career-related standards held by this same set. taken together, these articles reveal a veritable fog of ridiculous expectations obscuring nearly every aspect of women’s lives.

the first is a wall street journal article by erica jong describing the attachment parenting craze as a sort of self-inflicted prison for mothers, who, despite their best kid-wearing, cloth-diapering, baby-food-making efforts are never able to meet the socially accepted standard for mothering, which was created in large part by dr. sears. but no matter what one’s thoughts are regarding attachment parenting, it’s hard to disagree with jong’s lament: “rarely does a new mother hear these golden words: “do the best you can; there are no rules.”

the second article is jessica olien’s slate magazine exploration into the culture of motherhood in the netherlands, where part-time work, outings with friends, and self-care are celebrated ways for moms to spend time. as opposed to the guilt felt by american mothers who remove themselves from the full-time workforce, dutch women do not seem to link their self-esteems to their workforce prowess. the conclusion is that the drive that american women have assumed in order to further women’s progress has “set us up for a world in which none of us is having any fun.”

olien writes,

“…american women as a whole are not getting any happier. if anything, the studies show that we are emotionally less well-off than we were before.”

high standards have the potential to launch us into more meaningful, productive, and useful lives. but perhaps something has gotten lost in translation between our feminist fore mothers, who constructed domestic co-ops and deconstructed glass ceilings, and those modern women who have inherited big tasks that have somehow become detached from the big dreams that birthed them. what was once a grand vision of equality seems now to feel more like a universal clamoring for perfection in every arena. the guilt that ensues squelches the kind of big dreaming that women once had for the state of the world. and so, in the words of jong, we reduce our visions to the scope of our homes and families. “[we] substitute our own small world for the world as a whole.”  

standards ought to be the bi-product of dreams, the way they came into this world in the first place. so perhaps the key to generating a world that is fairer (and for heaven’s sake, MORE FUN) is to leave our faithful posts as the keepers of the rules and ideals. if we join the ranks of the dreamers, perhaps the standards we generate will make more sense in our contexts. perhaps standards will not imprison us but free us. but the only way to get there is to start where the women before us started: with a vision of a better life.

first grade, for me, was when the curriculum ceased to be play-based. the active life of preschool and kindergarten, with all of its hiding and seeking and cooking and dancing, became fodder for my daydreams as i plugged away at my little wooden first grade desk at what was unabashedly called “seatwork.” i resisted this stationary kind of learning so much that i almost failed the first grade, but in the face of at least eleven more years of school, i learned to expand my knowledge within the confines of the system. unknowingly, i separated the parts of me that were once beautifully integrated in childhood: mental and physical exercise. there were spelling tests and there was recess. there was long division, and there was sports practice. there was contemporary theology and there was jogging. as i was being created into a contributing member of society, there was evening, and there was morning for approximately 4,140 days.

as i was riding my bicycle on the greenline yesterday with the bird in tow, i lapsed into the guilty reflection that is common to upper middle class mothers. i calculated how many days i have spent formally acquiring knowledge in educational settings, and i came up with the above number. then i commenced to worry that “my brain is turning to mush.” i thought of my diplomas that are not framed in an office but are still tucked away in their little black folders between photo albums of my kids’ first years and behind a colorful butcher paper masterpiece that the monkey created at school. i thought of the staggering amount of guilt that is experienced as women like me, who have spent the majority of our lives doing “seatwork,” are plunged into the unfamiliar world of mothering, where equations and essays are irrelevant. i started plotting my next vocational move once the kids are in school, work that would justify my masters degree and present a reason to frame those diplomas. and then i remembered another stark contrast between life in educational systems and life as a mostly stay-at-home-mom: the former is future-oriented by design. the latter can only be fully embraced by living in the present.

i went on like this for an hour — enough time for the bird and me to ride to shelby farms and back into town. i reflected on the way that my life now involves so much physical activity — schlepping kids, groceries, and laundry, pushing the steam mop, averting disasters, rushing to disentangle the climbing bird from all manor of hanging garage tools. the seatwork smarty pants in me unleashed more judgement. “what a waste,” she said.

and then, miraculously, i remembered who i was in the first place, before the confines of first grade hit, before i spent 4,140 days compartmentalizing mental and physical excercise. i am someone who loves a play-based curriculum and an integrated life. and that is precisely what i’ve got right now.

so as the bird and i finished up our bike ride and went on to schlepp the week’s groceries, i laid the guilt to rest. perhaps mothering young children is a chance to return to a more natural state of being, a time to collect all of the scattered parts of me and put them back together.

i am not a science person, and i never took physics. perhaps this is why i have managed to reach the age of 34 without fully grasping the simple concept that i cannot be two places at once. but andy’s three-day out-of-town conference last week was just the crash course i needed to fulfill my “knowing one’s limitations” requirement.

lesson one occured at memphis botanic gardens’ big back yard, where i encountered another mom, who was expertly holding her ten-week-old while her three-year-old was tentatively exploring.  

i, on the other hand, darted frantically from one child-in-constant-motion to the other. the bird fell, the monkey was hogging the slide, the bird nibbled on someone else’s lunch, the monkey needed help finding the mallets for the “house of rock,” the bird was dangerously close to the creek, the monkey…

wait! where was the monkey? hiding in the worm hole. cool.

only this wasn’t so cool with the aforementioned mother, because while my attention was on the monkey, the bird was playing with the enticing gadgets on her ten-week-old’s empty stroller.

 

i scooped up the bird in a flurry of apologies. she said nothing but went to work on the stroller with wet wipes.

the big back yard is just that — big. but no matter how far we strayed from the perturbed mother and her statuesque children, the bird always managed to find his way back to her alluring collection of stroller toys. when she started scolding the bird and yanking him away from the empty stroller, i knew it was time to go. i also knew that in about a year, when her baby is walking, this mother would be joining me in the impossible attempt to be in two places at once.

lesson two occurred at the end of my solo-parenting duty, just as i was congratulating myself for maintaining patience, relative calm, and a sense of adventure while andy was away. the phone rang, and a kind and gentle church parishioner on the other end of the line expressed legitimate disappointment that i had not visited his family during a very critical time they had experienced in the previous few days, the same few days i spent playing the roles of mom, dad, and cruise director for my kids.

i was, and still am, riddled with guilt.

i’m also frustrated that in many cases for me, quality ministry and quality parenting are mutually exclusive. but no matter how hard i try, i cannot be in two places at once. sometimes being fully present to one child means being only marginally present to the other. sometimes providing stability during a critical time for my children means not providing empathy during a critical time for parishioners.

this is the reality of my life right now, one that i am having a hard time embracing. even i were a science person, i cannot change the laws of physics.

if there is one word that has been used throughout the centuries to describe the complex and ever-evolving vocation of motherhood, it is SACRIFICE. there is the physical sacrifice of the body’s shape, the luxury of sleep, and necessary attention to hygiene and self-care. there is the mental shift from adult conversation to peek-a-boo antics and from reading the new york times to highlights magazine. there are the social cutbacks that result when gatherings are carefully planned around nap times and sitters’ schedules, and sleep becomes more enticing than a night on the town. and of course, there are the more existential sacrifices — the sad farewells to those parts of a mother’s identity she once held so dear. we are left uttering phrases such as, “before i had kids, i was on track to become a partner in the firm,” or “before i had kids, i used to love to paint.” even those of us whose lives are a far cry from “father knows best” have given up quite a bit to become mothers.

instead of examining motherhood’s association with sacrifice, our society (with the help of religion) has idealized unconditional self-sacrificial love. but there seems to be a growing number of modern mothers who are grappling with the ideals of heroism and self-diminishment and looking for something more. futhermore, it isn’t even really accurate to describe the whole of motherood as sacrifice. in an article entitled, “parenting: mutual love and sacrifice,” author christine gudorf writes about parenting her two adopted children with medical handicaps. she asserts,

“the most revealing lesson the children taught us is that love can never be disinterested…. every achievement of the child is both a source of pride and a freeing of the parent from responsibility for the child…. all love both involves sacrifice and aims at mutuality.”

in other words, sacrifice is only part of a larger progression toward mutuality.

in her book entitled also a mother, bonnie j. miller-mclemore writes,

“even  in the earliest moments of nurture the nurturer receives something in return, and hopes to continue to do so. the ideal [of unconditional self-sacrifice] harms persons, particularly women, who already are over programmed to give endlessly, leaving them ashamed of the self-interest that naturally accompanies their love…. parents, and mothers in particular, do better to admit, and even affirm, their limits and the hopes and needs they harbor, both in relationship to their children and in regard to their own work” (164).

though motherhood and sacrifice will forever be intertwined, there is more to the story. there are endless gifts, from the first “i love you” to the great privilege of seeing the world anew through the eyes of our children. on my quest to find the middle ground between june cleaver and superwoman, i’ve found many compelling truths but the chief of them is this:

we are not to give everything up, nor are we to try to have it all. and somewhere in between these extremes, amidst all the moments of depravity and richness, there is mutuality, a mutuality that has the potential to increase as we journey further down the road of motherhood.

[sources for this post are located on the bibliography page found in the sidebar to your right.]

“what made you decide to become a minister?”

i have been on the receiving end of this question for over ten years now, and i have spouted off my answer the way a runner trots down a well-worn path, pointing out landmarks (female minister role models, a life-long fascination with mystery) as i (r)amble on. but every once in a while, a wise questioner will cut me off and say,

“no, really. what do YOU get out of having the title of minister, wearing the robe, the instant intimacy, et cetera. what is it about you that needs that?”

divinity school afforded me the kind of introspection required to honestly answer this question. i became more and more comfortable owning not only my purest and most altruistic reasons for entering the ministry, but also my need to be needed, the relief i found in the robe’s instant validation, and the sense of inclusion i felt when others let me in to their deepest experiences of joy and despair. the key, i learned back then, was to own these things and keep them in check. dishonesty about my own fulfillment would result in harm to others.

nobody ever asks me anymore why i went into the ministry. perhaps this is because i have made choices that translate into a vocational hybrid of writing and working floor puzzles, leading study groups and changing diapers, performing the occasional religious ritual and the kids’ nightly bedtime rituals. but the irony is that now that so little of my time is spent wearing a robe, being needed by other adults, and treading lightly on the sacred ground of others’ intimate affairs, some of my more base reasons for entering the ministry are more obvious to me than they ever have been before.

reorienting myself to the very different kind of validation and intimacy that comes with motherhood is a continuous challenge for me. sometimes i feel as if there is a vacuum (or perhaps a shark steam mop) where my healthy ego used to be, and a tinge a loneliness that was formerly squelched by the stream of college students making their way to my college chaplaincy office.

but i am still grateful for the two wise questioners in my life, the little boys who don’t care at all about my female minister role models or my fascination with mystery. they don’t care whether i’m wearing clergy garments or even undergarments. they love me just the same.

the key now is for me to learn to follow their lead.

a few weeks ago, my friend maryann reminded me of this wonderful quotation about motherhood and ministry, found in the equally wonderful book listening for god by renita weems. i think it can be easily stretched to speak to all mothers who are modifying and trying to integrate their visions of vocation and motherhood. i forgot to breathe while i was reading these words: 

“i will never be the writer i would have been had i not become a mother. nor will i be the minister or professor i could have been if i hadn’t had to suffer the interruptions of a sulking child or the vibes of a brooding husband transmitted under the door of my study. i give up writing the book i might have written or the sermon i might have preached every time i wander out of my study and follow the smell of popcorn wafting in the air, follow it in to the family room, where the rest of the family is watching the lion king for the forty-second time. i’ll never be able to recapture the fine sentences swirling in my head, or the fresh revelations that were about to lay hold of me. but for the joy of getting down on the cold hardwood floor and singing, “hakuna matata,” i’ll settle for bits and pieces of revelation god sends my way, and see what, if anything, i can make of them when i can. because today is today, and that’s all i have.”

and now, in light of a restless night with the bird and the inevitable morning-after fog that now surrounds me, i’m going to “wander out of my study,” as renita writes. happy thursday!

and p.s. renita still managed to be a wonderful professor. i was lucky enough to have her for hebrew bible at vanderbilt.

[the source for this post can be found on the bibliography page located in the sidebar to your right.]

a mailman nearing retirement laments that he will miss reading the series anonymous love letters that have made their way to his “dead letter file” over the years.

a frazzled therapist leaves her abusive husband to start a new small town life.

an infamous, preppy, womanizing, frat boy-bigot-turned-radio-personality goes missing, and nobody seems to mind.

a beloved former school teacher with a mysterious past opens up an unconventional smoking cessation clinic.

these are a few of the eccentric characters in jill mccorkle‘s carolina moon, a 1996 national bestseller that made its perfectly-timed entrance into my world just a few weeks ago.

 

i enjoyed the book, which is no surprise given that mccorkle considers lee smith to be her mentor and harper lee’s to kill a mockingbird to be the supreme example of literary genius. but the real gift to me was the interview with the author included in the back of the book. about the structure of carolina moon, an interwoven collection of narratives and letters voiced and penned by a handful of bizarre characters, the interviewer asks,

 

“the structure of this novel is perhaps its most striking aspect; reviewers seem to either applaud its ingenuity or criticize it as confusing. if you could do it over again, would you have changed the way you handled the plot structure?”

 

to this question, mccorkle replies,

 

“no. it really is the novel I wanted to write. if I had had the luxury of an everyday writing schedule it might have turned out differently, but this novel was written during a very busy time and there was no way for me to shape the story as if it was one big lump of clay. i was making tiny little pictures and hoping that eventually they would all connect.”

 

 

 

as someone who writes sermons during a “very busy time,” and as someone who dreams of publishing a book someday, i was simultaneously inspired by mccorkle’s answer and curious as to what she was doing in the years preceding the 1996 publication. could she have perhaps been the mother of small children?

 

i found my answer on the writers write internet writing journal, where in a 2000 interview mccorkle explained,

 

“before my children were born, i had the luxury of–if not a daily schedule–at least a more structured schedule. now i just write whenever i can get the time. i’m constantly taking notes and writing smidgets of things, because, in desperation, that’s the only way i can get there.”

 

well jill, (can I call you jill?), thank you for this bit of honesty. clearly you “got there,” and so then just maybe i can get there too.

 

maybe we can all get there, whether we have writing aspirations or not. after all, aren’t we all, as mothers, simply making tiny little pictures and hoping that eventually they will all connect?

 

[for publication information about carolina moon, see the bibliography page located on the sidebar to your right.] 

there are many common narratives in the collective story bank of motherhood, each with its own familiar plot and phrases. who hasn’t told or heard a “stuck child” story, complete with words such as

“…and then i realized that [fill in name of small child] had accidentally locked himself/herself in the bathroom.”?

and now, in an age when  modern mothers are increasingly appreciated and accomplished in the workplace, the “vocational turning point” story is becoming a collective throng. it often goes something like this:

“that day, when [insert chaotic clash of work and home life] happened, i knew i needed to change the way i was working.”

as it happens, these two prototypes converged for me last friday night. the bird was singing his own familiar tearful chorus as i showered and got ready to be the liturgist at the final montreat women’s connection worship service. after learning that it is virtually impossible to simultaneously hold a child and don a dress, i allowed him to use my leg as a teething biscuit as i hurriedly applied my makeup.

just as i was feeling smug about the fact that i would have a whole fifteen minutes to go over my part in the service after i dropped the kids off at my mom’s house, the monkey declared that he needed to tee tee. he did his business, and then, so as not to be outdone by his brother, he instantly deteriorated into a fitful rage that reportedly rendered him completely incapable of pulling up his own pants. i calmly closed the bathroom door and told them that he was welcome to come out once his pants were no longer around his ankles.

in his tornadic attempt to liberate himself from captivity, the monkey accidentally turned the tarnished brass lever above the knob on the old mountain house bathroom door. he was locked inside, and getting more panicky by the second.

my friends and temporary roommates calmed the (now hysterical) bird and hovered outside the locked bathroom door with these  necessary tools:

• a knife
• a spatula
• a phillips head screwdriver

meanwhile, i finished buttoning my dress as i walked outside and scaled a bear-proof garbage bin to get a look inside of the window. a neighbor strolled by and inquired as to why i was five feet above the ground, wearing a towel on my head, leaning at a 45 degree angle, peering into a window, and scaling the house’s exterior wall. he reported that in all of his 30 years of living across the street, he has never seen a person exhibit such behavior.

five minutes later, the monkey, who is apparently remarkably stellar at following my directions (when he feels like it), unlocked the door and waltzed out of the bathroom *with* his pants pulled up. i hopped down from my perch, shuttled the kids to my mom’s house, proceeded to the service, did my part without any major incedents, and moved on.

except that i haven’t really moved on. though i am new at telling the “stuck child” story, there are a zillion other stories that coincide with my attempts to maintain my identity as a person who works, albeit part-time, outside of the home. i’ll spare you the details of the “calling poison control” story, the “writing on the walls” story, and the “submerging daddy’s shoes in the bathtub” story. just know that all three of these plots unfolded while i was trying to fulfill obligations pertaining to my job as a minister.

i don’t know what sorts of shifts i will make in the way i structure my work life, but there will be some. and to the neighbor, who marveled at the site of a young mother living out the particulars of her own “stuck child” story, i have this to say:

if you look closely, you will find that mothers all around you are desperately trying to climb “the wall”. they can be heard pumping during conference calls. they can be found supervising third grade math homework while working on their own coursework. many are simply trying to shower for work in relative peace. women’s roles have changed during the last 30 years, but “the wall” is still there. when old challenges crumble away, they are quickly replaced by new ones.

i might be the first person you have seen shouting instructions to a three-year-old from a lofty perch. but i am by no means the first woman to employ flexibility, strength, and a sense of humor while creatively solving a problem and wearing a cute dress!