I don’t particularly like children. I’m not the kind of person who comes over to someone’s house and immediately picks up their baby. It’s not in my nature to sit down with a bunch of preschoolers I don’t know and read them books. Little boys who deliberately mimicked me and seemed to take pleasure in irritating me have always gotten on my nerves.
And yet, more than anything in the world, I like being a mom. The mom of my three boys, whom I absolutely adore.
As I write this, I keep wondering whether that is entirely true. Because Josep is riding his bike right now and deliberately braking too late so that he can crash into the gate and pretend he has fallen. Then he moans about how sore he is. The big metal gate keeps banging, which in turn wakes up little David, whom I’m trying to get to sleep in his stroller outside.
So that I can write.
And yet I think I really do like being a mom. Because surely liking it cannot depend on how the children behave. If it did, who would like it?
I often write here about how hard it is. About how everything inside us, mothers, gets touched, stirred up, brought to the surface. And how even we ourselves are surprised by what we discover. I still am, anyway.
But I like being a mom. Of course, it comes most easily when we’re playing together and nobody is screaming or fighting. Or when, before bed, we thank God for the good things that happened to us that day. When I see Joseph reading books by himself. When Francis asks me how I’m feeling and gives me a hug. When David climbs onto me and squeezes me tight.
In the quiet. When everything is in its place.
And yet sometimes I get stuck where joy is hard to find. When chaos takes over the house. When almost everyone is in their own mood, and I’m supposed to be the regulator if I want to remain at least relatively sane myself.
And then I can forget that I like it. That I like being a mom.
Of a screaming Francis, because Joseph has just smacked him on the back after Francis sat on David a moment earlier. Of an offended Joseph, because I let Francis play with something Joseph wanted to play with. Of a David who refuses to be put down, because today is definitely a Mommy Day.
Sometimes, in those moments, I fail to see that their wildness is an expression of freedom. That this is how they are learning about the world, about one another, and about themselves.
And when I finally calm down and look at them from a distance, I feel sad. Sad that for a moment I didn’t like it. That I didn’t like being a mom.
Sometimes I think about what life was like without them. And I can’t see anything.
I dreamed of a home where we would all sit around the table, eat together and talk. Of afternoons spent together on the sofa, reading books. Of trips where we would discover the world together.
I have all of that.
Only much more complicated.
Because there is always someone who doesn’t want to eat something. Every time we lie around on the sofa, there is an argument about who gets to sit where or which book someone is going to take. Every trip comes with a thousand visits to the toilet—or to the bushes—and a whole lot of pee-soaked underwear carried around in ziplock bags.
At least that’s how it is for now, while they’re still little.
“Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.” Psalms 127:3 NLT
I love this verse for its certainty: children are a gift. But when I read the whole psalm, I see something else in it too: our efforts are not what ultimately carries the home. We can do our very best, and still, the outcome remains in His hands. It’s better this way.
Although I hadn’t done it in a very long time, yesterday I ate an entire chocolate bar. Unfortunately for me, it was in the fridge.
That’s sometimes how I regulate a dysregulated home.
I’m not proud of it. I’m just trying to be gracious with myself about it.
Because being a mom is like working three emotional full-time jobs. And sometimes it’s hard to stay present enough to give everyone exactly what they need in that particular moment.
More often, I simply manage to be present.
But I am here.
And more than anything in the world, I like being a mom.
P.S. Tell me—do you like being a mom? And does your “I like it” have some shades of grey too?
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