To the mothers who have brought children into their homes, hands and hearts.

To the mothers who nurture children at work, in school, at church and in the community, but perhaps not at home.

To anyone who has ever endured a tantrum, enforced the rules, set limits, been hated for doing the right thing, been reasonable, danced on a whim, learned to see the world with wonder again, rediscovered all there is to love about something, found innocence again—in short, loved a child.

And most especially to my own mother, who has raised four pretty fantastic daughters, and my grandmothers, who each raised four fairly awesome children.

Happy Mother’s Day

Photo by Chris Enns

Motherhood is a peculiar journey. We never know what our children will be like, what their future holds, nor how it will change our path in life.

I certainly never expected to have a child with mental disabilities. The last nine years have been filled with experiences I would never imagined could be a part of motherhood. But along with the frustrations and stress, there were many joyful moments of success and pride. There are a few lessons I’ve learned during this crazy journey called motherhood.

Love Yourself

The most important criteria of being a good mom is loving yourself. We give so much of our time and energy to our children that it’s easy to get burned out. Don’t be afraid to take time for a girls night out, a long soak in a hot, bubbly bath, or just some quiet time in your car with a drink and book. Whatever relaxes you or makes you happy, find a way to squeeze it in. I’ve had to pick and choose which hobbies or talents to make time for over the years.

For many years, I went once a month to a weekend scrapbooking event. Then my focus changed to writing, so I figured out some time during the week that I could take a few hours to go to a bookstore and write without munchkins pulling on me. If you take the time to decompress from the everyday routine of being a mama, then you will be a much happier person, mother, and wife.

Cross Perfection Off Your List

I used to get so discouraged after visiting a friends whose homes were always spotless. I felt like such a failure that I couldn’t keep up with all my mommy duties and housework like these other women I looked up to. But then, my Relief Society president gave a lesson one Sunday and told us that we needed to cross perfection off our lists. Our Savior Jesus Christ is the only perfect being who ever lived on Earth. While we need to strive to keep the commandments and be good Christian women, having a spotless house, perfect highlights & nails, or the kids with the best grades are not things are not requirements to get into Heaven.

It’s perfectly fine to have mountains of laundry to wade through, toys strewn across your house, and be in desperate need of a haircut. In fact, its absolutely normal! In the last four years, I’ve rearranged my housework. Every Saturday, our family works together to clean the house. Everything gets picked up, vacuumed, and scrubbed. Then during the week, I try to do one or two loads of laundry each day—taking the weekends off. My laundry baskets are never empty and the weekend is the only time my house isn’t cluttered with toys, but I have so much less stress because I’ve accepted that our house isn’t perfect. It’s lived in and the family living there is happy and loved.

Laugh Often

Be quick to laugh, rather than get upset. This is actually difficult for me and I am constantly working on it. But our family is definitely happier when mom’s not a crank. Looking back at some of the most stressful mommy moments, I can see that when my hubby cracked jokes and made me laugh, I relaxed enough to think things through better. And my shoulders weren’t constantly tied up with tension knots. Shared laughter is something the whole family will remember forever.

One of my favorite quotes is “Live, Laugh, Love.”

Remember to live your life rather than be focused on perfection, share laughter with your family, and love yourself so you can give the best of yourself to your family.

About the Author
Danyelle Ferguson is the mother of four angels-in-training and the author of (dis)Abilities and the Gospel. You can find out more about her on her website: www.DanyelleFerguson.com or on her blog: www.QueenOfTheClan.com.

Photo of girl hugging herself by Evan Long

Heavenly Father has been trying to teach me a lesson for at least the past eighteen months.

So often I get bogged down in the coulda-woulda-shouldas. I agonize in my evening prayers and while trying to fall asleep over the ways I failed during the day. I fear where life is headed for my children because of my failures.

I wish I could say that at least the fear drives me to improve and be a better mother.

But it doesn’t. Fear is not a truly motivating force and it never will be.

It ends up being nothing more than a despair and distraction. A tool I polish nicely and hand over to that Satan jerk to use against me, and thus my family.

God has been reminding me, in his ever patient grace and mercy, that that is not what he wants for me. That he isn’t condemning me. That he sees progress and I just need to keep moving forward.

In essence, this is a massive battle between faith and fear. And I think that is a battle that many mothers face. But we don’t have to lose!

I’ve received some positive feedback this last week that I sorely needed as I was beginning to focus on all the poor behaviors of my sons and so my competence as a mother; giving in again to that fear.

A visiting teacher and sister-in-law, on back to back days, remarked that my boys are great at listening to me. I had been so focused on the times they don’t listen that I was completely missing all the times that they did.

The very next day my oldest son received a card in the mail from the teacher who led a two year study he just completed being a part of. It was so sweet. Her card made it clear that despite the many students she had, she still knew my son and loved him. She remarked on his eager attitude to learn, his enthusiasm, his politeness; it wasn’t even written to me, yet it really lifted me and once again reset my perspective.

I am so grateful for the reminders that Heavenly Father sends to me through other people to change my perspective from one of fear to one of faith; to really look at my sons.

Yes my boys ignore me sometimes, yes they can be mean to each other and to me, and yes we have improvements to make. But when I stop focusing on those things and really look at my children I see such purity, promise, and innocence.

And while much of who they are was there before they came to me, it is evident that my nurturing and influence as a mother have taken some effect. Some I’m embarrassed to own, but many things that I can be proud of:

They say “thank you,” regularly. They will say, “I love you,” and “I’m sorry,” without being told. They help each other. They cry at bedtime if we haven’t read scriptures or said prayers or brushed teeth. They repeat to strangers the things that I’ve taught them when I wasn’t sure they were listening.

My sons have strong, good hearts. They have what seems to be an infinite capacity for love and forgiveness. They are good, amazing boys.

I need not fear to be their mother. We can get through this together.

This scripture helps me: “God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7).

This is the lesson that God is teaching me. On an intellectual level, I think I got it. But how to learn it on a deeper, spiritual level so that it becomes part of my life and I can eliminate that fear…How have you done it? How do you keep your faith that you are a capable, trusted mother strong against the fear that you can’t do it? What keeps your faith strong between the reminders and positive feedback?

About the author
Lindsey is a twenty-something year old mother of three awesome boys, married to their incredible father. As a happily married, young, Christian, stay at home mom, she’s proud to be among a very rare, very small group of women. Read her musings from that minority, or participate in There was a moment….

Photo by JJ

I tend to struggle to learn life lessons. I generally only really appreciate them in hindsight, which seems slightly unfair. They would have been really helpful to know in the middle of my life’s experiences! Lessons in motherhood are no different. I am finally able to apply many of the things I have learned as a mother with my third child. It sure would have been great to know that it was not that big of a deal and not to freak out when my newborn wouldn’t nurse for 5-6 hours. Or to have known that my insomnia, crying spells, and lethargy could possibly have been something a little more than “baby blues.” Now that I am a veteran mother (hey, I’m on newborn number three, that should give me a little street cred!) I have a tin bit more wisdom under my belt.

Oddly enough I had a motherhood epiphany while cleaning toilets last week. I was thinking about all the things I wish I would have appreciated while I was in the middle of them, and I suddenly realized that someday this exact toilet scrubbing, diaper changing, baby cuddling, Dr. Seuss reading stage will be one of the times that I will look back upon and wish I had appreciated. Ten years from now I may be going back to school or working or possibly both, and I’ll sigh wistfully and think, “Man, remember back when all I had to do was be a mom? Those were the days.” And I will be right. These are the days!

I am a doer by nature, so being a stay at home mom has been a struggle from the beginning. Now that my brood is growing I stay a little more traditionally busy, but really my days don’t usually consist of much that the world would define as productive. I used to really struggle with that because I felt like I wasn’t really doing anything. I have come to realize over the last five years that I am mothering! It’s my job, and whether or not it is acknowledged by the world in general, it means the world to my family. And to me.

I am lucky to have this season in my life to just be a mom. I am still a doer; motherhood hasn’t changed that, but now I count things like finger painting, baking with my children, going to museums, aquariums, parks, and libraries, doing laundry and dishes, and reading picture books as productive. They are producing the most important thing . . . my children. Although I will still probably look back on these years and think “Man, remember when all I had to do was be a mom?” I like to think that realizing it now will help me enjoy just being a mom!

About the author
Shannon Bowles is a Mommy, Cook, Housekeeper, Accountant and Activities Director. She and her husband have two sons and a daughter. Shannon blogs about their busy, joyful life at Bowling for Cute.

Photo by Richard Summers

When Jordan asked me to write a guest post on her blog for Mother’s Day, I almost turned her down. Who am I to write on something that used to cause me so much pain? You see, I’ve never been able to conceive a child of my own and for several years Mother’s Day had been a difficult holiday to get through.

I lost count of how many times I heard other parents complain about their kids and I longed for their trials, their daily routines of wiping noses and changing diapers. How I craved their sleepless nights, pacing with a sick child, the cookie crumbs crunching beneath their feet on the kitchen floor. I cringed every time a friend announced she was expecting or when a baby was blessed in church. The inability to conceive a child had worn through to my soul. I doubted everything I did, everything I was.

My husband and I chose to deal with our infertility differently. He dealt with it in silence. I, on the other hand, had the idea in my head that if I could make the world around me perfect, that maybe God would perform some kind of miracle and make me pregnant. I insisted on a perfect home. Shoes came off at the door. Dirty dishes were never left in the sink. Coats were not allowed to hang on a doorknob or chair—they had to be carefully hung in the closet. My compulsive behavior soon drove a wedge between my husband and me. He spent more and more time at work and I spent more time complaining about it. He could do nothing right.

It was a trip with my mom that changed everything. She needed help cleaning my grandmother’s house and asked me to go with her. While there, I met with a cousin I hadn’t seen for years. She had also been unable to have children, but had chosen to adopt. They had a beautiful little girl. We talked for hours about the process and how much joy it had brought to her and her husband.

On the long drive home, our conversation played over and over in my head. Why hadn’t we thought of adoption? Was it the answer to our prayers? Was there still hope for us? Could we love another woman’s baby?

The following week, Ed and I had gone grocery shopping. We’d gone different directions with our own list of wanted items when we found ourselves at opposite ends of an aisle. As we walked toward each other, I realized we were on the baby aisle. Emotions swelled up inside me. This was a place I always avoided. This time it was different though. I’d let a glimmer of hope wander into my heart. Adoption.

Where we’d avoided talking about having children in the past, I suddenly had the courage to confront Ed about bringing a special spirit into our homes. Without hesitation, he said yes.

I don’t even know if we finished shopping that day. I don’t remember. All I know is that the walls we had built between us were falling down and we were talking. We discovered each other’s feelings and realized that in sharing them, the pain was easier to handle.

After months of paper work and interviews, we were finally approved to be adoptive parents. Four years later, we held the most precious baby boy in our arms. The joy in our hearts was overwhelming. In spite of all the sorrow and pain we had endured as an infertile couple, we had come together as a couple and were now a family.

Our son, Joshua, is seventeen now and even though he’s been diagnosed with autism, and life with him as been a challenge, he has brought more happiness to our lives than we could have ever imagined possible. As for me…well…let’s just say I hang my coat on the dining room chair and there are usually dirty dishes in the sink.

Being Joshua’s mother is a much more important thing to do.

About the author
Christine Bryant has always been a writer. She’s spent the last twenty-three years married to the man of her dreams and raising their family. After helping run the family restaurant for most of their marriage, Christine has finally broken away to pursue her dream of being an author. She blogs about her writerly pursuits at Day Dreamer by CK Bryant.

No matter what the reason, I think it doesn’t have to be that way. We can redefine our expectations. Maybe instead of a day we expect our family to be perfect and treat us like a queen, we can strive for a day where we reflect on the things we’ve learned about motherhood, or the things we love about motherhood—or even just the things we love about our children.

On that note, I asked a few friends to post about lessons they’ve learned from motherhood. Their posts have already touched my heart and I hope they will yours, too.

So please read and comment on this week’s guest posts—and think about what you need to do to make Mother’s Day merry!

1. Make one day of the year that special day we all remember our mothers, and it’s okay to forget them the other 364 days. (And bonus on leap years!)

2. No matter how hard you try to keep your expectations low, your children still act like they do every other day of the year—disobeying, fighting, crying and sloughing off. Even though it’s your “special day.” (Is it just that they don’t care, or do they actually hate you? Maybe their therapists know.)

3. Everyone shares stories about the most wonderful mother in the history of creation (usually theirs), reminding us once again that we SOOO are not that. Even though it’ll probably be our kids saying those same things in 20 years.

4. Major takehome of Mother’s day: whatever the heck it is moms do all day/year long, it’s roughly equivalent to the value of a bouquet, a card, and one day off a year. Or half a day.

5. An alarming percentage of women who are now mothers have “an issue” with their own mothers. I don’t really get this one, but whenever I did a group writing project about mothers, I had people tell me they couldn’t participate because of this. And, thus, celebrating motherhood is bad.

6. The perceived emotional negativity of every little argument with you is enhanced approximately 10,000% because it’s the one and only day of the year they’re supposed to be thinking of you.

7. Our four-year-olds with the I-can’ts will doubtlessly refuse to join in singing one measly little not-even-very-mother-oriented song in church. Even though we completely expected this, and spent the whole week trying to encourage and prepare him, it will still hurt. Of course, it hurts a lot worse when the second the song is over, he throws a tantrum because he wants to go on the stand (to sit with his dad, best of all). And it’s even better when he smacks his sister with a book 10 minutes later and you have to drag two crying children out of the chapel again. But then you just have to laugh. Because Mother’s day sucks.

8. Inevitably, some well-meaning person (usually a man) suggests we should do this every day. No. Please.

Um… no personal experience in there or anything.

Had a disappointing—or hilarious—Mother’s day? Share—because sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying.

Photo by Chris A

I’ll settle for chocolate.

What do you want? How do you celebrate Mother’s Day?

Photo by Annette Pedrosian

My sweet, wonderful, well-meaning husband supports our family and goes to work ten hours a day, four days a week. He comes home and often the house is a wreck, the kids and I may or may not be dressed, dinner isn’t even planned—and I know that although he respects what I do for our family, he can’t fathom what I do all day long (or, apparently, why I’m usually running low in the patience department).

The world perpetuates an image of mothers, especially stay-at-home mothers, as either lazy layabouts who use daytime television to occupy their hours or drones who have given up all hope of future earning potential, “real” careers and intelligent conversation in favor of wiping noses and bottoms in a life that is a litany of thankless chores and children.

The world would have us think that we’re not “contributing to society” if we’re not working, though apparently it doesn’t really matter whether we’re “contributing” as tattoo artists or professors of medieval literature, as long as we aren’t at home caring for our own children. And if we’re not out in the workforce, we don’t have a “real job.”

I’ll be blunt like I never have before on this blog. That thinking is a load of crap.

Do the wonderful people who earn their living caring for our children while we mothers are doing more “productive” things have “real jobs”? Do the wonderful people who donate their time, talents and efforts to volunteer causes—striving to make a difference, to improve the world—have “real jobs”?

Mothering is the most important “volunteer” opportunity I could be involved in right now. I am consecrating my time, talent and efforts to raising my children—and most days, it is grueling.

Mother’s day may seem like an odd time to point this out, since we often take this day as a day to rest from our motherly labors and let our families take care of the meals, the cleaning, and the diapers (oh! the diapers!). But really, this is the perfect time to point out all that we do, because they’ll never understand and appreciate it more, as Elder M. Russell Ballard did:

After sitting on the stand [at church] for 10 years, I was now sitting with my family on the back row.

The ward’s singing mothers’ chorus was providing the music, and I found myself sitting alone with our six children. I have never been so busy in my whole life. I had the hand puppets going on both hands, and that wasn’t working too well. The Cheerios got away from me, and that was embarrassing. The coloring books didn’t seem to entertain as well as they should.

As I struggled with the children through the meeting, I looked up at Barbara, and she was watching me and smiling. I learned for myself to more fully appreciate what all of you dear mothers do so well and so faithfully!

Mothering is not just a “real” job—it’s the most real job there is. No other profession has the influence, the reach and the eternal importance of contributing to society by raising up the next generation to be good, hard-working, righteous, moral individuals.

And you know what else? I have no idea what my husband does all day at work.