It might seem hard—heck, it might be hard!—and we might want to wait until wishing makes it so, but until we actually start doing, we won’t make progress toward becoming our goal.

This is summed up much better in a friend’s blog post last week:

“We become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become each day.” (Elder Richard G. Scott, October 2010 General Conference)

I see it every time I step out of the shower and I think, “I want to become a better mother. So today I will be a better mother.” But my thought process doesn’t really go beyond that. . . .

But a few days ago, I believed I received a bit of inspiration as I took an extra moment to ponder how to become a better mother.

Two specific things came to mind. 1) Enforce consequences. 2) Play with my children.

via Trying a little harder to be a little better.

I think those are great examples—and both of those are things I could work on, which are hard for me.

I’d write some more about them, but I think I should probably go join my kids in play time.

What do you think? What do you want to become, and what do you need to do to become your goals?

Photo by Haeck Design

He was way ahead of his time, you know. I mean, the man died seventy years ago, and he had the foresight to write this post for me. Okay, okay, so really this is just a long quotation. Emphasis, images and paragraphs breaks added.

Woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren’t. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist.

Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment (even when freed from modern rules and hours, and exercised more spontaneously by a more protected person) is in itself too exacting and oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world.

But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it.

How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the Universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, because it is gigantic, not because it is minute.

G. K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World, p 118-119

Thanks, G.K.! (Note that this is taken slightly out of context, but seriously, it’s a lot better this way. Don’t bother reading the stuff that comes before or after it; it’s not quite so “enlightened.”)

In other news, I’d like to note that I was one of five winners of literary agent Nathan Bransford’s guest blogging contest, and my guest post will go live on his blog next week .

Photo credits: question mark—Svilen Mushkatov; globe—Sanja Gjenero

Five years ago, when she still had children at home, Business Week interviewed her. Toward the end of their article, they highlighted her commitment to family:

Bartz showed up for a board meeting one night with a hugely swollen leg. Turns out, she had rushed from work to her daughter’s soccer game and slipped, twisting her ankle. She hobbled to the game, then limped to the board meeting. Because the . . . freezer had no ice, she ended up sitting with a bag of frozen peas on her foot. But she carried on as usual, Nierenberg says. . . .

Bartz encourages her employees to have a life outside of work as well. Autodesk’s staffers can receive several hours off a month to help out at their children’s schools. A few weeks ago, Bartz taught 60 or so of her employees’ kids, who showed up for the company’s bring-your-kids-to-work day, how to execute a real business handshake (hand should not be limp, look the person in the eye).

How does Carol Bartz juggle all these roles? The interview hinted at that as well—but I think the two biggest keys are perspective and priorities.

First, she placed her family as her highest priority:

Ever since her daughter, who’s now 15, was in elementary school, Bartz would sit down with her at the beginning of each school year and promise to come to certain school events — say, a Christmas concert or the Halloween party. “I don’t care if the Pope comes to Autodesk, I’m still going to spend that time with her,” she says. Recently, she canceled a business dinner to attend her daughter’s first prom.

Second, Carol recognized that she wasn’t going to be perfect:

I have a belief that life isn’t about balance, because balance is perfection. Rather, it’s about catching the ball before it hits the floor.

I may not be a CEO, or even employed outside the home, but I take encouragement from that counsel. And you know what? Sometimes even the best jugglers drop the balls. What do they do? They pick them up and keep practicing.

How have you caught the ball before it hit the floor? How have you continued after dropping the ball?

Photo credit: juggle balls—Dani Simmonds

Stresses in our lives come regardless of our circumstances. We must deal with them the best we can.

I often fall into that same trap—believing that if only I didn’t have to do all this “mothering stuff”/work/housekeeping/good works/church/alone, it’d be so much easier. But frankly, I would probably still find something to stress out about even if I had one less thing on my plate.

And all too often, I let the wrong thing slide. President Monson continues:

But we should not let them get in the way of what is most important—and what is most important almost always involves the people around us. Often we assume that they must know how much we love them. But we should never assume; we should let them know. Wrote William Shakespeare, “They do not love that do not show their love.” We will never regret the kind words spoken or the affection shown. Rather, our regrets will come if such things are omitted from our relationships with those who mean the most to us.

Usually, I get stressed because I’m trying to do too much—and often it’s not stuff that I need to do anyway. Beyond basic housecleaning and a couple hours of work per day, I don’t actually have to do a lot of the things that I make myself do or that I want to do.

Instead, if I focus on the work of motherhood: loving, and giving my children attention, suddenly those stresses that make my life so difficult—the stresses that I have put on myself—seem to go away.

What helps you relieve or lessen the stress of motherhood? How do you show your children your love?

How do we get women to stop saying, “I’m just a mother”? Or, “I used to be such and such, but now I’m just a mother?” We need to market motherhood. So I came up with a saying: “Motherhood: 24/7 on the frontlines of humanity. Are you man enough to try it?”

We’ve discussed this quote before and most of you felt that we needed to start by taking more pride in what we do as mothers and not allowing others to disparage or belittle it.

Do you still agree with that? What else can we do to stand up for ourselves and our callings?

Do you have a quote from a famous mom? Submit it to famousmoms (at) mamablogga.com and we’ll discuss it one week, and you’ll get a link (if you include your URL, of course).

If you are still in the process of raising children, be aware that the tiny fingerprints that show up on almost every newly cleaned surface, the toys scattered about the house, the piles and piles of laundry to be tackled will disappear all too soon and that you will—to your surprise—miss them profoundly.

As I type this, I’m sitting on a stained couch, next to a waist-deep pile of laundry, across the room from the nose-and-mouth prints on the entertainment center. I’ll go to bed only to wake up three or four times tonight to nurse Rebecca, then get up earlier than I want to to take care of her or Hayden.

And this is what I’ll miss? Yep, says this father, grandfather and great-grandfather. I think the thing that I like most about this quote is the aside of “to your surprise.” It shows that he knows what it’s like to be here.

I think, though, that even though we don’t care for hearing this, we all know this. During the difficult times, it might be hard to believe that we’ll miss all this. But during the good times, the peaceful times, the adorable times, we know that they won’t last. They can’t last. My little children will disappear before my eyes—they already are.

So every once in a while, the reminder that I’ll miss these days makes me value them a little more. How about you?

A little over a year ago, Jolie was interviewed by Reader’s Digest, and I found this quotation on receiving support from her partner, Brad Pitt (you’ve heard of him?):

He encourages the right things. If I’ve had a full day and just really been a hands-on mom, he’ll make a point to let me know that’s something he’s proud of. If I’m writing an Op-Ed, he’s the first person to want to read the drafts. I could be dressed up in the sexiest outfit for a photo shoot, and by his behavior, he’ll let me know that’s nice, but it’s nothing as sexy as when I’m home surrounded by the kids or reading books, educating myself. He slows me down to kind of get it right, to relax into the strength of my family and the love.

I like the support that she describes here, but most of all, I think it’s really important for us to “slow . . . down to . . . get it right, to relax into” our families and our love. What helps you to slow down?

Do you have a quote from a famous mom? Submit it to famousmoms (at) mamablogga.com and we’ll discuss it one week, and you’ll get a link (if you include your URL, of course).

When I was around thirteen and my brother ten, Father had promised to take us to the circus. But at lunchtime there was a phone call; some urgent business required his attention downtown. We braced ourselves for disappointment. Then we heard him say [into the phone], “No, I won’t be down. It’ll have to wait.”

When he came back to the table, Mother smiled. “The circus keeps coming back, you know.”

“I know,” said Father. “But childhood doesn’t.”

What do you do to try to enjoy childhood today?

If you’ve forgotten, the eponymous shrew is Katharina (Kate in this updated version), who is rather mean and abusive toward men, especially suitors. In the end, though, she is “tamed” and accepts one Petruchio as her husband (who gave as good as he got).

Katharina’s final soliloquy seems to show a drastic change in character (selection below for Shakespeare lovers) that explains why she would agree to marry (finally). The speech goes on about how hard husbands work for their wives and all husbands want is a little obedience and a kind look, and that’s not really asking that much, etc.

These lines are often ridiculed as an outdated view of marriage, clearly a product of their time that has no place in ours. And, of course, to an extent I agree that this oversimplified view of women’s subservience and subjugation isn’t a proper definition of marriage.

But what I found interesting was the actress’s (Melinda Parrett) take on the lines (emphasis added, source):

[I]n the contest of this production, Parrett finds Kate’s words moving and affirming.

“It’s not about losing yourself,” she said. “It’s about finding out who you are in relation to someone else. What I hear is that life is too short—love requires give and take, and we should simply relax and offer support to each other. I get choked up over it. It’s what I hope to feel someday.”

Although marriage and motherhood are usually related , when I read that quotation I wasn’t thinking about my husband. I was thinking about becoming a mother. For my husband and me, despite a short courtship, the transition to marriage was . . . well, what transition? Do you mean moving in together?

But for me, the transition to motherhood was very hard, and, of necessity, very sudden. I struggled for months (and sometimes still struggle) to define myself as a person and not only as a mother. I often feared that anything that was once unique about me, anything that I enjoyed or valued as an individual, would be obliterated by the full-time obligation entailed in having a child.

“It’s not about losing yourself. It’s about finding out who you are in relation to someone else.” Certainly this applies to marriage, but in an even deeper way, it’s applied to me as a mother. In some ways, I do (or did) feel that I had to lose myself—but only to find a new self, someone who was not “just” a mother, not “only” a mother, not “solely” a mother.

Someone who was a mother and proud to be a mother—but was still me.

Did you find it difficult to “find out who you are in relation to someone else” when you married or became a mother?

From Katharina’s final soliloquy, The Taming of the Shrew, Act V:

A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am ashamed that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace;
Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love and obey.
Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts?
Come, come, you froward and unable worms!
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband’s foot:
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready; may it do him ease.

How many times have I told my tantruming toddler, “Life is rough—and then you die”? At least a few. But is this something I really want him to internalize?

Marilynne Todd Linford takes aim at this popular teaching in her book We Are Sisters:

To say that life is difficult or suffering or filled with unyielding despair is as erroneous as saying life is easy, carefree, or filled with continual bliss. (132)

Yes, life is rough, but it trivializes all life to say that all of life is suffering. I make no secret that I think that motherhood is difficult. (Frankly, anyone who thinks otherwise is probably crazy or should be having (more) kids, because they’re obviously doing better than I am with my one.) But, like life, motherhood isn’t endless drudgery (at least once a baby can start responding to you, in my opinion) and pain.

Life is not just rough. Unlike C-3PO, we are not made to suffer. While some suffering is our lot in life, it’s not the be-all and end-all of our existence. After all, as the Apostle John quoted Jesus Christ, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

Linford continues:

Does it matter, then, if you think life is difficult? Yes, because it is a half-truth, and by acting on a false foundation we build on shifting sands. When you realize that life is not difficult but made up of opposing forces, the precious gift of agency becomes even more crucial. (133)

Yes, life is sometimes rough, but I need to remember that we can choose to look at the positive or dwell on the negative—and dwelling on the negative aspects of life won’t bring happiness. I need to remember to highlight the good things in my son’s life—and mine.