It is frustrating, you know. Like many careers that leave employees frustrated, Mothering involves many mindless jobs that repeat themselves day after day only to be undone and redone again the next day. Dishes, which we go through three dishwashers full of per day at our house, leap to mind. Laundry, floor sweeping, vacuuming, and basically all cleaning jobs are high on the list.
With small children, diapering is a big monotony particularly when the child you diaper doesn’t enjoy that activity and takes every opportunity to cry at you every time you plop him down on the bed for a change. This has been Henry’s reaction for 90% the changes I have given him since he was two weeks old. You can add that up yourself if you’re so inclined. Having someone yell at you several times a day for trying to clean the poop off their own butt gets a mite discouraging.
Even more depressing than the actual work itself is the feeling of being useless. I used to have a very sharp, curious mind. Every class I attended, I did well in. In every company with which I was employed, I did very well and was often promoted quickly. I loved getting report cards and performance reviews because someone always saw my hard work and rewarded it with whatever was appropriate.
Motherhood isn’t that way. Many days I feel like my lovely brain that I was so fond of has been spackled over with peanut butter. The manual labor that I do requires no talent or training, which makes me interchangeable with anyone else around who can throw dirty clothes in a washer with equivalent competency. Because this labor is so menial, why would anyone bother complimenting it or even noticing it? Congratulations Mom, you have just swished your toilet for the 1000th time. We are throwing you a ticker tape parade and sending you to Disney World! Somehow you don’t see that in the newspaper too much. This is probably part of why I like website building so much. It gives my mind something to do which keeps it sharp(er) and other people see the finished product and say “wow.”
The other day when I was driving home Dr. Laura came on the radio, and she read an excerpt from a book called The Invisible Woman
. I am not going to retell the entire excerpt because you can go read it yourself here, but the very short version is that Wifing (not to be confused with wi-fi) and Mothering is much like Cathedral building.
The great European cathedrals took decades or more to make and many times the craftsmen worked their whole lives knowing they would never see the finished work. Their names aren’t stamped on the building; no one knows who they were. What they saw was the beauty that their work would become. Their joy was the delight in doing hard work unto the Lord and knowing that He sees it and values it even when no one else does either of those.
I like that. Some days when I’m cleaning up the milk spilled on the floor after cleaning up the juice that was spilled eight minutes ago, I have a hard time remembering that my work is important. This is why I’m writing it down. So if any of you ask me what I did this week, instead of getting a dissatisfied look and a “changed diapers” response, I think I’m going to start answering that this week I was Cathedral building. Then you can have the blank look and hopefully I will more readily remember that building little temples for the Holy Spirit is what I’m doing as opposed to, say, neverending janitorial work.
Rachel
Fiendish friend for effusive fun!
