There’s a saying
being passed around various social media. It’s always some permutation of this:
“A woman who loses a husband is a widow. A child who loses a parent is an
orphan. There is no word for a mother who loses a child because language is
not sufficient to describe this kind of pain.” Is the loss of a child the most excruciating
experience of this life? From my perspective, it certainly could be. I do not
mean to diminish or question the agony that accompanies saying goodbye to such pure love. But, I don’t believe the pain has anything to do with the lack of
a title afforded to those who are its victims.
May I suggest that the reason there is no word for a woman
who loses a child is because our language is old, and, until very recently,
such a woman was known simply as a mother. If there is a surprise here, it’s
that there is no word for a woman who has never lost a child. In generations
past, she was the anomaly. She was the outlier. She was the one who must be
separated from the flock, not for her trial, but for the obvious grace she had
been given from God.
My sweet grandmother was the sixth of nine children, three
boys and six girls. In her personal history she wrote of her overwhelming
desire to never cause her parents hurt and worry. She felt they had suffered
enough because their oldest four children, including all of their sons, never
made it to adulthood. Later in her life, she would face her greatest trial when
her first baby was born prematurely and only lived twenty-six hours.
I don’t pretend to understand the pain of losing a child. I
have carried seven children in my body and I currently have seven children
sleeping under my roof. Among my beloved miracles is a daughter who was born at
the same period of gestation as my grandmother’s oldest. Instead of planning a
funeral, I brought my lovely daughter home after only a week in the hospital.
She’s a perfectly happy and healthy two-year-old. The only real difference in
my experience and my grandmother’s was two generations of time.
Advances in medical technology, standards of living,
vaccinations, and sanitation have completely changed the world in only a few
years. I can only imagine what the women of a few generations ago would say, if
they could see their progeny. I imagine that they would cry tears of joy for
the miraculous recoveries and the long lives of the children born to our
generation. I can’t help but wonder, however, how they would feel about the way
we approach parenting, now that we no longer need fear the loss of our precious
little ones.
And now we’re getting to the point of all this reflection. Grandma
summed it up in a few simple words when she said, “On November 15, 1938, we had
our first child, born at the LDS hospital in Salt Lake, but she was premature
and only lived 26 hours. We felt like we
were really being tried, but we never lost our faith and took our problems as
they came. Here I want to express my
gratitude to my dear parents for the love and help they gave us during this
time and my gratitude also goes to Lewis and Eulalia Anderson for their concern
for us in those early years of our marriage, and for the support and help that
they gave us.”
I look at those words, “love, support, help,” and my heart
breaks as I consider the culture of competition, condemnation, and bitterness
that so many of us have embraced. I have come to dislike the “mom blog”
mentality more than I can describe. It seems like every time I turn around,
there is another hot-button issue. Making your kids hug grandparents sets them up
for being victims of molestation. Bottle feeding your kids means you don’t love
them. Using disposable diapers causes allergies. Co-sleeping causes SIDS.
Co-sleeping prevents SIDS. Sacrificing to pay for expensive, academic preschools is what selfless
parents do. You should love your spouse more than your kids. You should put
your kids’ needs before your spouse. You
should (or should not) give your kids
vitamin supplements. You have to buy organic foods. Homeschooling damages your
child’s ability to socialize. Public schools are indoctrination mills. Teach your
child to share. A no-share policy teaches
respect for other’s rights and eliminates the dangerous entitlement mentality. Starting solids earlier prevents/causes food allergies. Epidurals are for the weak and selfish. Make your beds every day. Real moms have dirty houses. Have a lot of kids. Space them out. Crying it out. Scheduling. Attachment. Independence. Home birth/water birth. Doctor/Doula/Midwife. And on and on and on.
Every time I turn around, someone is not only advocating
their own expertise, but condemning the other perspective as “bad parenting.” I
have been as guilty a perpetrator as any. I desperately love my children and
want to raise them the best way possible. But, the older I get, the more
convinced I am that the most dangerous thing I do as a parent is buying into the
idea that there is a perfect way to raise children. In the end, these things matter
so little. There are millions of ways to be a good mother, and none to be a
perfect one.
Being a mother is truly the greatest and hardest of life’s
experiences. And we are truly the most privileged and blessed generation of
mothers. But in my mind, I can see my grandmother, surrounded by her sisters in
motherhood, supporting and loving each other through life’s most difficult
trial. I can also see the women of my generation angrily typing their soap
boxes into social media, sacrificing love and support in favor of fighting for
what they consider to be advocating for the children. Except that I am
convinced the children are more damaged by the battle than benefited by the
advocacy.
Motherhood is about love, compassion, and patience. Can’t we
extend a little of that for the other women who share our joys and trials? Isn't that what it truly means to have a mother's heart? We are all doing our very best. We all love our little ones so much. We truly need each other.
