My neighborhood went a little crazy at the birth of my
eighth child. Friends were bringing meals, gifts and love in levels that are
difficult to describe. Everyone fawned over my perfect son and complimented me
on my super human motherhood powers. Among these visitors were two women who stopped by
about a week after the birth with food and friendship. One commented that I
must be a very good mother to have so many children. The other, without real
offense, smiled and said, “I’m not a very good mother.” You see, she has been
blessed with three beautiful children, despite wanting more. Normally, I
respond to comments such as these with a catechism I have repeated more times
than I could ever remember. Along with comments about “full hands,” I am
confronted almost daily by women who say some permutation of the sentence, “I
don’t know how you do it. I can barely handle my one (or two, or three).” I
always reply in complete sincerity, “The hardest number is the number you have.”
Today, I want to explain what I mean by this statement. I
wish to be very careful. I know that when women comment on my house full of
children, they are doing it with love. I know that they wish to encourage me in
the most difficult job on Earth. I know that their sincere elevation of my
trials and blessings is never meant to belittle someone else. But today I want
to share something close to my heart and acknowledge that sometimes the best of
us is guilty of competitive mothering.
In October of 2015, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland compared the
role of a mother to that of the very Savior of mankind. He stated quite
plainly, “No love in mortality comes closer to approximating the pure
love of Jesus Christ than the selfless love a devoted mother has for her child.”
Of course, I am not an apostle and what I say comes from no position of
authority. It comes from deep within my heart. I don’t pretend to understand
the whole role of Jesus Christ or the magnitude of the atonement. But, I
believe, in one element, they are comparable. The scriptures teach us that the
Atonement is “infinite.” I believe this beautiful world also describes the role
of a mother.
What does it mean to be infinite? It means that it cannot be
added to. If you spend any time with math geeks, you know that infinity plus
one equals infinity. The term is not a number, but a statement of eternity.
This being the case, one cannot be “more” a mother than someone else. My eighth
child didn’t make me eight times a mother. As we all know, eight times infinity
is simply infinity. But sometimes we find ourselves comparing, feeling like we’re
out-mothered by another. We see competition, not only in the number of children
we raise, but also in the comparison of time we get to spend with our kids and
time we must spend at work. We feel like elements of motherhood make one’s
claims to the title more legitimate than someone else’s. Real mothers
breastfeed for an entire year, make homemade bread and baby food, coach soccer
teams, give birth naturally, dress their children in perfect coordinating
outfits, homeschool, sew, throw lavish birthday parties, garden, vacation, keep
perfect homes, and on and on and on.
The truth is that motherhood is a divine attribute of
womanhood. You are a mother by virtue of who you are. It doesn’t matter how
many children you have. There isn’t some scale of pros and cons that makes one
woman more worthy of the Mother’s Day handout at the end of sacrament meeting
than another. Motherhood is an infinite calling.
Today I am reminded of a woman I love who is a mother to a
sweet infant mind that is now living in the body of a man. His mother has, for
eighteen years, cradled her son, accepting the challenge of being his advocate,
caretaker, and dedicating her life entirely to his care. She will never watch
this son take his first steps, learn to read, or go on his first date. She has
devoted herself to taking joy in the challenges of motherhood that most of us
leave behind early in our children’s lives. But no one would ever argue that
she is less of a mother to this son because she will miss out on so many iconic
mothering experiences. She is a mother, infinite and eternal.
I am reminded of a mother who lost her daughter before she
ever even held her. This mother remembers her child in black and white pictures and visits to a
cemetery. She has experienced motherhood in its infinite span of emotion,
without ever even seeing her daughter’s smile.
I am reminded of a mother who spent years trying to conceive
a child of her own and, in the end, became a mother to every young person she
had the privilege of coming into contact with. She sacrifices her spare time in
service to children who will never bring her flowers on Mother’s Day. She
shares her motherhood with everyone.
This Mother’s Day, I’m remembering what it really means to
be a mother. It means loving another person so much that you would gladly do
anything for them. It means desperately praying for someone else’s happiness.
It means mourning for trials someone else is experiencing and feeling their
pain as acutely as you would your own. It means wanting to serve more than you
want to find glory. It means an endless, eternal, infinite love and (consequently) an endless, eternal, infinite heartache. It is
completely unquantifiable and indescribable, no matter how many children you
have.
On Motherhood: Uplift. Encourage. Inspire.
Women and Motherhood
Why I Have a Billion Children
Behold Thy Mother By Jeffrey R Holland
