I’m thankful to be a mother because of my children. I love seeing their personalities emerge. I love seeing them discover new things and put together the pieces. I love helping them learn and grow. I love their hugs and kisses and the way their eyes light up when they see me.
Why are you thankful to be a mother?
Photo by Br Lawrence Lew, O.P.
This week, Ryan and I attended an awards gala for four Americans who have “fought for freedom with words or ideas.”
Mona Kashani Heern was born in Iran. After the 1979 revolution, she and her sister were expelled from school because of their Bahá’í beliefs. Their father was later jailed for the same reason. After months of waiting in the snow for hours to spend ten minutes with him once a month, they found out he’d been executed. Eventually, her mother smuggled their family into Pakistan, where they lived in jail until they gained refugee status. They later emigrated to Germany, where Mona and her sister had to learn German, English and French in order to graduate high school. Finally, they moved to the US.
Despite the persecution and hardship she’d endured, a prevailing theme in Mrs. Heern’s acceptance speech was the love and kindness that she’d experienced even in the worst, most oppressive circumstances. As a junior high English teacher, she has a passion for sharing her story with her students so that we Americans understand the privileges of freedom that we enjoy (and take for granted).
Sgt. Merlin German, another recipient, served our country in Iraq, participating in over 150 successful missions. When an IED exploded and knocked him from his Humvee turret, he was burned over 97% of his body and given no chance of survival. He defied doctors and not only survived, but relearned to breathe on his own, talk and even walk.
Concerned about burn victims who couldn’t afford the costly treatments, Sgt. German started Merlin’s Miracles. The foundation has helped thousands of burn victims pay for surgeries, compression garments and hospital stays. During a routine surgery last spring, Sgt. German passed away. His legacy lives on through the hundreds of doctors and patients he personally touched and his charitable foundation.
President Boyd K. Packer was the final honoree. He longed to become a pilot like his older brother. He promised God that he would devote his life to His service if he could live that dream. President Packer spent forty months in the Air Force during World War II.
Less than two decades after the end of the war, the Lord called President Packer’s promise due. Packer was called to be an assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, then to a member of the Quorum. Since then, he has devoted nearly forty years of his life in the full-time employment as an Apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His ministry has included service all over the world. He is now the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the second most senior apostle.
The first award recipient, Neil Holbrook, was one of the original eight Navy “Frogmen,” the predecessor of the SEALs. In his acceptance speech, he told of a friend who was standing next to him on deck when his friend was shot. They both fell to the deck and his friend struggled to say something, but died before he could speak. Holbrook has spent six decades wondering what his friend would have said.
I’m passing the torch to the future generations. Please take care of that Constitution that I can’t enjoy. … I don’t have the liberty to go home.
When we thanked him for his service afterward, Mr. Holbrook said he would do it again tomorrow for people like us.
To honor the sacrifice of so many people this independence day, we have to remember what they were fighting for. We have to remember that the freedoms we enjoy in this country are privileges that not everyone has. We cannot forget those founding freedoms, and sometimes we have to fight with words or with weapons to keep them, at home and abroad.
Please remember this today as you celebrate Independence Day—and tomorrow, and afterward.
Newspaper coverage of the award ceremony with brief bios
Photo by Benjamin Earwicker
I doubt I have to convince any mothers out there of this, but as we work toward finding fulfillment in motherhood, we have to learn to treat ourselves with the respect we deserve, teaching others to regard us with the same respect.
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.
I do this to my kids:
“I hate you.”
“Mommy . . .”
“. . .”
“That’s silly.”
“That’s better!”
Enjoy the holiday today. We’re trying to focus on the real reason for this Easter season (though, don’t worry, we have candy). This message was shared by an apostle last Sunday in the semi-annual worldwide conference of the church and I simply cannot say it better than this special witness of Christ.
I’ll be honest. I don’t particularly enjoy spending days slaving over a hot oven to prepare baked goods to show my neighbors which among them are my favorites. (Hi guys!) I personally would not be the slightest bit offended if we didn’t get any neighbor gifts.
But this week, I discovered the best neighbor gifts ever. I was all set to host my book club Thursday night—I’d read the book, cleaned the house, picked up refreshments (again, not spending the day mixing and baking), made cocoa (one homemade thing, plus milk was $1.85/gal!), warmed those not-even-semi-homemade cookies in the oven, set out the Little Debbies, fed the baby—and then we waited.
No one was early.
No one was right on time.
No one was five minutes late.
No one was ten minutes late.
No one was twenty minutes late.
At that point, we decided no one was coming—and we had more than a gallon of hot cocoa on the stove. And we had nothing to store it in, thanks to Ryan’s slightly overzealous cleaning, taking out the empty milk jug.
So we bundled up the kids, grabbed a tray of cookies and the pot of cocoa and headed to visit our neighbors. (This never happens in the winter, okay? It’s cold out there!) We spent a delightful couple of hours visiting with them, their older daughters taking turns holding a very placid Rebecca and their sons and youngest daughter playing with Hayden—and I even got to discuss the book club book!
We told them that would “count” for our neighbor gift and a better way of expressing how much we really enjoy having them as neighbors I can’t imagine. Thanks for having us, especially on such short notice!