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Real Moms: Exploding the Myths of Motherhood (Paperback)
Morgan, Elisa
and Kuykendall, Carol
and Kuykendall, Carol (Joint Author)
Are you tired of constantly trying--and failing--to be a perfect mom? Stop beating yourself up and let the truth about motherhood set you free! Real Moms debunks the "good mom" fallacies that have weighed you down by giving you some liberating "real mom" truths. This book punctures such mothering myths as:
Good moms look good all the time.
Good moms keep everybody happy.
Good moms instinctively know what their children need.
Good moms take responsibility for how their children turn out.
Good moms don't admit their feelings of guilt or anger or fear--because to admit those feelings might make them look like they are not good moms.
Each chapter examines a myth and its corresponding reality, and ends with a how-to practical application, a "Real Mom" story, questions for reflection and discussion, and "Real Mom" quotes from Real mothers.
Wouldn't you love to be free to accept your imperfections? Free not to feel guilty about your limitations? Free to ask for help, free to be real, free to grow? Freedom is in store for you--freedom to be the best mom you can be. This book will show you the way.
Chapter One
Introduction
The Myths of MotherhoodReal is something we become gradually, as we face life vulnerably, returning to God over and over and finding ourselves loved, even when life hurts, when it does not make sense, when we are angry or afraid. -Brenda Waggoner
Once upon a time, a mother was born.
Though she'd dreamed about becoming a mom for years, her dream became a reality the instant she held her baby in her arms for the first time. Ohhh, she'd been imagining how that tender moment would feel. She'd heard descriptions and seen new moms on television shows crying and making utterances of great joy as they gazed adoringly at their precious little babies. Obviously they felt overwhelmed by waves of intoxicating, pure maternal love. After all, good moms instantly feel a powerful bonding love for their babies.
Yet reality surprised her. She eagerly took her baby into her arms-this stranger she had longed to meet-and put her face close to his. She touched his perfect little ears and ran her fingers over his petal-soft skin. His head, misshapen a bit from the birthing process, was topped by a mass of dark curly hair. (Where did that come from? she wondered.) As she looked into his murky grey eyes, she felt a stirring of unfamiliar, tangled emotions deep inside her. Love, yes, but also an odd kind of fear and self doubt. Who are you, my child? Will I know how to love you for a whole lifetime? Will I be a good mom?
"Isn't he beautiful?" her own mother cooed, peering at this new grandchild she'd traveled halfway across the continent to greet.
"He is ..." the new mother agreed. (Of course he looked beautiful to someone who'd traveled so far on so little sleep.)
In her first night at home with her newborn, the new mom faced other surprises.
The baby cried at 2 A.M., and she lovingly fed him. Then she changed him. Then she burped him. Then she patiently rocked him and tried to feed him some more. But an hour later, he was still fussing, and she felt fatigued and frustrated. Good moms instinctively know what their babies need, so moms who don't must be incompetent.
A few minutes later, her mother appeared at the bedroom door. "Let me take him into my room for the rest of the night so you can get some sleep, honey," she offered.
"Thanks, but I'm doing okay," the new mom said, because she knew that good moms sacrifice themselves for their children, joyfully and selflessly, and don't ask for help from others.
A few days later, her mom packed up to go home. Before leaving, she loaded the refrigerator with groceries, vacuumed and cleaned the living room, and changed all the sheets. The new mom sat in a chair in the living room, feeding the baby, while her husband loaded grandma's luggage in the car for the trip to the airport. Her mom hugged and kissed the two of them goodbye, wiping away a tear as she told them she loved them. And then she was gone. As the car pulled out of the driveway, the new mom started crying. Why was she feeling so sad and alone? After all, good moms are totally fulfilled and satisfied with their lives as mothers, and they don't complain.
This new mom had been a mom for only a few days, but already she was beginning to realize that the real world she'd entered was not exactly the picture-perfect world she'd expected. Her real-life experiences kept bumping into her good-mom assumptions and expectations. Suddenly there was a disconnect between reality and the image she thought she should live up to. What kind of mother would she be in this bumpy place?
On the one hand, living within the myths of mothering looked attractive. She longed for the apparently simple happiness assumed in those mythical expectations. Reality seemed so disappointing, and well ... real. On the other hand, the myths, while appearing more appealing on the surface, created exhausting standards to live up to all the time. Wouldn't she feel more honest and relieved to be real?
What was the answer? Myth or reality? Which would be the way to "happily ever after?"
Welcome to the reality of motherhood-a bumpy, wonderful, self-revealing, growing place where a woman faces the constant tension between expectations and reality. Between good-mom myths and real-mom truths.
Okay ... now we're talking. Every one of us trips over the new-mom realities as we enter motherhood. It's not always the pink-and-blue-edged dream we imagined. Ever been peed in the face by a newborn baby boy? You know what we mean. Okay, so you had a girl; how about mustard-filled diapers?
Sure there are great moments of utter wonder. But not every moment fits our mythical expectations, and neither do our responses; we're way more human than we thought we'd be.
Relax. This is normal. The tension between myth and reality has been going on for eons. The word myth comes from mythology , used by the ancient Greeks to describe why things happened when they didn't have a clue. Like what caused lightning or sunrises and sunsets. People believed these myths-explanations-simply because everyone around them repeated them. People did not question whether they were true; they became accepted as truth out of habit. In fact, social scientists today still study how myths shape human behavior.
The same is true with good-mom myths, which are passed down from experienced moms to wanna-be moms or new moms. From mothers-in-law to daughters-in-law. From sappy Mother's Day cards and Mother's Day sermons to the world of mothers at large. These myths stay mysteriously hidden in our hearts and souls until ... wham! Reality hits, and we face choices. What will we believe-myth or reality?
What if we choose to believe the myth?
Certainly that's an easy and tempting choice, because good-mom myths are natural extensions of the many good-girl myths we've grown up pretending to believe. Good girls should act like good girls. Good girls are not overly assertive or aggressive. Good girls don't say bad words. Good girls are nice to everyone. Good girls don't get out-loud angry.
No wonder we little girls have grown into women who have learned to hide our feelings from ourselves and others. We learn to pretend. "How are you?" someone asks. "Fine," we respond automatically, not willing to honestly say that we feel lonely or depressed or afraid at the moment. Most of us pretend that we don't hurt as much as we really do. Or that what we have satisfies more than it really does. We often hide behind carefully constructed masks such as these:
Mask of Happiness: like the mom who puts on a happy face and smiles on the outside, even while she's churning on the inside, because she doesn't always like being a mother, and she doesn't even always like her children. Yet admitting her unhappiness might make her look like a failure or a bad mom. After all, good moms are happy moms.
Mask of Busyness: like the mom who takes on more activities and signs up for more school projects and heads up more committees because busyness makes her feel valuable and keeps her from facing the reality of her self-esteem issues. After all, good moms do it all.
Mask of Silence: like the mom who decides to say nothing to her family about her need for their help, because she doesn't want to run the risk of irritating them. After all, good moms keep everyone happy.
Mask of Denial: like the mom who denies that her child is having a serious problem in school because good moms have good children, and she doesn't want to admit her fears about her child's possible deep needs.
Hiding behind a mask doesn't make the feelings or the realities go away. A mask is a mask. It only covers up the feelings-and the realities. They're still there. There's a better way. Replace the masks and myths with truth. Truth frees us to be real.
That's a promise, passed down by Jesus in a single sentence, that not only appears in the Bible but also has been inscribed on the doors of a zillion institutions of higher learning: "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32).
Free to quit trying to be so good all the time.
Free to acknowledge that there are no perfect families in this world, and no perfect children and no perfect mothers.
Free to admit where we fall short of our own expectations or someone else's.
Free not to feel guilty about not being good enough or home enough or fun enough or patient enough.
Free to become all God created us to be.
But (and this is an important "but!") the truth does not set us free to be rotten moms. Or give us license to be rude or selfish. Or insensitive and uncaring. Or to stay stuck where we are rather than to grow and stretch toward what we can be.
So where does that leave us in the effort to replace myths with truth and to be more real?
Here's a summary.
Good-mom myths pressure us to be something we can't be and don't need to be, something beyond what we were intended to be. The truth sets us free to be honest and growing and vulnerable.
Good-mom myths fill us with impossible "I shoulds." Truth allows us to focus on the "I ams."
Good-mom myths give us idealistic formulas and unrealistic expectations from a "once upon a time" and "happily ever after" perfect world of make-believe. But we don't live there. We are imperfect people living in the midst of imperfect relationships, trying to do our best, while juggling busy schedules on PMS and bad hair days. In the midst of this reality, we can discover personal growth and contentment as we seek to know the truth and to act like we believe the truth. That takes hard work and sometimes feels risky, but the results are worth the effort.
It's time to explode the myths of motherhood with truth that will set you free to be the best mom you can be. This book will show you the way.
What Is a Real Mom? (And What Isn't)
Being real is ...
discovering who you are and being who you are.
knowing what matters most in mothering.
determining what's most important in your season of life.
trying to do what is most important and right, not just what feels the best at the moment.
recognizing the difference between good shoulds and bad shoulds. (Good should: "I should try to stop yelling at my children." Bad should: "I should be able to keep my children happy.")
Being real is not ...
giving up on growing and changing as a person.
being selfish or self-centered.
thinking your way is the right and only way.
being rude or rotten or inconsiderate of others' feelings or needs.
Being real is risky. It is hard work. It is a life-long process.
Real Moms ...
A real mom feels an enormous gulf between the mother she would like to be and the mother she perceives herself to be.
A real mom picks her kids' noses.
A real mom sometimes takes showers for the sole purpose of being able to cry-very hard-if need be.
A real mom puts dirty socks on her kids when the clean ones run out.
A real mom has moments when she wishes she wasn't a mom.
(Continues...)
Chapter One
Introduction
The Myths of MotherhoodReal is something we become gradually, as we face life vulnerably, returning to God over and over and finding ourselves loved, even when life hurts, when it does not make sense, when we are angry or afraid. -Brenda Waggoner
Once upon a time, a mother was born.
Though she'd dreamed about becoming a mom for years, her dream became a reality the instant she held her baby in her arms for the first time. Ohhh, she'd been imagining how that tender moment would feel. She'd heard descriptions and seen new moms on television shows crying and making utterances of great joy as they gazed adoringly at their precious little babies. Obviously they felt overwhelmed by waves of intoxicating, pure maternal love. After all, good moms instantly feel a powerful bonding love for their babies.
Yet reality surprised her. She eagerly took her baby into her arms-this stranger she had longed to meet-and put her face close to his. She touched his perfect little ears and ran her fingers over his petal-soft skin. His head, misshapen a bit from the birthing process, was topped by a mass of dark curly hair. (Where did that come from? she wondered.) As she looked into his murky grey eyes, she felt a stirring of unfamiliar, tangled emotions deep inside her. Love, yes, but also an odd kind of fear and self doubt. Who are you, my child? Will I know how to love you for a whole lifetime? Will I be a good mom?
"Isn't he beautiful?" her own mother cooed, peering at this new grandchild she'd traveled halfway across the continent to greet.
"He is ..." the new mother agreed. (Of course he looked beautiful to someone who'd traveled so far on so little sleep.)
In her first night at home with her newborn, the new mom faced other surprises.
The baby cried at 2 A.M., and she lovingly fed him. Then she changed him. Then she burped him. Then she patiently rocked him and tried to feed him some more. But an hour later, he was still fussing, and she felt fatigued and frustrated. Good moms instinctively know what their babies need, so moms who don't must be incompetent.
A few minutes later, her mother appeared at the bedroom door. "Let me take him into my room for the rest of the night so you can get some sleep, honey," she offered.
"Thanks, but I'm doing okay," the new mom said, because she knew that good moms sacrifice themselves for their children, joyfully and selflessly, and don't ask for help from others.
A few days later, her mom packed up to go home. Before leaving, she loaded the refrigerator with groceries, vacuumed and cleaned the living room, and changed all the sheets. The new mom sat in a chair in the living room, feeding the baby, while her husband loaded grandma's luggage in the car for the trip to the airport. Her mom hugged and kissed the two of them goodbye, wiping away a tear as she told them she loved them. And then she was gone. As the car pulled out of the driveway, the new mom started crying. Why was she feeling so sad and alone? After all, good moms are totally fulfilled and satisfied with their lives as mothers, and they don't complain.
This new mom had been a mom for only a few days, but already she was beginning to realize that the real world she'd entered was not exactly the picture-perfect world she'd expected. Her real-life experiences kept bumping into her good-mom assumptions and expectations. Suddenly there was a disconnect between reality and the image she thought she should live up to. What kind of mother would she be in this bumpy place?
On the one hand, living within the myths of mothering looked attractive. She longed for the apparently simple happiness assumed in those mythical expectations. Reality seemed so disappointing, and well ... real. On the other hand, the myths, while appearing more appealing on the surface, created exhausting standards to live up to all the time. Wouldn't she feel more honest and relieved to be real?
What was the answer? Myth or reality? Which would be the way to "happily ever after?"
Welcome to the reality of motherhood-a bumpy, wonderful, self-revealing, growing place where a woman faces the constant tension between expectations and reality. Between good-mom myths and real-mom truths.
Okay ... now we're talking. Every one of us trips over the new-mom realities as we enter motherhood. It's not always the pink-and-blue-edged dream we imagined. Ever been peed in the face by a newborn baby boy? You know what we mean. Okay, so you had a girl; how about mustard-filled diapers?
Sure there are great moments of utter wonder. But not every moment fits our mythical expectations, and neither do our responses; we're way more human than we thought we'd be.
Relax. This is normal. The tension between myth and reality has been going on for eons. The word myth comes from mythology, used by the ancient Greeks to describe why things happened when they didn't have a clue. Like what caused lightning or sunrises and sunsets. People believed these myths-explanations-simply because everyone around them repeated them. People did not question whether they were true; they became accepted as truth out of habit. In fact, social scientists today still study how myths shape human behavior.
The same is true with good-mom myths, which are passed down from experienced moms to wanna-be moms or new moms. From mothers-in-law to daughters-in-law. From sappy Mother's Day cards and Mother's Day sermons to the world of mothers at large. These myths stay mysteriously hidden in our hearts and souls until ... wham! Reality hits, and we face choices. What will we believe-myth or reality?
What if we choose to believe the myth?
Certainly that's an easy and tempting choice, because good-mom myths are natural extensions of the many good-girl myths we've grown up pretending to believe. Good girls should act like good girls. Good girls are not overly assertive or aggressive. Good girls don't say bad words. Good girls are nice to everyone. Good girls don't get out-loud angry.
No wonder we little girls have grown into women who have learned to hide our feelings from ourselves and others. We learn to pretend. "How are you?" someone asks. "Fine," we respond automatically, not willing to honestly say that we feel lonely or depressed or afraid at the moment. Most of us pretend that we don't hurt as much as we really do. Or that what we have satisfies more than it really does. We often hide behind carefully constructed masks such as these:
Mask of Happiness: like the mom who puts on a happy face and smiles on the outside, even while she's churning on the inside, because she doesn't always like being a mother, and she doesn't even always like her children. Yet admitting her unhappiness might make her look like a failure or a bad mom. After all, good moms are happy moms.
Mask of Busyness: like the mom who takes on more activities and signs up for more school projects and heads up more committees because busyness makes her feel valuable and keeps her from facing the reality of her self-esteem issues. After all, good moms do it all.
Mask of Silence: like the mom who decides to say nothing to her family about her need for their help, because she doesn't want to run the risk of irritating them. After all, good moms keep everyone happy.
Mask of Denial: like the mom who denies that her child is having a serious problem in school because good moms have good children, and she doesn't want to admit her fears about her child's possible deep needs.
Hiding behind a mask doesn't make the feelings or the realities go away. A mask is a mask. It only covers up the feelings-and the realities. They're still there. There's a better way. Replace the masks and myths with truth. Truth frees us to be real.
That's a promise, passed down by Jesus in a single sentence, that not only appears in the Bible but also has been inscribed on the doors of a zillion institutions of higher learning: "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32).
Free to quit trying to be so good all the time.
Free to acknowledge that there are no perfect families in this world, and no perfect children and no perfect mothers.
Free to admit where we fall short of our own expectations or someone else's.
Free not to feel guilty about not being good enough or home enough or fun enough or patient enough.
Free to become all God created us to be.
But (and this is an important "but!") the truth does not set us free to be rotten moms. Or give us license to be rude or selfish. Or insensitive and uncaring. Or to stay stuck where we are rather than to grow and stretch toward what we can be.
So where does that leave us in the effort to replace myths with truth and to be more real?
Here's a summary.
Good-mom myths pressure us to be something we can't be and don't need to be, something beyond what we were intended to be. The truth sets us free to be honest and growing and vulnerable.
Good-mom myths fill us with impossible "I shoulds." Truth allows us to focus on the "I ams."
Good-mom myths give us idealistic formulas and unrealistic expectations from a "once upon a time" and "happily ever after" perfect world of make-believe. But we don't live there. We are imperfect people living in the midst of imperfect relationships, trying to do our best, while juggling busy schedules on PMS and bad hair days. In the midst of this reality, we can discover personal growth and contentment as we seek to know the truth and to act like we believe the truth. That takes hard work and sometimes feels risky, but the results are worth the effort.
It's time to explode the myths of motherhood with truth that will set you free to be the best mom you can be. This book will show you the way.
What Is a Real Mom? (And What Isn't)
Being real is ...
discovering who you are and being who you are.
knowing what matters most in mothering.
determining what's most important in your season of life.
trying to do what is most important and right, not just what feels the best at the moment.
recognizing the difference between good shoulds and bad shoulds. (Good should: "I should try to stop yelling at my children." Bad should: "I should be able to keep my children happy.")
Being real is not ...
giving up on growing and changing as a person.
being selfish or self-centered.
thinking your way is the right and only way.
being rude or rotten or inconsiderate of others' feelings or needs.
Being real is risky. It is hard work. It is a life-long process.
Real Moms ...
A real mom feels an enormous gulf between the mother she would like to be and the mother she perceives herself to be.
A real mom picks her kids' noses.
A real mom sometimes takes showers for the sole purpose of being able to cry-very hard-if need be.
A real mom puts dirty socks on her kids when the clean ones run out.
A real mom has moments when she wishes she wasn't a mom.
(Continues...)
- SKU: 9780310247036
- UPC: 025986247034
- SKU10: 0310247039
- Publisher: Zondervan
- Date Published: Oct 2002
- Pages: 192
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