Thoughts on Motherhood :: Building Your House
“The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down.”
– Proverbs 14:1
We have all been there, though I don’t often think about it, at least not in the moment. I think about it after when that mom guilt washes over me like the deep end of the pool. You know those moments where you realize you could have done things a whole lot better and you have a lot of explaining (and probably apologizing) to do. Let me explain:
Who doesn’t want to be a wise woman? However, I have been married for eleven years now and my husband … God bless him. Sometimes, he just annoys me. He chews too loud, he makes WAY too many dad jokes, and while he is chilling on the couch noticing absolutely nothing, I am running circles around him. He forgets my son’s nap-mat so often and I’m not going to lie, I want to throw him under the bus. Sometimes I do throw him under the bus, rather aggressively. However, the truth is my words mean something.
I grew up in a home where I honestly cannot remember my mom saying anything positive ever about my dad. So it irks me when I hear myself talking negatively about my husband to my kids. I think because mostly I remember how much of an impact her comments had on what we believed about our dad. However, I am finding now as a wife and mother, it is so easy to do. After all, why would I take the blame for something HE did? However, the truth of the matter is that some of that is unnecessary. Do I really need to tell his teacher that it is his dad forgetting his nap mat? Do I have to tell my kids that dad is being lazy and never does anything around the house? (By the way, my husband does do a lot, but in those moments it feels to me like he doesn’t.) Maybe even most of the things I say that are negative are unnecessary. My husband and I are supposed to be a team so saying the negative things about him in front of the kids is honestly destructive. I don’t think of it like this most times, but really it is.
Not only my husband, but my kids too. I have to ask myself with them, “am I building my house or tearing it down?” Yes, it is annoying when my son spills milk EVERY time he eats cereal. It is frustrating when my baby is losing her mind over something that I know is not that big of a deal. Sometimes, I find myself saying things that are probably a little more destructive. However, when I think about the future and the voice I want my kids to hear when they come across something challenging for them, I want it to be my voice telling them that they can do it and that they are good enough. No, I do not believe we should lie to them and tell our vertically challenged child that they are the next Shaq. However, I do believe that I can do more to help them understand that they are gifted in their own ways, and that they can do more than they think they can. I think there are positive things I can say to each of them to help them grow into who they were meant to be. I’m not always the best at this, but I sure want to be.
Lastly, wherever we are, there is always time to apologize and be real with our children. We are not going to be perfect, however there is time for us to say we are sorry for the ways we have torn them down or been discouraging (though a lot of this is probably unintentional).
There is time to change and be sure that your kids are being built up and strengthened instead of torn down and crushed, that your family as a whole is being built up. I realize there are a lot of tough situations. For example, perhaps you are not with your children’s father and perhaps for very good reason. Perhaps your kids have some super destructive behaviors themselves. However, we can still ask ourselves how what we are saying about their father, or them, is affecting them and whether that is beneficial or not. As a mother, you literally do have the ability to not only set the emotional temperature of your home, but even more so to build the next generation. I think this is the challenge for me, and really for all of us.
May we all choose to be wise.
