#21. Choosing Timely Motherhood

In article #17. How Mums and Dad’s Might (Accidentally) Reform Churches, we’ve landed on the doorstep of our prime duty as parents; the great task for which God made marriage; the reason for being busy at home. God made marriages to allow us to worship in particular ways, a man and woman, together, raising godly offspring. The Bible gives a picture of family as the place where parents lead their children into living as God’s people. 

In the weeks since that article, I’ve described a few of our stumbling blocks (here, here and here). We’ve worked out that some limitations exist by God’s good design. There are others that come from sin in the world. We know that Jesus is Lord of both. We’ve considered how the Lordship of Jesus gives meaning to the temporary things of earth. We’re comforted by his Lordship and sobered by the fact that whatever our situation, it’s on trust from the Lord and for him.

We wake up every morning (and probably several times a night) feeling our package of limitations—the good, the fallen and the redeemed. For all our powerlessness, there is something Jesus has given us a small dominion over, there is still one thing we can change. Not the motion of time, not the fact that it moves whether we’re ready or not, but how we use it.

A lack of time undermines the duties of motherhood. The thing is, anyone who has the luxury of reading (or writing) these words is in a position to choose how their time is spent. We are among the few who have more choice than all the women who have ever lived. If we don’t have time for the conditions in which family piety grows, it’s because we’re choosing to use our time in a way that inhibits it.

We can’t say yes to raising children for God without saying no to other things. When we don’t have time to do the job, the job doesn’t get done the way it ought to be. We take on peripheral duties which rival the core duties, crowding out the good we owe. Motherhood is most drained and draining when our duties are disordered, when we’re missing the work of the hour. When we’re feeling the pressure of the extra responsibilities we sign up to, we are often then upset when someone comes along suggesting that we need to do more. My point at LIght Duties isn’t to say “do more”, but, “do differently”. Part of the different way is doing fewer things which deplete our resources for the God-ordained basics. Disordered duties aren’t usually about choosing something bad, but choosing a good thing at the wrong time.

When duty is disordered, our kids are harder to enjoy. The harder they are to enjoy, the less likely we will want to be with them. Even if we are with them, it’s hard to have enough mental space clear to think about using that time well. We find ourselves so overwrought that we spiral into unwise patterns of survival. This has a formative effect on our whole family. In breathless desperation, we might stumble upon some good advice for helping our toddler grow toward maturity, but then are soon discouraged that all the advice presupposes one thing: that we are with our very young child—and paying attention—most of the time. It isn’t hard to find good advice on how to parent as a Christian, we don’t need more books on how to raise children in a godly way. The shortage we have is time to read them and time to implement the wisdom we find there. We can’t get around the fact that God made children to grow and learn in certain ways. These ways take a lot of time together, time wisely ordered. We can’t do the work of raising very young children into godliness if we’re not with them. Since it takes God-given parental authority to fulfil our responsibility, no one can substitute for us without a handover of parental authority. But I jump ahead, authority is a thread for future articles.

To gain the time motherhood demands will sometimes mean big changes. For some families, it means backing out of the mortgage that relies on two incomes (which leads them to live somewhere completely different). It might mean tempering an interest that monopolises time and energy elsewhere. It might mean adjusting our goals, choosing something which looks less ambitious, so that we’re free to cultivate our work closer to home. Maybe the early years of raising kids is not the time for tertiary study. It’s not that the interest or the work somewhere else aren’t good, it’s a case of timeliness. You might be freer to do those other things down the track. You can’t suddenly start parenting a sixteen-year-old the way you should have trained them when they were two. There is a phase of mothering which lays a foundation for what the rest will look like. If we miss our cue in the very dependent years, we don’t get to go back for a rerun.

We have been given limited time. We can’t do it all. If we have been given children, then there will be a season when our limited time ought to be mostly filled raising these children. We are always making tradeoffs. For each choice taken we dismiss a thousand others. Doing good will mean we are regularly saying no to other good things. Just like marriage (saying yes to one means saying no to everyone else), this is the way it should be. The narrowing is God’s design. The narrowed path is where happiness sits in ambush.

It’s tempting to dismiss the issue as being peripheral to Christian life. But Paul mixes the questions of marriage and parenting in with the more obvious spiritual fight against darkness. If you look at the whole of Ephesians 5 and 6, you’ll see it. He goes from saying:

‘For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. This is why it is said:

“Wake up, sleeper,

rise from the dead,

and Christ will shine on you.”

Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.’ (Eph 5:8-17)

to talking about wives and husbands, parents and children a few verses later. Following his words on family in 5:21-6:4, he talks about putting on the armour of God for our spiritual warfare. It’s all connected. Making the most of every opportunity is more than finding moments to tell others about Jesus. In this context, it’s making the most of every opportunity to live wisely, discerning and conforming to what pleases the Lord. Making time to do marriage and mothering God’s way is part of our spiritual warfare in the world.

God is not holding us accountable for all the possible goods which need to be done in the world everywhere all the time. We get to discern, of all the good which could be done, the particular things the Lord has made us responsible for now. Timely good will often be the one that cannot be done at another time or by someone else. A wife with children has responsibilities—opportunities—which she didn’t have when she was single or childless. She has responsibilities which will alter if she becomes a widow, or when her children are older. Timely obedience to Jesus means recognising the opportunities our duties bring now, and discerning how they are different from the past and future. It’s the right kind of FOMO to have—not that we’ll miss something for ourselves, but that we’ll miss the temporary opportunity to do a crucial duty. Choosing well for the sake of good motherhood will sometimes look like choosing badly to everyone else. But it’s a work of light in the heavenly realms.