10 Habits of Happy Mothers: Say No to Competition

This is probably my favorite chapter.

If only we could eradicate competition in the mommyhood. Oh! the friendships there would be. Oh! the work that would get done. Oh! the creativity unleashed. Oh! the peace that comes of knowing we are well loved.

Instead we compare. And we compete. And in so doing we defeat ourselves and our neighbors. What a huge waste of potential. What a thwarting of God's will. 

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Dr. Meeker writes, "We want to stop competing, but we are scared to death. In out hearts we long to just simply be. We know that life is more than producing and competing and we wonder, Why can't we simply live differently? What would happen if we pulled back, slowed down, and rested for a while? Would we be okay?"

Is this an American thing? Are we just taught from a very young age to compete? There's that whole academic competition thing, even in little girls. And then, many of us heard our mothers competing with other mothers. The ways women compete with one another seem timeless: how big is your home? how beautifully decorated? how clean? how fit are you? how blonde? how thin? how well paid? how well educated? And we haven't even begun to discuss your success as measured by the achievements of your husband and children. 

Why are we "scared to death" to stop competing? What harm can possibly come of that? Someone will get ahead of us? Play that out in your head a minute. Ahead of where? Ahead how? How does the success of the mom next door at all impede our own personal progress? If she's an awesome wife and mother, does that somehow make me less of a wife and mother?

No.

I am called uniquely to this one (dashingly handsome) man. And I am called uniquely to these nine children. No one else can answer this call, never mind answering it better than I do. It's my call. Only mine. 

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Mothering is not a competitive marketplace. And you know what? Homeschooling isn't a competitive endeavor either. Neither is crafting home. Or cooking family meals. Or loving your man. "Being competitive professionally can be good, as long as healthy boundaries are maintained. But when it come to being competitive in relationships as mothers, we always lose. Always."

So why do we do it?

Because we are insecure. Because we need affirmation and validation, some of us desperately. Dr Meeker points out that we have been conditioned to size up and judge our neighbor and that some of us don't even see it coming. We measure her against ourselves because we are afraid we aren't good. (I didn't say "good enough"--my mail indicates some of us don't think we are good at all.) We compare. And then we compete. And then we complain.

It's funny (sort of); a few years ago, I wrote a column about women comparing and the unhappiness it caused. Instead of "Quit Comparing," the title I gave it, the copy editor at the paper mistitled it, "Quit Complaining." That's what happens, though. We compare and we compete and inevitably, we complain.(They fixed it at the Herald, but you can read it here, still mistitled.) Comparison and competition breed discontent. 

We have to get a grip on this. Dr. Meeker believes that saying "no" to competition is crucial to all the other habits. "Breaking the habit of of competing helps break many other important habits in areas we're examining: money issues, living more simply, loving others better, improving friendships. [Stop for a moment and think of all those issues in light of competition: she's got a point, doesn't she?] If we can't get our drive to compete under control, we will have great difficulty getting the other habits under control as well.

So, we need to really examine our insecurities. Comparing and competing are bred in insecurity. I think that's an intensely personal process best done in prayer. And then shared with our spouses and maybe a close personal friend. Look hard at them. Stare them down. Bring them into the light of day and watch them shrivel. 

Be rid of them. 

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That's all for now. I'm off to capture the glory of the morning with a new lens. Literally. At the suggestion of someone who could easily be a blog competitor, but chooses instead to be a close personal friend, I have taken Michael's lens as my own until I get a new one for myself. And I'm literally seeing my world differently. In the email where--quite out of the blue--she suggested a new lens, she opened a flood of fresh ideas and happy thoughts. 

How to abolish competition?

Encourage instead.

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{{This post is the 7th in a series discussing The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers: Reclaiming our Passion, Purpose, and Sanity.}}

The rest of our discussions of  The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers: Reclaiming our Passion, Purpose, and Sanity can be found here. The first two conversations are 

Part 1(discussing Habit 1)

Part 2 (still discussing Habit 1)

Part 3 (still more on Habit 1)

Part 4 (Habit 2: key friendships)

Part 5 (Habit 2: your thoughts on friendship_

Part 6 (Habit 3: Value and Practice Faith)

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10 Habits of Happy Mothers: Your Thoughts On Friendships

We're discussing The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers: Reclaiming our Passion, Purpose, and Sanity. The first two conversations are 

Part 1(discussing Habit 1)

Part 2 (still discussing Habit 1)

Part 3 (still more on Habit 1)

Part 4 (Habit 2: key friendships)

 

I find it tricky to write about friendship, sort of like I find it tricky to write about marriage. Well, not exactly. It's tricky to write about friendship because I'd never want my friends to feel like our relationships have been reduced to so much blog fodder. Nor would I want to betray a trust or to air dirty laundry (mine or someone else's). In those ways it's like writing about marriage. When I write about marriage, though, I can show everything I've written to Mike before I ever publish it. We can talk about it, side by side, and reach a mutual consensus. I can be absolutely certain there is no misunderstanding. With friendship, that's not possible. So, it's tricky not to offend or to be misunderstood. I thought about just moving on from this topic and avoiding the whole challenging issue. But the comments last week were heartfelt and compelling and they deserve to be acknowledged. Also, I want to hear what you have to say. 

So, I'm going to draw upon those comments and my mail and speak to the common experience of us all. I beg you not to read anything else into my thoughts.

San wrote:

The making of food not only meets a basic need but is a tangible reminder of nurturing from one soul to another. Often we cannot change the circumstances a person is experiencing but we can lighten the load by offering practical help where possible.

A thought also that, it is OK to ask for help, so often I have struggled on unnecessarily because I have lacked the courage to turn to others during times of need.

Also on the topic of food, Barbara wrote:

Bringing food to a mom in need can be an act of kindness and solidarity, but isn't always an act of friendship. Friendly isn't always friendship. Does that make sense? That doesn't devalue the dinner, though.

For example, I think the food that meant the most to Elizabeth was brought on the spur of the moment by someone who knew her well, knew her unspoken need, and cared enough to take action.

I've brought food to many women over the years, but I think the most appreciated was the set of frozen entrees I took to someone whose husband had a long term illness. I didn't see her often, but as life happened I set aside extras from our meals, eventually bringing her a stash. She knew I had been thinking about her and praying for her. Yet even so, we aren't close friends. I wasn't expecting it, so it's not a disappointment. Those meals were acts of love, but friendship takes more than love.

I think that these are valuable points.  Dr. Meeker's examples were definitely of the friendship variety. She cited women who were good friends and made meals for other women. Many of us have experience with meals ministry. As Barbara differentiates, those are acts of kindness, but not necessarily genuine friendships. Very valuable acts of kindness I might add. It's funny for me to read this quote from Barbara. It was Barbara whom I called in utter panic seconds after leaving the midwife on my way to have an urgent c-section. Who was going to manage my house? She was. That's a friendship call, not a generalized call. San's point here is a good one. It's difficult for many of us to ask for help. To be vulnerable. To show our weaknesses. I think that even in cases where a deep friendship doesn't exist, when women ask and women answer that genuine call, friendships can develop. A bond is often forged in a time of need. 

Barbara also wrote:

Friendships do need an investment of time on both sides. I don't make enough effort, being caught up with my home and family and schooling and activities. Other times I want a deeper friendship but she won't invest the time. If I'm always the one initiating or traveling or putting in the most time, maybe it's not meant to be an inner friendship. That's disappointing, especially if it's the drifting apart of a close friendship rather than a potential one that isn't working out.

I found that thought really interesting in light of what Amy wrote:

It was helpful to read about inner and outer circle friends, but it highlighted some things I have been struggling with. As Dr. Meeker said, inner circle friends take time, and it is hard for me to carve out that time when I am homeschooling and housekeeping without sacrificing time I could be spending with my husband (yes, truly my dearest friend) or kids. To maintain several inner circle friends seems like it is requiring a lot of time. I was lonely for years and prayed for good friends, so I know this is a blessed problem to have, but I am also concerned about balancing it all.

And Marie echoed the thought:

Although I understand the point made, I wonder if there might be a flip side to being unbalanced in the other direction. In other words, having a circle of friends is yet another pressure women/mothers put on themselves. I see a lot of women these days running themselves ragged getting involved in activities so that they and their children might have friends. Many other important things are sacrificed at this altar, home-life, family relationships, meals together, etc.
While I'm not saying "no" effort needs to be made, I believe this is an area you can really trust God in. Especially if you have the very pressing responsibilities of raising a large family, small children and homeschooling, which generally doesn't afford a lot of time for outside social outlets. 

I think Amy's experience is a common one. I think it's the experience of moms with careers outside the home and I know it's the experience of mothers of many children. And it's the experience my husband voices again and again, so I am quite sure it's not just a girl thing. When we hear God's call to have a large family and then, possibly, to educate them at home, our life is going to look different. The calls on our time by our families are real; they are necessary; and they are incessant. Literally. Mothers of large families and homeschooling mothers don't have the discretionary time other women do. The same, I think, can be said for fathers. My husband works really long hours. When he has time "off," he spends it with his kids. It sounds harsh to say that a woman can prioritize herself right out of a friendship, but I think it's true. There are seasons when our inner circle might be just one woman and our outer circle might be two. And that's all the time we have.

Tangentially, I think this is the draw of the internet for mothers at home with small children and/or big families. They know they can't travel--they are in the car all the time transporting children hither and yon and they truly don't have time to meet a friend for lunch. They go no where without a nursing baby in tow and find that the challenge of getting out with four children under six is just too exhausting most days. But they can squeeze in a conversation on the internet while waiting for a pot to boil. And they can share ideas with other women all over the world while baby sleeps in a sling in a rare moment of silence. 

Can those friendships be inner circle ones? Should they be? 'Tis truly a matter for prayer.

 Is it possible that a dry spell in friendships is an opportunity? The two highest prority friendships in our lives are God and husband. Liz wrote:

Recently, I have had the idea come to me (Holy Spirit prompting?) that perhaps the reason why my prayers for a "best friend" have seemingly gone unanswered, is that Jesus has been quietly waiting for me to become His best friend. Waiting to have a more personal relationship with me. Some people may be led to Christ through their friendships, whereas for others, perhaps Christ is waiting to show them TRUE friendship and thus lead them to true friends.

I must admit when I read stories like Elizabeth's about her best friend Martha who shared so much with her, my initial reaction is to feel jealous, and to long for that kind of friend with whom to share my journey of motherhood. But for now, I am concentrating on building my friendship with Christ, to share my loneliness despite being surrounded by friends, to connect on that deeper level with HIM, and then trust that the graces will flow.

Martha and I shared every day when our first children were little. When I was pregnant with Mary Beth (my fourth), she moved to England with her husband and four children. Those were early internet days. We weren't yet plugged in. Within weeks of her leaving, I was pregnant, in a new house, in a new town, far, far from my best friend. In the 15 years since, I have had five more children and she has moved back to the town where we met, but I am no longer there. All four of her children went to school and now, she is nine months away from an empty nest. I have a two year old and eight children still at home. Our lives look very different and we definitely drifted. Still, I cherish that friendship with all my heart. Do friends move in and out of different circles?  Perhaps they do.

In that gaping hole after she left for England, I poured God. I look back on that time and see that He was my only refuge. Perhaps not incidentally, Mike was working 80-hour weeks during that season of our lives. Maybe it was all part of His plan.

Do God and husband move in and out of circles? Do they ever drift away? No. And yes, I think those relationships deserve our wholehearted investment.

I also think that as we prioritize and invest in our families, we are investing in the friendships of our future. My very favorite quote in my book, Real Learning, is this one:

Be a friend to your child. Listen with interest. Speak with courtesy. Think of him as a friend. When he behaves in a way that would not be desired in your best friend, speak the truth in love. Must you correct or admonish? Of course you must. For this is a child. And while he is your friend, he is still growing. You must shape him so that he is a good friend. Shortly before he died, Col. Mike Pennefather, who was known in our local Catholic community as an exemplary father and a wonderful friend to the homeschooling community, wrote an article in which he referred to his seven grown children as his “best friends on this planet.” What an incredible tribute! With that simple phrase — best friends on this planet — he speaks both of the beauty of their relationship and of the integrity and worth of his children. Think of working toward that goal. Yes, we need to form our children. We want them to be worthy and loving friends. We absolutely need to guide them with loving firmness. And we need to nurture and cultivate our relationship with them. We need to be good friends to them so that they learn how to be good friends. I am not advocating that you relinquish authority. To do so would be to plunge your children into a sea of confusion and bewilderment. I am simply advocating that you treat children with the respect and gentleness of an excellent mentor, an older and wiser friend, whose strength is that she inspires the heart of her student. 

I see this coming true. We are not our children's friends when they are children. And we are their parents forever. But what nobler purpose than to work with the Creator to form children into the best friends we could hope to have? Isn't this what we want? For them to grow into the kind of people whom we would choose for our very best friends.

That's all I  have time for a for today. I want to leave you with Megan's hopeful thoughts:

My heart aches for those who feel hurt or threatened by this chapter. Women's hearts are so fragile and yet so rich. Too many hurts, too many reasons to throw up the walls and form a solid barrier between ourselves and the rest of the world.
Gentleness. We need it, and we can give it. The world is so so harsh. 
Joy. The world needs it, and we can give it. It can be shown with one smile. 
Maintaining key friendships is an investment. But it is one worth the time and effort. Like our relationship with Christ. Don't we WANT to spend time with those we love dearly?
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After receiving meals for over a month after baby #6 (via c-section) I know it's time to pay it forward. Like the tide, it ebbs and flows. Gentleness and Joy, Charity and Magnanimity. We women have beautiful gifts to give.

What are your thoughts?

 

 

10 Habits of Happy Mothers: Maintain Key Friendships

After three really good conversations on Habit 1 (one, two, and three), I think we're ready to move on to Habit 2. Am I the only one who made casseroles for people after reading this chapter? It's 110 degrees and there I was in the kitchen, inspired to bestow the friendship of a casserole. Maybe that's just me. 

My hard copy of The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers: Reclaiming our Passion, Purpose, and Sanity is all marked up throughout this chapter. I think I'll just walk through it and share with you what I found noteworthy. 

No perfection is needed. Love is required but even that can be woefully broken,  because at the end of the day what we really need as mothers is a friend who simply stays. Because when she stays, we know that we are loved.

I think this speaks to the quality of friends that allows us to trust them with our hearts. Over time, we learn that they are connected--bonded, if you will-- and so that they can be trusted to keep loving us even if we show our failures and our weaknesses. For some women, baring our souls in this way is extremely difficult and it takes years to build that kind of trust. Bruised and broken relationships in our past, childhoods without unconditional love, can make women skeptical that such a friend even exists. It takes loving patience to befriend a broken woman and to show her that faithfulness in friendship really does exist.

The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved. ~ Bl. Mother Teresa

It is hard to laugh without feeling pleasure or enjoyment. Believe it or not, many mothers subconsciously refuse to let themselves feel pleasure. This sounds peculiar, but it is true. Mothers who sacrifice, protect, and martyr themselves take themselves and their behaviors extremely seriously. And when life is serious, there is little room for joy, because joy doesn't feel serious. It feels fun and light and brings with it a sense of vulnerability.

I thought this quote very interesting. I think that Christian women live this idea to an extreme sometime. We are all about sackcloth and ashes. I disagree with the idea that there is little room for joy when life is serious, but I think I understand the point she's making. Instead of "serious" I think I'd substitute "intentional." When we live our lives intentionally, taking seriously the charge to live every moment as our Creator intended, there is still room for joy. We can see the joy He wants for us. So, the serious intentionality does happily coexist with joy.

That said, does laughter and overt happiness bring with it a sense of vulnerability? I think it does. I heartily agree that women can be afraid to laugh, to have fun, to embrace the good with a full-on bear hug. Because it makes us vulnerable. It puts us out there where we can be disappointed or disillusioned. Because it's just plain scary sometimes to be happy.

Where love stops, chicken pot pies take over. There is an understanding what while the blender whirls and the oven preheats, the friend in pain is being remembered in her hurt. The cook is thinking of her, wondering how she is faring, what she is experiencing. While friends cook, they slide their feet into the shoes of the hurting mom in order to participate a bit in the pain she feels.

I have been the beneficiary of so many lovingly prepared meals in my mothering years. After every baby, meals for weeks on end. I still remember in crisp detail the gorgonzola and grape salad my friend Martha brought over after I returned home the day of my first miscarriage. And I am certain that I will remember to my dying day a perfectly prepared hamburger (sans the bun) and a tomato and fresh mozzarella salad my friend Megan just happened by with one day in the middle of my pregnancy with Karoline. I had gotten myself in that "I know I need to eat but I'm so beyond the need I can't think straight" place. While we talked on the phone, she was cooking all the time and then she just appeared with that plate. Heaven. She was an angel. My children still talk about how, when I was in the hospital on bedrest with Sarah, Mrs. Smith found out that Karoline loved to eat peaches and then went and bought enough to last until the baby came. I believe from the bottom of my heart that we are designed to love one another around a table. I think that much of our human experience happens in the breaking of the bread. I'm so saddened when I hear of family who never eats family meals. To me, the emphasis on food and its place in a friendship is not overstated.  

We will need an inner circle and outer circle of friends, if you will; women who satisfy our longing for intimate emotional connection and others who provide comfort and affection on a lighter level.

I needed to see this in print. I think it's something I have learned over the last decade, but it helps to have Meg Meeker crystallize the thought. For most of my adult life, I operated on the "one level" friendship model. I worked hard to make deep and lasting friends. I gave of myself, perhaps too freely, and I trusted too quickly. I thought the goal was to be and to have only what Mrs. Meeker calls "inner circle" friends. Now, I've learned that distance isn't a bad thing or even an inferior thing; it's a necessary thing.  Both circles are important and necessary.

The hallmarks of inner circle friendships are trust, maturity, and faithfulness, all of which work together to cultivate the deep love between us.

I have thought about this quote for nearly two months. I've weighed it against every good, solid, longterm friendship I have. I held it up to the friendships I've seen die. Yep. It holds up. She nailed it. Those are the hallmarks. I might add that a shared faith is also necessary, but maybe that's just for me.

[Inner circle friendships] require attention, diligence, and emotional elbow grease on our parts. Like a marriage, they need honing sweat, and time.

To this, I would add that friendships lack the sacramental grace of marriage and they lack the commitment. It is ok to walk away from a friendship. And sometimes, it's the right thing to do.The challenge is to know when to stay and work on it and when to acknowledge it's time to move on.

One of my mantras to the parents of teenagers in my practice is "Be careful if you have a really nice girl; they are the ones who get into trouble." Girls who are kind, polite, ethical, and bright find themselves doing things that they don't want to do simply because they don't want to hurt others' feelings."

This one is so true. I know it has been true in my life and I can already see how it might play itself out in my daughters' lives. I think that having it in print will give us all a good, solid springboard for ongoing conversations about the fine balance between goodness and danger.

No female friend can meet all of our needs so we shouldn't expect one to.

This quote is interesting. I have only one complaint about this book. I think the author missed a big chunk by failing to talk enough about the role a good marriage has in a mother's happiness. I hope that when we reach the end of this study , we can fill in the gap on our own here. My husband tells me all the time that I am his best friend. And he is truly the only person on this planet that I completely trust and to whom I completely abandon myself. My girlfriends are valuable and necessary and I think Mike is the first person to be grateful for their role in my life. But he is my best friend on earth.

And even he can't meet every need. 

A truly happy mother has a real and living friendship with Jesus.

Women friends are vital because they help us become or stay emotionally more stable. They lift us out of despair, they make us laugh when we want to sob, they force us to keep living when we don't want to.

There was a time in my life when I would have thought this statement melodramatic. But now I know the feeling in the pit of one's stomach when you know that the person on the other end of the phone is in so much pain that really she just wants the world to stop turning. And you can't turn back the clock. And you can't change the horror in her life. And you can't alleviate the pain. But she needs you say something, anything. Because she needs to hear your voice and she wants, somewhere deep down, someone to tell her how to keep going.

The deep mystery of friendship is its intense security which accepts us exactly as we are and at the same time yearns for us to change, to improve and live a better life. 

Intense security. I don't think that can be overstated.

This sentiment reminds me of the pledge Ann Voskamp shared last year:

"I promise I will never speak an unkind word to or about you. I will never be jealous of you. I will never compete with you. I will never abandon or betray you. I will love you. I will pray for you. I will do all I can to help you go far and wide in the Kingdom. 

I will accept you as you are, always. I will be loyal to you. Before our loving God of grace, you have my words and my heart in friendship for this life and forever with Him.” 

 

Yarn Along: Filling Up

I have a bajillion posts in my head: lovely kindergarten ideas for the 3-6 year old bunch, carefully crafted learning plans for everyone else (including a plan for Nick that literally kept me up all night, I was so excited), a very happy boy and his new golf clubs, sewing success for an 8-year-old at quilt camp, a pair of favorite jeans that I love even more, sewing projects all stacked up and pretty...

 

Sigh. 

 

There is this gap between doing and blogging and it's wide these days. Because doing is just so full. I had a beautiful day yesterday with my best friend from college. We filled up on girl talk and early childhood education talk and mom of big kids talk. It was a whole day of filling our tanks. I'm brimming over. 

Happy.

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And I finished this sweet sweater last night (Sweater details on Ravelry), knitting in bed with my big girl while she told me all about her time at the Franciscan Youth Conference. She made a mistake on her blue sweater that left her 57 stitches short at a critical juncture. We worked through it together (I even did the math) and her sweater is going to be even lovelier for the mistake (now fixed). I'm certain there's much, much more to say there.

I'm reading Mere Christianity these days. Simply God. It's good to visit with old friends again and remind oneself of essential truths, no?

It's good. 

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Go visit Ginny for more knitting and reading tales.I've settled into a Wednesday afternoon tradition: a big cup of tea and enough time to myself to click through a big bunch of the links at Ginny's. I am enriched by the yarns shared there.  Might not happen today, as I scramble to get out the door to register teens for dual enrollment credit at the community college, but say "hi" to everyone at Ginny's for me.

Dear Friend, Please come visit.

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I promise you that I will not spend days and days cleaning my house before you arrive. I will not stuff the evidence of life lived here into far recesses of closet corners you will never see. I will not pretend that the life we live here is always ever perfectly ordered. I will not seek to impress you. Instead, I will endeavor to befriend you.

I will make sure that nothing gross will surprise you in the bathroom. I'll probably plump the cushions on the couch. I'll make you something good to eat and share with you endless of pitchers of green tea lemonade. Instead of coaxing my children to scour and shine, I will share with them the fun of expecting company. 

I tell you all this--I'm doing it this way--because I trust you. And I want to be your friend. I trust that you are coming to spend time with me, not to judge me or take notes or compare me to anyone else. And I promise you that when I come to your house, I'm coming for you--your company and that alone. I trust you with who I really am, imperfect though that may be. I trust that the half-finished paint job will make you smile in ready recognition that you have been there, done that, too. I'm going to throw open my doors--and my heart--and be real with you. 

Because that's what friends do.

And you're my friend, in every sense of the word.

Love,

Elizabeth