Awesome as always!!! As a woman who is now a grandma, I would like to encourage everyone who is slogging through the grind of motherhood. It was so hard but totally worth it!!!
"My guess is that it involves less social media, more time with families in real life, and a whole different way of educating our children for life, love, and virtue. Less sin clouding up everyone’s vision would probably help, too.
....
**Very little that is good in this life comes without suffering and sacrifice.**"
I think you nailed it with the suffering and sacrifice as the core formative dimension. If we try at all costs to escape/eliminate the suffering and sacrifice of ourselves and our children we never get where God intended us to be.
Yes, that is a huge part of it. And not just suffering and sacrificing to achieve a goal of your own (in sports, academics), but suffering and sacrificing for the good of another.
I saw the comments and just shook my head. I remembered that when I was 28 I had been married almost year and was about to welcome our first baby. I was already missing my friends, my job (nurse in Boston) and wondering where this new stage of life would take me. 4 kids later, one married, my last one in college I’m realizing I miss the hard work, the car rides, singing songs etc…those were some of the best days. Now my husband and I are trying to figure out how to be the two of us again…it’s hard and sometimes I miss being a mom to 4 littles. Chappell probably just doesn’t get it. I know that’s how my friends felt at the time.
This was a beautiful essay. The truth is most parents of young children complain about how hard it is but rarely share the joys of parenting. Chappel’s experience isn’t hugely different from mine, none of my friends with kids when I was younger seemed to enjoy it and it made it way less appealing. Eventually I met more people (with older kids make of that what you will) who shared more of the reality of it. But if all young women hear are mothers complaining less will want to have children earlier. Social media posts complaining about children get more likes than those talking about how great it is. The balanced approach Emily has here is what’s needed. Even if the algorithms don’t agree!
I think about of parents in the thick of it just need to focus on finding the joy themselves. It can be easy to lose sight of that. They also need more help. If those two things are there, I think more expressing of joy comes naturally.
As someone who was single for far longer than I wanted to be, and is now married with a baby: wow. I have grappled so deeply with this paradox of joy and challenge as a mother, but even the thought of someone trying to take it away from me brings tears to my eyes.
I think about it often when my time and effort are demanded of me by my baby. It’s hard sometimes, but I really try to maintain wonder and appreciation for what God has given me. That’s hard to share with people because it is so internal and personal for me. Nobody else has faced the same challenge of being my baby’s mom, nor do they have the reward. I am honest with people about it, but love sharing the joys of it too. This is everything I hoped for and God intertwines the ups and downs for a reason! It’s so true that the growth we experience comes through struggle.
Thank you for putting into words so much that's on my heart recently. It felt especially significant as I play the role of human mattress for my personal-space averse toddler. I enjoyed a full and rich single life for most of my adult years as well, and there are many thing I miss about it, but there is nothing that could ever entice me to go back there...not even the promise of a week of full night sleeps. That's not always an easy thing to explain to the world, though.
Also, yay! I'm so happy you've decided to spend some time exploring Ottawa! It really is beautiful and has a lot to offer for families. Consider those dates pencilled in :)
Emily, I'm sure you're not surprised that this hit home for me. Thanks for so beautifully articulating my own feelings and thoughts about singleness vs living this incredibly difficult vocation.
I’m reading this a second time today while rocking my sleeping teething baby in her pill bug position. Some things are hard, really really hard, but I lived a version of lifestyles of the rich and famous before in Europe (Frankfurt, Germany) for years and I’d trade the vacations with travel (which is work btw), fancy gym spa, and looking like I’ve got my career together for the two of them any day or night =) what a waste of time that all felt, but I think God was preparing my heart so I could know it was empty and so that I can experience the fullness of joy that they bring me now
I feel the same. I worry though that a growing number of young people are increasingly are incapable of appreciating the joys of life with little in comparison to all the rest.
Beautifully said, Emily. I, as a mother of ten, was disturbed at Chapelle Roan’s comments. Enough to not want my youngest to even listen to her on the radio. I see so many anti-child and anti-family comments on social media that it feels like an agenda, which of course, it is. If I get tired of anything, it is the constant encroachment of evil, on all sides. Thanks for helping push it back.
I think she is a young woman with a lot of talent, who needs a lot of love and prayers, but yes, I find her whole professional persona problematic. It is a sign of the times and not a good one.
I see so many of those comments too, including seeing women referred to repeatedly as “brood mares”. One person even responded to something I’d posted about my 6 children with the word “gross” and a vomit emoji. Of course I remember hearing the jokes even as a child about parents of large families “needing to get a TV” (which really seems weird—is the argument REALLY that television is more entertaining than sex?!), but this extremely pervasive attitude that children are offensive, that having more than some pre-determined number of children (or maybe even any at all) is disgusting, and that “hating” children is “normal” is really distressing and honestly a mark of a very unhealthy society.
So beautifully said, the truth in this brought tears to my eyes and gratitude to my heart. Will be coming back to this one especially on those “extra hard” days. Thank you!
Thanks for your sane perspective as always, Emily. As someone who has 3 kids under 5 (one with special needs) who is naturally very melancholic, I struggle with the tension between the joy and hardship of family life a lot. Especially the “joy” part, which honestly feels absent from most of our lives as parents in our present stage (both my husband and I have temperaments that mesh very poorly with toddler life, so it’s a crucible for us). While our children are absolutely worth all of the sacrifice and struggle, the “joy” isn’t really something that can be tangibly captured in a cute picture for all the world to see. As you point out, it’s much deeper and complex. I definitely need to be better at recognizing and sharing the joy, but that goodness doesn’t make all the miserable parts go away (kind of like absolution doesn’t erase the material effects of sin). Even if we acknowledge the full beauty of family life, it cannot come at the expense of downplaying the human realities. This is why I hate the phrase “you are enough.” Am I “enough” as a person to mother my children just as I am? Of course. But when it comes to practical needs, not even my husband and I put together are enough (you’ve written other great essays about that very reality). There’s not enough arms, or time, or energy for all of it without substantial help. I haven’t listened to Chappell Roan’s full commentary, but how did it not occur to her that maybe all of her friends are miserable because… they need help? Help that wouldn’t be hard for her to give, and would mutually benefit everyone. So many parents aren’t trying to wallow in their misery-they’re really just crying out for help. Help that the secular world thinks we don’t deserve because we “chose” to have kids, and should therefore suffer the consequences alone. People used to be pretty familiar with family life and shared in all the struggle as neighbors, but now it’s all too common for people to grow up with little to zero exposure to children except what they see on social media and warped representations in popular media. Parents absolutely need ample space to vent to have others acknowledge just how HARD parenthood is so they are affirmed and don’t feel crazy for being inadequate. Like you, we feel like we’re absolutely drowning most of the time, but just saying “it’s all worth it for the baby smiles” feels pretty demeaning, IMO. And that’s often the messaging that comes from Catholic communities too. So when Chappell Roan says her friends with kids are miserable, she’s…not wrong. It’s that the struggles of family life wouldn’t be so miserable if they were more easily shared.
You are in the thick of it. One thing that has helped me tremendously recently is having a child almost at the age of reason. It is amazing the difference that has made. Not just in having a helper, but in seeing that all the work we’ve been doing is actually bearing fruit. That definitely is a consolation as I deal with the chaos of the younger two. You’re right about the help aspect. I so wish our culture were structured differently.
Yeah, we’ve had multiple friends (who went on to have additional kids) tell us that 3 littles was the absolute hardest, and that it got significantly better once the oldest is 7. While our oldest is almost 6, he has a developmental disability, so “7” still feels pretty far away.
I think the joy of motherhood is one and the same as the joy of the cross. It comes from completely giving yourself for others and it is utterly entwined with suffering. As kids get older in some ways it gets easier and in some ways it gets harder.
By all means get as much help as you can and arrange your days so you get little things that spark a bit of joy. Our family motto is “low standards and lots of help” 😅
I wonder how many of these "children are a burden/I'm sooo glad I don't have any" comments come from past experience as well as present observation--how many people in their 20s are, for the first time, really looking at their parents or their friends' parents and realizing how long Mom (or Dad) have been slogging along in a state of misery for years.
When I was in college, I didn't desire marriage at all because I'd seen firsthand how miserable my parents were. It wasn't until I saw some close friends actually living out the sacrament of marriage, valuing healthy communication, working together on important decisions, and really just championing each other that I started to believe that a healthy relationship might be possible. Seeing these same friends have children and working hard to be good, gentle, and loving parents did even more to build my confidence that a healthy family *is* possible!
This isn't to say that Chappell is right in her uncharitable takes on parenthood, but I think for some people, the resistance to children is rooted in a deep fear rooted in the ways their own parents/caregivers failed them, and I can have some empathy for that perspective.
I was reading Fr. Walter Cizeck’s book last year and realized his description of the criminals living in the gulag sounded very similar to my thoughts on motherhood with 2 little kids… “survival.” Things have only gotten harder since getting pregnant again but I’m trying to work on my own expectations to find more joy and being present in the moments not just surviving each day.
Oh my goodness, this was so good. I wish I was 30 years younger - when I was raising my girls - and could have had your writings to help. “But I am terrified of losing this life I have now. I fear losing my husband and babies and our chaotic, messy, exhausting days like I have never feared anything else in my life. It is precious to me. It is holy—a thing of wonder and grace and beauty. I love it. Despite all the chaos and exhaustion, I love it—so completely, so wholly, so deeply, so gratefully.”
I am going to return to this essay many times. Thank you for these beautiful words Emily. Thank you for the camaraderie in this experience raising three little ones! May God give us the grace to sustain us on the hardest days and the knowledge and tools to lead them to Him!
"Some of the struggles that make me feel the most inadequate, like keeping company with a child who is breaking down in rage and frustration, are also the most sacred." This line really resonated with me, as this describes about 50% of my day with one of my children. Being present to him in his struggles and trying to meet everyone else's needs at the same time (plus everything else required of me in life currently) exhausts me to my bones, and yet... in the quiet moments I can only feel an aching love for my children, and the desire for another. It's a wild paradox.
Awesome as always!!! As a woman who is now a grandma, I would like to encourage everyone who is slogging through the grind of motherhood. It was so hard but totally worth it!!!
You are a great reminder of that, Ginny.
"My guess is that it involves less social media, more time with families in real life, and a whole different way of educating our children for life, love, and virtue. Less sin clouding up everyone’s vision would probably help, too.
....
**Very little that is good in this life comes without suffering and sacrifice.**"
I think you nailed it with the suffering and sacrifice as the core formative dimension. If we try at all costs to escape/eliminate the suffering and sacrifice of ourselves and our children we never get where God intended us to be.
Yes, that is a huge part of it. And not just suffering and sacrificing to achieve a goal of your own (in sports, academics), but suffering and sacrificing for the good of another.
I saw the comments and just shook my head. I remembered that when I was 28 I had been married almost year and was about to welcome our first baby. I was already missing my friends, my job (nurse in Boston) and wondering where this new stage of life would take me. 4 kids later, one married, my last one in college I’m realizing I miss the hard work, the car rides, singing songs etc…those were some of the best days. Now my husband and I are trying to figure out how to be the two of us again…it’s hard and sometimes I miss being a mom to 4 littles. Chappell probably just doesn’t get it. I know that’s how my friends felt at the time.
I think about the years ahead often. I know I will miss so, so many things about these days.
This was a beautiful essay. The truth is most parents of young children complain about how hard it is but rarely share the joys of parenting. Chappel’s experience isn’t hugely different from mine, none of my friends with kids when I was younger seemed to enjoy it and it made it way less appealing. Eventually I met more people (with older kids make of that what you will) who shared more of the reality of it. But if all young women hear are mothers complaining less will want to have children earlier. Social media posts complaining about children get more likes than those talking about how great it is. The balanced approach Emily has here is what’s needed. Even if the algorithms don’t agree!
I think about of parents in the thick of it just need to focus on finding the joy themselves. It can be easy to lose sight of that. They also need more help. If those two things are there, I think more expressing of joy comes naturally.
As someone who was single for far longer than I wanted to be, and is now married with a baby: wow. I have grappled so deeply with this paradox of joy and challenge as a mother, but even the thought of someone trying to take it away from me brings tears to my eyes.
I think about it often when my time and effort are demanded of me by my baby. It’s hard sometimes, but I really try to maintain wonder and appreciation for what God has given me. That’s hard to share with people because it is so internal and personal for me. Nobody else has faced the same challenge of being my baby’s mom, nor do they have the reward. I am honest with people about it, but love sharing the joys of it too. This is everything I hoped for and God intertwines the ups and downs for a reason! It’s so true that the growth we experience comes through struggle.
Thank you for putting into words so much that's on my heart recently. It felt especially significant as I play the role of human mattress for my personal-space averse toddler. I enjoyed a full and rich single life for most of my adult years as well, and there are many thing I miss about it, but there is nothing that could ever entice me to go back there...not even the promise of a week of full night sleeps. That's not always an easy thing to explain to the world, though.
Also, yay! I'm so happy you've decided to spend some time exploring Ottawa! It really is beautiful and has a lot to offer for families. Consider those dates pencilled in :)
We are so excited to explore the city. All the pictures look so beautiful!
Emily, I'm sure you're not surprised that this hit home for me. Thanks for so beautifully articulating my own feelings and thoughts about singleness vs living this incredibly difficult vocation.
I’m reading this a second time today while rocking my sleeping teething baby in her pill bug position. Some things are hard, really really hard, but I lived a version of lifestyles of the rich and famous before in Europe (Frankfurt, Germany) for years and I’d trade the vacations with travel (which is work btw), fancy gym spa, and looking like I’ve got my career together for the two of them any day or night =) what a waste of time that all felt, but I think God was preparing my heart so I could know it was empty and so that I can experience the fullness of joy that they bring me now
I feel the same. I worry though that a growing number of young people are increasingly are incapable of appreciating the joys of life with little in comparison to all the rest.
Lisa, I was reflecting very similarly on the emptiness of what I thought was very full but was mostly superficial, thank you!
Beautifully said, Emily. I, as a mother of ten, was disturbed at Chapelle Roan’s comments. Enough to not want my youngest to even listen to her on the radio. I see so many anti-child and anti-family comments on social media that it feels like an agenda, which of course, it is. If I get tired of anything, it is the constant encroachment of evil, on all sides. Thanks for helping push it back.
I think she is a young woman with a lot of talent, who needs a lot of love and prayers, but yes, I find her whole professional persona problematic. It is a sign of the times and not a good one.
I see so many of those comments too, including seeing women referred to repeatedly as “brood mares”. One person even responded to something I’d posted about my 6 children with the word “gross” and a vomit emoji. Of course I remember hearing the jokes even as a child about parents of large families “needing to get a TV” (which really seems weird—is the argument REALLY that television is more entertaining than sex?!), but this extremely pervasive attitude that children are offensive, that having more than some pre-determined number of children (or maybe even any at all) is disgusting, and that “hating” children is “normal” is really distressing and honestly a mark of a very unhealthy society.
This is one of the root causes of her kind of attitude that disturbs me the most.
So beautifully said, the truth in this brought tears to my eyes and gratitude to my heart. Will be coming back to this one especially on those “extra hard” days. Thank you!
Thanks for your sane perspective as always, Emily. As someone who has 3 kids under 5 (one with special needs) who is naturally very melancholic, I struggle with the tension between the joy and hardship of family life a lot. Especially the “joy” part, which honestly feels absent from most of our lives as parents in our present stage (both my husband and I have temperaments that mesh very poorly with toddler life, so it’s a crucible for us). While our children are absolutely worth all of the sacrifice and struggle, the “joy” isn’t really something that can be tangibly captured in a cute picture for all the world to see. As you point out, it’s much deeper and complex. I definitely need to be better at recognizing and sharing the joy, but that goodness doesn’t make all the miserable parts go away (kind of like absolution doesn’t erase the material effects of sin). Even if we acknowledge the full beauty of family life, it cannot come at the expense of downplaying the human realities. This is why I hate the phrase “you are enough.” Am I “enough” as a person to mother my children just as I am? Of course. But when it comes to practical needs, not even my husband and I put together are enough (you’ve written other great essays about that very reality). There’s not enough arms, or time, or energy for all of it without substantial help. I haven’t listened to Chappell Roan’s full commentary, but how did it not occur to her that maybe all of her friends are miserable because… they need help? Help that wouldn’t be hard for her to give, and would mutually benefit everyone. So many parents aren’t trying to wallow in their misery-they’re really just crying out for help. Help that the secular world thinks we don’t deserve because we “chose” to have kids, and should therefore suffer the consequences alone. People used to be pretty familiar with family life and shared in all the struggle as neighbors, but now it’s all too common for people to grow up with little to zero exposure to children except what they see on social media and warped representations in popular media. Parents absolutely need ample space to vent to have others acknowledge just how HARD parenthood is so they are affirmed and don’t feel crazy for being inadequate. Like you, we feel like we’re absolutely drowning most of the time, but just saying “it’s all worth it for the baby smiles” feels pretty demeaning, IMO. And that’s often the messaging that comes from Catholic communities too. So when Chappell Roan says her friends with kids are miserable, she’s…not wrong. It’s that the struggles of family life wouldn’t be so miserable if they were more easily shared.
You are in the thick of it. One thing that has helped me tremendously recently is having a child almost at the age of reason. It is amazing the difference that has made. Not just in having a helper, but in seeing that all the work we’ve been doing is actually bearing fruit. That definitely is a consolation as I deal with the chaos of the younger two. You’re right about the help aspect. I so wish our culture were structured differently.
Yeah, we’ve had multiple friends (who went on to have additional kids) tell us that 3 littles was the absolute hardest, and that it got significantly better once the oldest is 7. While our oldest is almost 6, he has a developmental disability, so “7” still feels pretty far away.
I think the joy of motherhood is one and the same as the joy of the cross. It comes from completely giving yourself for others and it is utterly entwined with suffering. As kids get older in some ways it gets easier and in some ways it gets harder.
By all means get as much help as you can and arrange your days so you get little things that spark a bit of joy. Our family motto is “low standards and lots of help” 😅
I wonder how many of these "children are a burden/I'm sooo glad I don't have any" comments come from past experience as well as present observation--how many people in their 20s are, for the first time, really looking at their parents or their friends' parents and realizing how long Mom (or Dad) have been slogging along in a state of misery for years.
When I was in college, I didn't desire marriage at all because I'd seen firsthand how miserable my parents were. It wasn't until I saw some close friends actually living out the sacrament of marriage, valuing healthy communication, working together on important decisions, and really just championing each other that I started to believe that a healthy relationship might be possible. Seeing these same friends have children and working hard to be good, gentle, and loving parents did even more to build my confidence that a healthy family *is* possible!
This isn't to say that Chappell is right in her uncharitable takes on parenthood, but I think for some people, the resistance to children is rooted in a deep fear rooted in the ways their own parents/caregivers failed them, and I can have some empathy for that perspective.
I was reading Fr. Walter Cizeck’s book last year and realized his description of the criminals living in the gulag sounded very similar to my thoughts on motherhood with 2 little kids… “survival.” Things have only gotten harder since getting pregnant again but I’m trying to work on my own expectations to find more joy and being present in the moments not just surviving each day.
Oh my goodness, this was so good. I wish I was 30 years younger - when I was raising my girls - and could have had your writings to help. “But I am terrified of losing this life I have now. I fear losing my husband and babies and our chaotic, messy, exhausting days like I have never feared anything else in my life. It is precious to me. It is holy—a thing of wonder and grace and beauty. I love it. Despite all the chaos and exhaustion, I love it—so completely, so wholly, so deeply, so gratefully.”
Thanks Emily. Blessed Easter to you all.
I am going to return to this essay many times. Thank you for these beautiful words Emily. Thank you for the camaraderie in this experience raising three little ones! May God give us the grace to sustain us on the hardest days and the knowledge and tools to lead them to Him!
"Some of the struggles that make me feel the most inadequate, like keeping company with a child who is breaking down in rage and frustration, are also the most sacred." This line really resonated with me, as this describes about 50% of my day with one of my children. Being present to him in his struggles and trying to meet everyone else's needs at the same time (plus everything else required of me in life currently) exhausts me to my bones, and yet... in the quiet moments I can only feel an aching love for my children, and the desire for another. It's a wild paradox.