Are You Ready for the Turning Point of Motherhood?

Today I wanted to share something I have been reflecting on for the past few weeks.

In learning about Montessori, I have realized how little we respect children. And hand-in-hand with this, how little we respect motherhood.

Motherhood feels small, insignificant, unseen.

Especially for stay-at-home moms, we ask ourselves, what does it matter if I am on my phone all day? If the children watch shows all day? If we eat meals with no thought put into them?

We All Struggle Sometimes

No one is overseeing our work. Making sure it is done with precision and care. No one is assessing that we meet certain requirements.

The tasks of motherhood are, without a doubt, challenging.

Because children are difficult sometimes. They can feel so inconvenient in their slowness, their inability to communicate, their stubbornness.

And housework with children is not unlike shoveling while it is snowing.

Too often our tasks feel futile, meaningless, monotonous, boring, uninspired, inferior to the tasks of a career. So we hurry through our duties, avoid them. Procrastinate and complain. We treat our children as inconveniences and count down the hours until naptime, and then bedtime.

Too often we can come to this place of dragging ourselves through life.

There Has to be a Better Way

I was contemplating all of this, contemplating the inevitable slumps I fall into with the monotony of motherhood and housework, when I was inspired to read about gifts.

After all, I believe we are all given a vocation.

My vocation, as is many of yours, is to be a parent, and with this vocation, we are given the gifts and tools we need to do this work well. My research led me to Romans twelve:

Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given us, let us exercise them: if one is over others, with diligence; if one does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. Romans 12: 8

I am over others.

I am over my children: raising people, raising the future, so I am called to do my work with diligence. This is a gift, a grace.

Keep on Shovelling, that Snow is Sanctifying You

Sometimes, while raising children, there are these big, important moments. When they learn to walk, when they tell a big lie or steal, when they graduate, when they have their first broken heart. Moments that require us to actively teach, guide, mold.

But mostly, raising children is hidden in the menial tasks of wiping spilled supper, driving them to soccer practice, vacuuming, sitting and doing a puzzle, reading a book, changing wet sheets.

These are the moments I am asked to do diligently, with careful and persistent work and effort. Not because they are of such great importance in themselves, but because this is the turning point.

• Do I drag myself through my years of parenthood?
• Or do I elevate them, menial task by menial task, turning them into a prayer?

Next week I will talk a little bit about how you can turn your tasks into prayer, according to the wise words of Catherine Doherty.

I am learning that my daily life may be unseen, but my life's work is of the utmost importance.

While I do not have a boss here in this home with me, no one checking the drawers for neatly folded clothing, the children's faces for smears of peanut butter, I believe God will look them over someday, the perfectly familiar folds of my children's souls, and judge me for the work I have done.

I wanted to just close by saying this does not mean that every day, every moment will be perfect. I am sure there will continue to be moments of monotony, as I am still human, after all. But I hope this can serve as a reminder that those small moments can, and have been, so much more.


Want to read the book that first inspired me to do the duty of the moment with cheerfulness and a heart of service? Catherine Doherty, in all her wisdom, really changed my life through The People of the Towel and Water.

Thank you for reading! If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me. I would also love to hear any suggestions for posts you would like me to write about. And if you are interested in following along in our daily adventures, follow us on Instagram where I post daily.

God bless,
Olivia Fischer