You are so fragile when a new baby is born.  You have just been through a very hard physical trial.  A powerful emotional experience.  Exhausted, hormones causing all kinds of trouble. I think all of this, including the pain, brings you to the place you need to be to start being a mother. You have given  a year of your health (and that's assuming you are back to normal in 3 months?!) You would give your life for this child.  You WILL give your life for this child, day by day. She needs you to live.  You want so badly to do this well.

You start recovering on little sleep, and baby starts the hard job of sucking and managing that tummy. As you gaze into her eyes, you dream of protecting and loving and putting all good things in her path.

That picture in your head is strong.  It makes you do things that are too hard for you. It changes your behaviour.  Makes you strive to be better.  To be a wonderful mother to this precious little one.

Common mother feeling- that you are falling short, muddling through, never quite accomplishing anything, and all on too little sleep.          

Another common mother feeling- that what you are doing is very, VERY important.

It IS very important and this is how it works.

You get to decide what your family will be like.
What your home will be like.  How it will feel.  
What happens there.  What DOESN'T happen there.

It is custom made by you using-

your vision of it - your dream
your talents - you have alot.  What are they?
your personality
your love
your faith - what you believe
your family's needs

I believe that the children we have are ours for a reason.  That you are, or can be, the best possible mother for that child.

Remember, you show your love by caring enough to search for a better way?  That, combined with your mother's intuition -  what you FEEL is the best thing to do.  That's how you do it.

You take in all you read, learn, hear, notice and come up with the right mix.  All you read in books and articles, all you learn in lessons and classes, all you hear when talking to other mothers, all you notice in the parenting you observe around you.  You think about it, dream about it, pray about it.

That's why what YOU come up with is different from other people.  It suits your family.  You know them best.  Some mistakenly think there is one way and their way is best.  If you put your heart and soul into it, YOUR way is best for your family. 

So trust yourself.  You are smarter than you think.  You are better at being a mother than you think you are.

You may have a husband who contributes alot to this dream.  You may have one who can be taught - he catches your vision. You may be pretty much on your own. 

Your life isn't perfect and your children's will not be either.  But you will have modelled for them love, happiness, faith in God and the ability to handle problems.

Boyd K Packer explains it this way.  He is comparing the teaching of a child to making a shield of faith that protects the child from the bad things of the world.  It is best done in "...the home and the family. That shield of faith is not produced in a factory but at home in a cottage industry.

The ultimate purpose of all we teach is to unite parents and children in faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that they are happy at home...our Father’s plan requires that, like the generation of life itself, the shield of faith is to be made and fitted in the family. No two can be exactly alike. Each must be handcrafted to individual specifications.

The plan designed by the Father contemplates that man and woman, husband and wife, working together, fit each child individually with a shield of faith made to buckle on so firmly that it can neither be pulled off nor penetrated by those fiery darts.

It takes the steady strength of a father to hammer out the metal of it and the tender hands of a mother to polish and fit it on. Sometimes one parent is left to do it alone. It is difficult, but it can be done.

In the Church we can teach about the materials from which a shield of faith is made: reverence, courage, chastity, repentance, forgiveness, compassion. In church we can learn how to assemble and fit them together. But the actual making of and fitting on of the shield of faith belongs in the family circle. Otherwise it may loosen and come off in a crisis."

Love it.  That's your creation. Don't you love a challenge??

 

-Lisa