15 Nov Do Unto Mothers As You Would Have Them Do Unto You

As a mom, we’ve all been there: At the park, gym, pool, or playground with a group of other mothers, you share an issue that you are facing with one of your children. While sympathy abounds, so does the advice, and you leave feeling more confused than when you came.

Here’s another one: You are in the grocery store with your two year old and waiting in the checkout line. Another mother waiting in the line beside you notices your toddler and asks how old he is. When you answer that he is two, you endure a five minute “well-intentioned” lecture on why your child really needs to give up his pacifier now and all the ways you could go about doing it.

While you don’t feel that you are doing anything wrong, you leave the store feeling dejected and shamed by the comments of another.

Guilty as Charged!

While we may not have been in the exact scenarios I mentioned, we have probably all been on both sides of these mothering conversations. If we hear another mom talk about a problem she is having with her child and we have gone through something similar, we may want to immediately heap upon her all the things that worked for us (or didn’t work – you know, so she can avoid those things). Now, that doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing if it is done in the right way and time.

It is absolutely necessary to follow our own convictions in parenting our own children. But it is unhelpful and even harmful when we thrust our own choices and convictions on another person and make them feel ashamed or leave them feeling like a “bad mom” because they simply don’t want to do things the way that we have done them.

When our well-meaning advice ends up being stump speeches for our pet causes or convictions, we run into a problem.

Every Birth Story is Amazing

For the last five years, I have had the privilege of being a childbirth educator for dozens of couples preparing for a natural birth. I have found in this role, more than any other I’ve held as a mother (in relation with other mothers) the weight of my words.

When my students call me after they give birth to tell me their birth stories, there is only one acceptable and necessary response: congratulations and praise for a job well done! Many of my students have called to tell me that while they intended or hoped for a natural birth experience, they ended up receiving medications or having a caesarean delivery.

Whatever they wanted their birth experience to look like, now is not the time to ask them questions about why things didn’t turn out the way they intended. They may willingly share that information with me, but my role in that moment is quite simple: to affirm them in their first moments as parents. To tell the mother, “Brava, lady! You just gave birth to a baby! Amazing!“

Do Unto Mothers As You Would Have Them Do Unto You

The bottom line is this: am I doing and saying to others moms as I would want them to do and say to me if I were in their situation? Knowing the multi-faceted challenges that every mother faces, in which there is usually never only one “right” answer, do my words leave other mothers built up and supported or inwardly shamed, embarrassed, and just plain hurt?

Before I chime in with knee-jerk reactive advice and unsolicited monologues, do I take the time to ask myself:

Has this woman asked for my advice?

Is there a possibility that what I am thinking of contributing to this conversation could be more hurtful than helpful?

Most importantly, will her child actually die if I do not give her advice or cite the 30 articles I have read about this issue in this precise moment?

Now, you may laugh at this last one, but I think it’s important for us to realize that often the issues we think are life or death issues actually…aren’t.

One thing we know from Scripture is, however: how we use our words. “Life and death are in the power of the tongue and those who love it will eat its fruit.“

We moms can find enough to beat ourselves up about without having other mothers (who should be our comrades) hammering us down because of our choices about birthing, food, diapering, and other things.

Let’s use our words to speak life and bring healing, ask God for discernment regarding the right time to share our convictions or lessons learned on various issues, and above all, do so with a humble and teachable spirit that our way of mothering is definitely not the only way.