“I quit. I don’t want to be a mother anymore.”
Author Sarah Parshall Perry blurted that out one day in a moment of weakness while her husband was travelling for work and she was caring for three children with the stomach flu. She was exhausted after days with little sleep.
Her breaking point came as she was bathing her youngest child even though she hadn’t been able to shower herself. When she brushed against the shower curtain, and it collapsed on them both, she cried, “I quit. I don’t want to be a mother anymore.”
Her little boy, who was too young to appreciate the stress his mother was under, said, “Too bad, mommy. You gotta do dis.”
That’s how parenting can be. Some days you’ll feel like you’re jumping out of an airplane without a parachute and trusting God to catch your fall.
Your day job offers tangible results for your efforts: a paycheck, a pension, accolades. At home, you’re surrounded by little people who think of you as a babysitter, or a maid, and they don’t always thank you for the grilled cheese you make them.
Sarah says she had to learn how to transfer the notion of value. At work, value is often concrete, predictable, and specific. At home, value is often nonspecific and nonpredictable. That means successful parenting can’t always be measured by how much you accomplish each day. Many days are filled with washing the same laundry, cleaning the same dirty dishes, or having your children clean up the same toys again and again.
Mom, you gotta do dis. And you can do this. You can learn to look underneath those tasks to see the deeper value of your parenting, that God has entrusted you with the care and influence of your children.
Sarah Parshall Perry is with us on our Focus on the Family broadcast “New Hope for Moms Who Won’t Give Up.” You can listen on your local radio station, online, on Apple Podcasts, via Google Podcasts, or take us with you on our free phone app.
She’s joining us to explore the challenges and joys of being a mom and to offer some wonderful encouragement that’ll help you believe that God will turn your investment into your children today into big dividends in the future.
As Sarah says, “A woman’s husband and children are more just her family, they’re an extension of her relationship with God.”
Sarah Parshall Perry is the author of the book Mommy Needs A Raise: Because Quitting’s Not an Option. I’d like to send you a copy for a gift of any amount. For more information, visit our website. And if you can’t afford it, we’ll find a way to get it to you.
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