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Index: Charity Drives

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Mothers, Let's Be Nice

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Being a mother has made me a better person. I am no doubt a better person today than I was a little over 7 years ago. What has motherhood done for you as a person--what has it done for your character development?

Think about that for a moment before you continue on. What is your answer to that question?

Here is my answer. Motherhood has helped me develop charity. Oh, I think I have a long way to go on the charity front, but motherhood has catapulted my progress. Charity is the pure love of Christ (for more on Charity, see my post here). Through being a mother, I have learned to worry about myself less and put the needs of others before my own. I have learned pure, unconditional love. I have realized all children are precious in the sight of God, and I apply the term "children" to all of humanity. Most everyone has a mother whose heart aches when her sweet child is the target of criticism, ostracism, and pain. That makes me want to treat everyone with a pure love. 

And I would feel comfortable saying the vast majority of mothers out there have felt the same effect. Being a mother softens us. It makes us better people all around. Not only does it bring us great joy, but it helps us grow into better people.

Of course, because it is such a powerful teaching tool, there is immense opposition against the role of mother. Whether it be demeaning the role or talking women out of pursuing the role or it be turning mothers against each other.

"There is no one right way to be a mother." M. Russell Ballard.

I believe this statement to be true. And yet we mothers are incredibly critical of each other. Why? Maybe some feel insecure in their own abilities and choices as a mother. Maybe some have a false, puffed up sense of their own abilities and are convinced their own way is the only acceptable way. I am sure many simply give in to the temptation put before them to be critical of mothers. This criticism, bickering, and self-righteousness directly negates the wonderful qualities we are learning as mothers. You develop more charity, and then you criticize some mother because she does something you think is wrong and you let that seed just grow within you. 

Why do we do this to each other? Because we are humans and have weaknesses. We give in to them.

I would like to issue a challenge to us all. Let us work on ourselves (not our neighbors and not that woman we find so annoying in that one chat room) to nurture the charity and squash the cattiness. Let's make "There is no one right way to be a mother" our mantra.

I have many good friends who are mothers with children around the ages of my children. We all share very similar core values--we share a religion and we  happen to overall share parenting philosophies. Despite our many similarities, we all have many things we do differently than each other. And that is okay! That isn't something that needs to intimidate anyone else. We might have different discipline strategies, bedtime routines, times of day we read scriptures, etc. There is nothing wrong with that.

There is no one right way to be a mother.

We all do what we think is best for our children. And we all have individual children. Around the world, we will vary from each other quite a bit. Some of us will follow feeding schedules. Some will demand feed. Some will have consistent nap times and places. Others will let naps happen when and where they may. Some will feed breastmilk and others will feed formula. Some will allow hours of television and others will banish television all together. 

The list goes on forever. There are so many things we will be different on. There is no need to feel defensive if someone parents differently from you. If you feel good that the choice you are making is the right one for your family, it is not a problem if Suzi down the street has an opposite method that she thinks is right for her family. Being different doesn't make one of you wrong and one right. It makes you different mothers in different families parenting different children.

So let's step back and say to ourselves, there is no one right way to be a mother. I will not criticize and I will not feel the need to defend myself. Let's give each other the benefit of the doubt that we are all doing what we feel is best for our individual children. Let's allow ourselves to grow into the amazing women we can be if we allow charity to take over our hearts. Let's do these things even if Suzi remains in the slums of arguing, bashing, defending, and offending. 

Let's do it.
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Teaching Charity

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This is the big one. Charity is pure love--specifically the pure love of Christ. It is having pure love, concern, and compassion for everyone.

Charity is something that takes time to develop. It is, however, extremely powerful in our own lives and in the lives of our children in helping us be good people. It is absolutely worth the effort it takes to teach and develop charity.

One aspect of charity I think we all immediately think of is giving to the sick, afflicted, and poor. We might give of our time. Maybe we will donate money or other goods. We might have talents that can benefit people. 

The trick here is to offer charity to all who need it--not just those we think "deserve" it. We also have a love for those we are helping. The Apostle Paul taught these things about charity:
  • We should be filled with good feelings toward all people
  • We should be patient
  • We should be kind
  • We should not boast, be proud, be selfish, or be rude
  • We should forgive others and should not glory in the wrong things they may have done
  • We should not do good things out of a desire to benefit ourselves
  • We should be loyal
  • We should believe the best in others
  • We should be kind
So how do we develop true charity for others? Here are some ideas:
  1. Study the life of Jesus Christ and keep His commandments. When we study how he reacted, we will better know how we should react.
  2. Pray for charity. 
  3. Learn to love yourself. We must respect and trust ourselves. We must repent and forgive ourselves. Oftentimes, a lack of charity toward someone is really a showing of our own insecurities about ourselves. 
  4. Avoid thinking you are better than others. Have patience and have empathy. Try to see things from their perspective. 
  5. Serve, serve, serve. Service does not have to be super grand to be service. Service is something as simple as getting you sister's spoon for her. The best way to teach service to your child is to do service yourself. Also, thank your child for doing service, and talk about the good feeling he gets when he does service. You love the people you serve.
Isn't this list rather simple? Not necessarily easy, but simple. I think these are things we can work on ourselves and also things we can help teach our children. Studying the life of Christ is an easy thing to do with our children. Tell them the stories of Jesus. Having our children pray for charity is also an easy thing to do. 

We can be sure our children love themselves so that they don't feel the need to try to compare themselves to others and bring others down in order to feel better about themselves. This takes lots of time and effort on your part. See my posts on self-esteem for ideas on how to do this.

We can teach our children to see things from the perspective of other people. We can help them to be patient with others. Family life is a great teaching ground for learning patience :). 

Charity is a virtue that is absolutely worth the time and effort it takes to teach not only our children but ourselves.

Inspiration for this post taken from Charity.

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