When young women who are hesitant to become mothers explain why, they often resort to a few reasons. First, they explain that they’re still trying to discover who they really are and become more complete versions of themselves before being ready for motherhood. Second, they worry that they won’t ever make the discovery. They simply won’t be very good mothers, they think, because of lingering inadequacies.
Because of these common reasons, young people are more and more delaying marriage and children until well into their 30s or even permanently. The result is a crisis in the number of people who experience the long-term happiness of marriage, a dropping birth-rate, and the growth of loneliness.
It’s easy – probably too easy – to blame the hesitancy over motherhood on selfish reasons. Sure, some women (and men) selfishly avoid responsibility or pretend they’re young for way too long before finally attempting to settle down. Some people want to be young and carefree and do whatever they want.
I don’t think either of the reasons listed in the first paragraph, though, are motivated by selfishness. I often speak with women who would otherwise be willing and happy mothers who make those same objections. In their minds, they will, someday, be mothers. They simply have some issues to sort out first.
How do we 'find ourselves'?
Both of these explanations suffer from the same issue, which is a misunderstanding of how we come to self-actualization. In the one case, women have a perfect picture of how they might be someday when they finally have it all together. They’re steadfastly and confidently working towards the goal. In the other scenario, they worry that they may perhaps never achieve that perfect picture.
The result to either attitude is the same. Women turn inwards. They focus on their own career, friendships, experiences, travel, fitness, home ownership ... whatever the marks of success are for any specific individual. This is how they think they can make themselves ready for motherhood.
I don’t mean to unfairly critique women, here. There’s very much an attitude afield these days affecting both men and women that, in order to achieve our fullest potential, we need to take the time to first pull together all the right pieces. It’s an unfortunate by-product that the time necessary to do so often leaves the question of starting a family lingering until it’s too late. Even sadder is the fact that our desperate search for self-actualization wallows and founders, so the quest is self-defeating.
Mothers can save us
I’m only referencing women specifically because today is Mother’s Day and, in my opinion, mothers are in the best position to save us from this problem. It is mothers who have cracked the code of happiness and self-actualization because it is mothers who have chosen a completely different path. Instead of focusing inward, straining for an artificial idea of self-fulfillment or worthiness, they’ve risked everything. They’ve given their hearts away to their children.
Mothers spend precious little time thinking about their own selves. This shift from ego to sacrificial love changes everything.
The writer Paul Claudel says, “man does not come to know the world by that which he extorts from it, but rather by that which he adds to it: himself.”
He’s talking, generally, about a way of loving and moving through the world as creators of beauty. Instead of focusing on what we need to add to ourselves, we focus instead on what we can offer. Motherhood is an apt example of the type of creative giving that Claudel has in mind.
Sure, none of us is perfect. But we cannot wait for some unspecified date in the future when we’re finally complete and able to finally live our lives. We also cannot allow our imperfections to trick us into thinking we’ll never be capable of marriage and family. To focus inward, says Claudel, to become a “taker” in the search for self-actualization will never work. The only source of knowledge available to us is as “givers.”
Wisdom available to mothers
This is why there’s a particular wisdom available particularly to mothers. To take the example of Our Lady, as a mother she is the first to ponder the meaning of the Incarnation in her heart. She is the first to intuit the suffering her Son would undergo. She is the first to verbalize that humility and self-gift are the secret to greatness. Motherhood wraps itself around her almost as a prophetic power. She wasn’t ready for motherhood. It came upon her in an instant. But in that instant she determined to go out of herself with all the love she could muster. In that one courageous decision, she discovered her self and the reason she was made.
I know many women who have become mothers and experienced this exact transformation. No one is ever ready for the miracle of bringing a child into existence. No one is a perfectly prepared, self-actualized person ready to be a perfect parent. The wisdom only arrives in the living out of the vocation. It only arrives in the self-gift.
Mothers add so much love and wisdom to this world and they hardly even realize it because their thoughts are only for their children. That’s what makes motherhood revelatory.
