When I was a little girl I had a journal that someone had given me that was a record of my school experiences. It had a section for each elementary school year. It had places for my school pictures, class pictures, a pocket for my report card, places to list my favorite subjects, and my friends. Each year it also asked the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" It had a blank line for me to fill in and I thought long and hard about this question every year. I think I filled in "teacher" multiple times, and I think I put "airline stewardess" once. One time I think I even put "dentist."
It boggles my mind now, that I never once thought to put that I wanted to be a mother. You see, for as long as I can remember I have looked forward to motherhood. When I was young I couldn't wait to be a babysitter - the closest thing in my young mind to being a mother.
After high school I attended BYU. A few weeks after the end of my 4th year at BYU, our first child was born. During that year of classes (which I attended amidst morning sickness and other pregnancy related discomforts) I received advice from numerous sources that I ought to finish up my degree after the baby arrived. After all, I had only one class and my student teaching left.
But I had no desire for that. I had waited my whole life to be a mother and not even a college degree could entice me to give up one minute of raising my baby. My college years ended when he arrived.
I have never felt that not finishing my degree was a sacrifice for me. I learned much at BYU and am so grateful for that experience. It helped me to grow up and prepared me to be a wife and mother. I have never in the last 21 years yearned to go back and finish. I consider my life raising and teaching 9 children to be the ultimate "student teaching" experience. I don't need a piece of paper or letters after my name to feel that I am in the midst of accomplishing something great.
Yesterday I asked a couple of my daughters (age 9 and 6) what they wanted to be when they grow up. Immediately, (no prompting or prep) they both chimed, "a mother." I was ecstatic. I am grateful that my example of a mother has been a good one. Even though mothering can be exhausting, frustrating, and difficult, I have truly tried to regularly express to my children how much joy being a mother brings me. I tell them often that I would not change my life and decision to be a mother for anything.
Our daughters develop attitudes toward motherhood, good or bad, by watching us as mothers. Even as young as two, they are watching what we do. Earlier this summer I was at the playground with the children. I had our brand new baby in the Bjorn carrier to keep him out of the wind which was pretty wild that day. He was wide awake and I needed to be walking to keep him happy. I decided to walk around the sidewalk that goes around the perimeter of the park. It is a quarter mile long and you can see the whole sidewalk from the playground so I felt comfortable leaving everyone to play while I did so. On my second time around I looked back to see my little girl, age two, about halfway around the loop. She was carrying her baby doll, which she had insisted on putting in her little car seat and bringing to the park. After seeing my tiny little girl taking this big walk around this big sidewalk, I turned around to go back to meet her so we could walk together. She told me that she was taking her baby for a walk. She was truly in "mother" mode that day. She'd seen me walking with my baby (I'd told her that I needed to walk with him to keep him happy) and decided that her baby needed a walk to keep her happy as well. This same daughter regularly sits on a chair and "nurses" her dolls, and stands holding her baby, swaying back and forth the way I know she's seen me do countless times. These little ones really are observant! As Moms we need to be careful what they observe of our behavior and attitudes towards our mother and home duties.
President David O. McKay said concerning the importance of motherhood:
“This ability and willingness properly to rear children, the gift to love, and eagerness, yes, longing to express it in soul development, make motherhood the noblest office or calling in the world. She who can paint a masterpiece or write a book that will influence millions deserves the admiration and the plaudits of mankind; but she who rears successfully a family of healthy, beautiful sons and daughters, whose influence will be felt through generations to come, whose immortal souls will exert an influence throughout the ages long after paintings shall have faded, and books and statues shall have decayed or shall have been destroyed, deserves the highest honor that man can give, and the choicest blessings of God. In her high duty and service to humanity, endowing with immortality eternal spirits, she is co-partner with the Creator himself.” (Gospel Ideals, Salt Lake City: Improvement Era, 1953, pp. 453–54.)
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