"Women will be saved through childbearing," wrote the Apostle Paul in his first letter to Timothy. I puzzled over that verse as a college student, ultimately dismissing it as irrelevant in this culture. If it even made sense -- and my soteriology as a Protestant left me skeptical on that score -- surely it was just a relic of a time when few women had a choice about motherhood.
On a September morning eight years ago I was six months pregnant with my oldest son and I was grumpy. I was tired of eating spinach, tired of avoiding chocolate, tired of Kegel exercises, tired of night leg cramps. I had a constant backache and a tender vein in one leg that had been bothering me more and more often. Driving to work that morning I flung back my head and bellowed, "I'm too young to have varicose veins!"
And out of nowhere that verse from 1 Timothy smacked me right between the eyes. My views on salvation had changed (Catholics see it as a process rather than an event), and I realized that pregnancy and childbirth offered a unique opportunity to follow the example of Christ. With my own body, I could give life to another person. Instead of complaining, I could say, "Here is my body, offered for you." When I learned that mother's milk is synthesized from a mother's blood, it completed the picture: here is my blood, given for you.
This post began in response to a recent post of Summer's about how pregnancy changes a woman's body. (I'm running in a completely different direction here, Summer; hope you don't mind!) One of my sons left a web of silver lines on my belly. Another left a small blue spider on the back of my thigh. Some days I wonder if my breasts are taking the direct route to the antipodes without the rest of me.
But here's the thing: most of what I know about patience and generosity I have learned as a mother. The "opening of the womb" was also an opening of the heart, an initiation into a kind of love I could not have imagined before I experienced it.
A friend of mine went to confession once and said, "You know, every time I'm here I'm talking about how selfish I am. Why can't I get past it?" The priest (who knew her very well -- he would not have said this to a random penitent so don't freak out) said, "You know what the cure for selfishness is, don't you?" "What?" my friend asked eagerly. He told her: have a baby.
When my first son was born I was transformed into a person who would instantly dive in front of a bus if it could save his life. I suddenly knew with my heart and my gut, not just my head, that someone else's needs took precedence over mine. I don't look or sound much like a mama bear. But there it was: I would gladly have done anything for that little boy.
The defining moment of motherhood for me is stomach virus time. When one of my children climbs into my lap and says, "Mama, I don't feel good," seconds before he pukes all over both of us, my first reaction is, "Oh, honey, I'm so sorry you feel bad." Only after the child is more comfortable do I think about starting the laundry and washing the vomit out of my hair. I'm not saying this boastfully because it's not something I've cultivated. It's a gift, a gift that has challenged my whole Weltanschauung. When I think of the greatest commandment I have to ask myself: do I love my neighbor as I love my children?
Mothering my children pushes me constantly to be more of a grown-up: to moderate my tendency to be dramatic, remembering that my children need me to set a peaceful example; to be willing to see the best in a child who is pushing my buttons more adroitly than anyone else on the planet can; to respond wisely to the octotrigintillionth sibling conflict of the day. (Oops -- what was I just saying about drama?)
I don't mean to make it sound like motherhood is all about self-sacrifice, though; my children make me laugh out loud every day. And when I see my youngest one wiping the oldest one's tears, or when the oldest offers unbidden to share the last granola bar with the four-year-old, they give me hope that they will grow into men who make the world a gentler place. Because of my children, I have seen more of the brightness and beauty and breadth of this world than I ever knew I could. If a saggy belly is the price I pay, I say it's a bargain.
(Candor compels me to note that I would never have done all those thousands of elevator Kegels if I had never been pregnant. Some might argue that a toned pubococcygeus muscle more than compensates for saggy abs, but let us not linger in TMI territory. While we're on the subject of pleasant pregnancy surprises I should add that my subsequent pregnancies have been way more comfortable than the one in '96. I remember wondering at the time how many children I could hope to have if pregnancy was going to be so miserable. I shouldn't have borrowed trouble; it's been easier ever since.)
A few disclaimers are probably needed here: some of the women who find their way here are infertile, and I do not mean for it to sound as if I think bearing children is the one route to holiness, or the surest route to holiness, or the preferred route to holiness. Many women have vocations other than motherhood; some mothers choose not to answer the call to grow along with their children. Also: I am no theologian and I am not equipped to debate Paul's views on women. And: my selfishness has not been cured; I am in that confessional regularly seeking grace to be more patient with my boys. Finally: I do not mean to suggest that mothers who adopt or mothers who bottle-feed are somehow less than mothers who birth and breastfeed their babies.
But I know that in the physical work of bearing and rearing my children, too often disparaged as just diapers and dirty noses, there are transcendent moments mixed with the mundane. A comparison: in 1996 my mother-in-law gave me a small ceramic dish she had purchased for use in a Mass. As a Catholic I believe that in the Eucharist Jesus is physically present, body and blood, soul and divinity. That dish is now a sacred vessel because in it the One who contains the whole of creation, the One in whom we live and move and have our being, chose to be contained. In those eight years we have never had a home Mass, but with each of our moves I have kissed it reverently and packed it carefully. Before our last move I was pruning our belongings recklessly, feeling hurried and harried. When I came to the shower curtain I had used in Joe's birth, I stopped in my tracks. I pressed it to my cheek -- and I do not say this lightly -- with an echo of the same feeling I have about that sacred vessel: right here, love incarnate -- enfleshed -- appeared. This ordinary object was the scene of a breathtaking transformation.
Summer's post about a plastic surgeon's wife who was afraid her second pregnancy would wreck her body put me in mind of something Scott Hahn said to his wife Kimberly. He told her, "Your body says you have loved me enough to bear my children." Put that in your pipette and ponder it, Dr. 90210. It made me realize something important: if you could stand the 17-year-old me next to the 34-year-old me there would be no question about which one of us looked better in a bathing suit.
There would also be no question about which one I'd rather be.
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