A Lesson in Pride

Since I am sure that my pride creeps into my blog postings at times, I thought it only fair to make this posting in contrast. Also, I know I have similarly inexperienced mom-friends who read this blog and who have said that they appreciate when I sometimes "get real" about the difficult learning curve of our new motherly vocation.

I experienced despair over the weekend, supposedly over some simple cookies. God so often speaks through the ordinary! As I posted earlier, I baked three batches of baked goods for a church event, with plans to bake one more batch. Saturday night arrived and I realized that my muffins just did not taste good enough to give to church, leaving me with only half the quantity of cookies I had promised and I decided to stay up past my bedtime baking the batch of coconut macaroons.

The macaroons bombed as well and I couldn't give them to the church. By then it was late at night, so I dejectedly went to bed. My overnight was terrible: I had insomnia (both because of my normal insomnia and because of pregnancy discomforts), so only got some sleep from 1:00 to 4:00 a.m. Over the course of the night, John woke up four times to cry and throw tantrums, for unknown reasons, and then a fifth time because I woke up with a Charlie horse in my calf that lasted five long minutes. Once that passed, John fell back asleep, but I never did. I don't experience nights that bad every night, but they are not atypical either and I never experience "good" sleep.

When John awoke for the day at 6:00 a.m., I carried him bleary-eyed downstairs to discover that my kind husband had baked me two dozen oatmeal cookies late at night so I wouldn't let down the church ladies.

Of course, this was extremely kind, thoughtful, and generous. When my flesh couldn't go on the night before and I had to go to bed, Chris was my flesh for me and stayed up doing extra work.

And, of course--as probably most of you can see coming--I started crying.

Chris' cookies were perfectly beautiful and tasted good and he had the energy to make them. I had failed. I'm the homemaker who has been baking to some degree or another since girlhood and I couldn't accomplish what he had. I tried to pull myself together for half an hour, but when I went upstairs to thank Chris, I burst into weeping tears that lasted 15 minutes. Then I left for an early Mass (Chris had gone to a wonderful Latin Mass the evening before, so he got to stay home) and I sniffled and cried in self-pity through all of that too.

After Mass I sat in the church and prayed. I thought, "Well, God, you tell us to come to you as little children. So, that's what I'll do. God, I want more talents! And I think you should give me more talents!" If I could have stamped my foot petulantly, I would have.

Then a thought entered my head, perhaps placed by the Holy Ghost, that maybe God had given me exactly as many homemaking talents for now as He knew best, that he had given me exactly as difficult a child as was right for me, that he had denies me the perfect amount of sleep--and that I needed to learn some lessons working with what I have (cf. the parable of the talents).

Further reflection led me to these thoughts: Before marrying, I had been very competent in the academic and working worlds. Of course, I had had 22 years to practice becoming very competent in those worlds, especially the academic one! In addition, using my mind to study is a natural talent God gave me. As St. Paul reminds us, what talents do we have that didn't come from God? And if they all came from God, why do we behave as if they didn't (as if they are our own doing)?

I've been a homemaker for fewer than three years, a mother for fewer than two, and you know what? I'm not as good at homemaking as I was at academia! I struggle with managing my time. I struggle with meal plans that are creative, economic, tasty, and meet the health needs of the different bodies in our home. I struggle with cooking meals well (and baking!). I struggle with cleaning the house and doing laundry that doesn't leave stains on all our clothing. Don't get me started on how I struggle daily to learn how on earth to raise a child. And I struggle with my interior attitude about it all (and its outward expression).

The thought of this is all very wounding to my pride. We say that "my pride was wounded," like this is a bad thing when the Christian response should be, "Praise God! I hope your pride was slain entirely!" Pride is one of the seven deadly sins. Pride goeth before the fall. We should rejoice when our pride is wounded. If I failed at something like trying to run a marathon, my pride would not be very damaged because I think of running a marathon as extremely difficult. So if God wants to help me conquer my pride, he has to work through something as "minor" and "easy" as baking cookies. Failing at baking cookies--now that is wounding!

But speaking of something being minor and easy, another problem is that this culture has so denigrated the profession of homemaking that I think even we homemakers consider it worthless much of the time. One of the tactics used to convince the vast majority of women to leave their homes to work full-time, even during their child-bearing years, was to convince them that homemaking was so easy it was below their dignity, it was something an uneducated moron could do, and it was something they could do just as well and completely in the three hours they're home in the evenings after an exhausting day at work. (In fact, isn't that a stereotype we have, that the best homemakers are impoverished simpletons with no education at all?) Then when a woman--like myself and many of my readers--decides to devote her life to homemaking and discovers herself "failing" (struggling), it is shocking and humiliating because this work is supposed to be so easy.

Contrast the myth that homemaking is easy with the reality that, for thousands of years, brides were chosen in large part by the evidence of how good a homemaker they would be. The economic contribution of the homemaker wife was critical to the success of the family, so men would not choose a woman who didn't show evidence of good homemaking skills (cf. Proverbs 31). Therefore, mothers made it an important goal to raise their daughters knowing how to manage, cook, clean, and care for children. (Unlike my experience, which is perfectly typical of my generation: what I know is mostly self-taught and most of it I began learning fewer than three years ago at nearly 30 years old!) Think even of homes hiring a head butler or head maid: these were challenging positions requiring interviews and the selection of only skilled, experienced professionals. No homeowner would have hired a woman with no experience whatsoever to be head maid of a home, and yet that is the position into which many of us women are thrust when we marry and choose to leave the workforce to stay home.

In summary, homemaking is difficult and I have a lot to learn in order to do it well. God might give me more talents in this area, or he might not, as is his perfect will. It is a great and painful lesson to accept that a woman (trying her best) has equal human dignity and worth whether she is a fabulous homemaker or a mediocre one (just as we should grant equal human dignity and worth to the rich executive and the janitor regardless of economic productivity, or to the healthy athlete and the disabled "vegetable" of a person regardless of physical ability). This won't be the last time I encounter despair while struggling to learn my homemaking profession and it won't be the last time I want to protect my tender pride instead of allow it to be slain. But I think it was a good experience for me and I'm glad that God spoke to me through my crumpled-up, inedible cookies.