Mothers, Part 3: Siblings

To break this up, here's another segment.

While talking to my mother, a point about imperfect mothering came up that I've heard from others. Many of the bad moments come while mother is pregnant or has a young child (this is just the report, not from me knowing). Between the hormones, the sickness, the exhaustion sometimes there's anger or neglect or whatever.

And my answer to that? Well, actually, I'll tell you in a second after I think about that for a minute. I've never been pregnant and I've never spend weeks or months of sleepless nights. In fact, the thoughts of sleepless nights are one of the things that terrify me about having a baby. I need plenty of sleep. After a couple of days of not enough (or even irregular) sleep I am not a happy person; I try to be, but I just struggle. I also think of the exhaustion from my mission and finals weeks and other such things. Of the emotions from PMS and when I'm sick. And I just can't imagine doing it for a long, long time. And then on top of that trying to be patient and creative and energetic and whatever else people try to be with young (or not so young) children. It makes me want to cry thinking about it. Phew.

Anyway, back to my answer now. Once upon a time I told someone this: "the best thing my parents ever gave me was my siblings."  Now, in the years since then I've rethought that superlative. Maybe not the best but pretty close to it. Probably an understanding and testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ is the the best thing they gave me, but I think siblings come next. And the truth is, siblings are mixed in with the gospel and all the other things.

My parents gave and give me lots of truly wonderful things. The older I get the more I realize how truly, richly blessed I am. My mother is amazing. So is my father. And the unit of them together, wow. They've given me education and travel and values of work and service and diligence. They gave me music (in abundance) and nature and physical exercise and reading (oh, reading. talking about parenting. these 25+ years later I still remember some of the power battles over reading lessons). They taught me to love people and understand many different kind of people. They respected me and taught me to respect others. They have always given me love and support and trust in my decisions and abilities. And on and on and on. How could I possibly quantify and qualify all they've given me and taught me? 

But mixed in and greater than those things, they gave me my siblings. I liked my siblings when I was young (95% of the time). They're the world to me now. In case you didn't know from knowing me in person or from reading my blog, I love, love, LOVE my siblings. So much. Every single one. To imagine life without any one of them is a terrible thought. I remember once a friend explaining that my parents could have had a perfect family--a son and a daughter (can you imagine Roland and me being considered a perfect family? haha), so why did they keep going? The thought made me sick then. Now it's just unfathomable and just happily not reality.

So, as a daughter of an imperfect mother, a mother who was pregnant or nursing a baby for the first 15 years of my life, I say--I accept the cost. Maybe I didn't get as much attention (at least from her) as I could have. Maybe I got yelled at a time or two that I wouldn't have if she'd had more sleep. Maybe I didn't have material things that would've come with money the other children "took up". Or, I don't know, whatever else that would have happened if she hadn't had all those children.

But for myself, I accept the trade off. Happily. Gratefully. Without a doubt. I can't say that everyone would say the same. But I do. The years of sharing a tired mother with lots of little children--they weren't that many. The years I have with my siblings--they're infinite.