Dear Vonnie "Different Kinds of Mothers"

Each Thursday, I will do my best to answer your questions. I don't pretend to be an expert, but I know it's not easy being a wife and mother. It can be frustrating and discouraging, yet very rewarding. I'd be glad to listen to you, pray for you, and share some of my thoughts with you.

So, ask me something... anything...





Dear Vonnie,

There seems to be tension in mommy settings about these issues: bottle vs breast/work from home vs stay at home/families with one or two children versus larger families. Why do we do this to each other and how can we encourage each other in group settings when these conversations take place?

Signed,
Saddened




Everybody is different. What a boring world this would be if we were all the same! Everyone has different personalities and talents and opinions. Everyone has different backgrounds and circumstances that shape their lives.

My husband and I have very differnt childhoods. He lived in one house all his life, and he built our home only a couple hundred feet away. I moved twenty times before I met him. He had eight brothers and sisters; I have two brothers and no sisters. He is the youngest; I am the oldest. His mother stayed home; my mother worked as nurse. His father worked on the docks; my father was a preacher and schoolteacher. Yet, God brought us together and blended our lives.

We chose to let God determine the size of our family, and we are blessed with eight children, three in-laws, and two grandchildren so far. I stayed home for the first few years. We homeschooled for awhile, then I taught at the school for twelve years. I saw and lived the different postitions. I learned that each had its advantages and disadvantages. Each had its reasons. We cannot judge anyone for the size of their family or how they provide for them.

Those we are close to, our church or family or community, they are the people that God put in our lives. They will help us to grow and to learn. They have strengths where we have weaknesses. They are weak where we are strong. We need to help and build up each other. As older mothers, we should be looking for ways to encourage the younger ones--not to nag or demean them, but to tell them that they are doing well and gently show them how to do things better. If they are believers, then God is in them and working through them. How can God be divided? How can there be bitterness between us?

Lord, thank you for all the mothers in my life. Thank you for my grandmothers, my birth mother, my mother-in-law, other women who took me under their wings to guide me and teach me. May I be the mother and friend to my children and other women that I should be. Teach me to be quiet when I should and to speak when You want me to. In Jesus' Name, Amen