4 Cultural Lies About Motherhood & Truths to Combat Them
Since starting my photography business in the fall of 2016, I have proceeded to be pregnant every single year since then. 🤪 How running a business and being a mom have woven together since then has evolved and taken new form as life around me has changed and as I have changed, too.
Along the way, I have had to wrestle with several different ideas about motherhood floating around our culture to determine what I personally believe about them and how they line up with my own values. Sometimes, two directly opposing cultural ideas have come across my path in the same day and left me wondering, what is actually true here? What do I believe about motherhood, my purpose, & my life?
So in this blog today, I wanted to share 4 different ideas (lies) I have come across over the last several years since starting our family and the encouraging truth that I have landed on to encourage me in the midst of it all. Disclosure, the truth I cling to when feeling discouraged comes from the Bible, which I believe to be God’s word. You may not agree with my beliefs, but if you keep reading, I hope you still find some encouragement here.
1. You wasted your youth & beauty on childrearing.
Harsh, right? But can you relate? Have you ever heard this cultural idea expressed in other words? The idea that you gave up the “best” years of your youth & beauty due to growing a baby in your belly… the idea that now, because you have had a child, you’re washed up, old news, run down, and hagged.
I know this might sound crazy, but lies often do when you type them out or speak them plainly out loud. That’s why it’s so good to call them out and then throw them in the TRASH where they belong. The idea that I wasted my youth on having & raising children is a HUGE lie I have heard both directly and indirectly from all kinds of people, some of them even well-meaning, bless their little hearts.
And while yes, being pregnant and raising children has changed my body, and yes, I am older now than when I first began my journey of motherhood, and yes, I have aged (GASP), here is the truth I cling to when I’m feeling discouraged by this idea:
Physical beauty is not the end-all be-all goal of our lives. This lie impacts all women every where, mom or not. We have placed physical beauty on the highest pedestal in our lives, it has become one of our highest priorities, something to be chased after, sought for at any and all costs… But it is NOT where my purpose, worth, & identity lie. It’s okay to want to look & feel beautiful, but that desire has its place. Far behind other matters in my life.
My youth isn’t just about having a beautiful body, my youth also provides the biologically necessary things for bearing & raising children. What a gift to be able to have or raise children, to have energy, and health. None of these things were promised to me, but wow, what a bummer to overlook these blessings because of a silly lie in my head.
Plus, far more than the Bible talks about physical beauty, it talks about the beauty of the heart. Our tendency is to focus on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7). Beauty is a vanity, but a woman to be praised is the one who fears the Lord (Proverbs 31:30). We should let our most important attributes be found within our heart, an imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious (1 Peter 3:4). Even Jesus himself had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him, yet He is our ultimate example of a life lived for the glory of God (Isaiah 53).
My youth and beauty are not bad things to enjoy or preserve, but they’re also not what give me my worth. 2 resources that have recently encouraged me in this matter are this article called A Living Sacrifice: The Beauty of a Body Broken for Others as well as this podcast on motherhood, beauty, & aging by Risen Motherhood. I hope these might encourage you, too!
2. Your ambitions (& purpose) died when you started having kids.
Again, these lies are SHOCKING to say out loud. Like who would ever be so bold & rude as to say this? But if you’re a mama reading this, I’m guessing that this resonates.
There is a pressure to “do all the things you’ve always wanted to do” BEFORE you have kids. As if, when you do become a parent, those days will be over. Once you become a mom, there will be no time, money, or margin left for anything else.
Travel the world, make your way up the corporate ladder, start a business, start a ministry, run a marathon, buy & renovate a house, have fun with your friends… and hurry. Because once you have a kid, there will be no space left for any of these things, and, your life as you know it will be over.
Oh man, life HAS changed, and my ambitions in life have been greatly molded by raising my children, but here are the truths I cling to:
I have to consider so much more than just myself now, or even just myself and my husband, true. But the purpose of my life was never to make a name for myself. My purpose wasn’t to see the world. My purpose wasn’t to have a vibrant social life and ALL the fun I could soak up. Those things are great… but they are not everything, they’re not where my worth is derived, they’re not where I find my identity.
It is a worthwhile pursuit to invest time, energy, love, & money into my children. It is a form of discipleship that Jesus has called me to and blessed me with. It is good to consider others before myself. It is good to lay down my ambitions for others. Real joy is found in putting others first, in service, in love, in dying to myself.
Jesus says when we lose our life, we will find it (Matthew 16:25). And yes, sometimes in motherhood, we can feel like we’ve lost ourselves. (This is worth exploring & seeking counsel on!) But also, maybe losing ourselves for the sake of others, can be a catalyst in the right direction when we re-center what our lives are really about…
I believe the goal of my life, to use John Piper’s words, are to enjoy God and glorify Him forever. I love the scripture-based idea that, “God is most glorified in us when we are the most satisfied in him. The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever.” For more on this idea, check out John Piper’s sermon on Our Grand Obligation, here.
This means that no matter what God has called us to, motherhood or anything else, we can live out our purpose by enjoying God and therefore glorifying Him in the midst of whatever He has called us to!
3. You need to water down your motherhood to fit in.
I struggled with this idea a lot early on in my motherhood. This one might not be as relatable as the first two, but I’m just bein real. It took me a while to lean in to all that being a mom entailed and fully embrace what it meant for my life (still working on that every day). It’s like, I wanted to be a mom, but I didn’t want to be left out of anything people without kids were doing. I wanted to “fit in” and for everyone to know that I could still hang. It was very much a spirit of “I’m a cool mom” from Mean Girls. I tried to “hide” that I was a mom & the ways that it impacted me.
When it came to my business, I didn’t want to be discredited or overlooked because I was a mom, so I let much of my business rule my personal life instead of seeking out ways for my personal-life & work-life to live harmoniously together. Shooting a wedding while nursing a baby? I’d just let myself get engorged and pump for 5 minutes in a hot car at some point in the afternoon… Just one example of a lack of appropriate boundaries, oops.
While it’s fair that I didn’t want to miss out on things with my friends and a new business did require a lot of “hustle” to get off the ground, here are some truths that encouraged me to lean into my role as a mom and not water it down:
Motherhood does change things. It rearranged my priorities as I once knew them. But that’s okay and that is expected and that’s how it should be.
Friendships change in different seasons of life, this is also okay and expected. The ones that are meant to endure will last through seasons of change and some may ebb and flow. Some may even come back around in a different season after a passing of time. This is all okay. Sometimes we need to “let go” of a friendship for the sake of our values or the sake of our personal health. And I’m not referring to “toxic” relationships, I’m speaking about friendships with great people. We are not failures because we cannot maintain all relationships as we once did prior to starting a family. For a season, you may need to prioritize sleep over a late night out with friends. Or you may find that between running a business and raising your children, you only have a limited amount of time to invest into friendships and you have to get more intentional with who you pursue. I think you catch my drift… Becoming a mom doesn’t mean I can’t have friends, but it might change things as they were before and that is okay.
Similarly with work, when it was just me, it was my prerogative to stay up late working on a project. It was my prerogative to work when & how & where I wanted to. But when I had my first baby, I had to start filtering those decisions through a new lens and that’s a good thing. Women have come so far throughout history in the workplace. We have so many more opportunities than we once did! But I have to remember that just because I can do something, doesn’t mean I should. And as a business owner, I have to be responsible to set boundaries that respect the life I want to lead, not just for myself, but for my family. And when I do so, though I might lose out on business opportunities, I will ultimately be left working with the type of clients who respect my values as a mother.
Motherhood asks a lot from us and we don’t need to water down the responsibility that it is and its impact on us in order to fit in. When I seek first Jesus and His kingdom priorities, I don’t have the be anxious about the rest (Matthew 6:25-34). Things will fall into place as they need to.
4. A mom is ALL that you are.
This feels like an important note to end on, following up on the previous lie. I have always felt this tension between the idea that I either needed to water down the fact that I was a mom to fit in and the idea that a mom was ALL that I was. A lie in our culture is that once you become a mom, that becomes your all consuming identity. You are a mom now and little of anything else.
But the truth is:
I am still a wife. A daughter, a sister, a friend. I’m an individual with unique interests outside of childrearing and the interests of my kids. I am a business owner. I am a woman who needs friendship, and adequate sleep, and nourishment, and exercise, and time alone. These things might sound silly to list out, but it’s a quick list of the things us women often let go of as we become mothers.
Being a mom is a major component of who I am as a person. It’s a life-long title I took on the day I became pregnant with my first baby. But it’s not the only thing that defines me.
And ultimately, my identity is found in Christ. I am a child of God. I am loved, forgiven, set free from my sin and shortcomings. I was knit together, in my mother’s womb, with a purpose. I am God’s handiwork. I was created by Him to do good works that He prepared in advance for me to do. I am one member of a greater, connected community of believers. I was made in His image. And the list goes on… the Bible tells me the story of who God is and as a result, who I am in Him. I have no shortage of truth to remind me of who I am because of Him. He made me a mom, but my purpose extends even way beyond the gift of motherhood that He gave me.
Closing Thoughts
If this post resonated with you, I’d love to hear from you! Feel free to shoot me an email, here. The truths I stand on are inspired by the Bible, God’s Word. You may not believe that scripture is true or inspired by God himself, but I hope you might find some encouragement here nonetheless.