Why “Mother by Design”?

“So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”  Gen 1:27

I have had several people comment on or ask me about my choice of a site/blog name.  Rather than answer each person individually, I’m going to answer everyone at once!  ;-)  This answer is based on a lot of reflection that I have been doing ever since I found out that I was carrying our eighth child.

When the Lord created male and female, He was creating the image of two distinct sides to His character.  As a woman, I am blessed to have the opportunity of reflecting His nurturing side, imperfect though that reflection might be!

I believe that the Lord planned that all women would be born with the built-in capability of being a mother.  It is very natural to see a little girl “mothering” her dolls.  My 5 year old daughter has a seemingly endless supply of dolls, and she loves each one of them.  When she is not mothering her dolls, she is “mothering” (bossing!) her 7 and 2 year old brothers.  (Yes, I have discovered that the instinct to mother … er boss … is not limited to the OLDEST daughter.)  Lately, she has been telling me that she simply cannot WAIT to get married, so that she can be a mommy.

Sometimes it is not dolls that a young girl is mothering, but an endless stream of animals – stuffed or otherwise.  It may be all of the injured or broken creatures or toys that grab at her heartstrings.  Whatever the object of her affection, the mothering instinct is evident in most little girls.

Because I believe that the mothering role is built in, I also believe that all women can fulfill that role. I don’t think that its fulfillment depends upon whether or not they ever marry or have children of their own.  In one of the cities that we lived in, the Lord gave me a very dear friend who was only able to have one child, even though she and her husband had desired a large family.  She shared with me that she felt that the Lord only gave her one child so that she would have the time, energy, and ability to help other women mother their children.  The dear lady was a huge help to me during a time when I very much needed help mothering my own children, and I know that she was a help to other mothers at the same time.  Furthermore, she trained her daughter to be a help, giving that daughter a very good foundation for being a mother herself.

I also know of several single and/or childless women who are finding outlets for their inborn tendency to mother.  A single young woman of 30 is a regular helper in the 2 and 3 year-olds’ class where my son goes during Sunday School on Sunday morning.  She is planning to go on a one-year mission trip to Africa in a few months, and we were just enjoying the prayer card that she sent us picturing her surrounded by several of the children that she got to know on her last trip to that country.  I have also had the opportunity several times of watching unmarried nurses interacting with babies or young children.

Even in our culture that promotes feminism and careers for women, we can see signs of this built in mothering tendency.  According to the US Census Bureau, about 71% of all teachers are women.  79% of elementary and middle school teachers are women, 87% of all special educations teachers are women, and 98% of all preschool teachers are women.  [1]  Furthermore, according to the National Center for Education Information, the number of teachers who are women is growing.  Among teachers with 5 years of experience or fewer, 84% of them were women as of 2005, up from 74% in 1996 and 69% in 1986. [2]    Similar statistics can be seen in other “nurturing” careers, such as nursing.   Somehow those numbers don’t surprise me.  As women are increasingly choosing to delay or forgo motherhood, are they instinctually turning toward careers which will allow them an outlet for the mothering bent within them?

This post has gotten long enough for today, methinks.  Lord willing, I’ll put up part 2 tomorrow.  If you have stuck with me through my reflections this far, I welcome any feedback!

You can see Why “Mother by Design” Part 2 here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 at 8:26 pm and is filed under Mothers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.