The Mommy Struggle

It's a boy!

Congrat- ulations to Jade and Jed, proud parents of Caedmon Rider. I met Caedmon Rider for the first time this morning at his shower. (Shower's a funny word, isn't it? It wasn't raining babies.) Anyways--it was exciting to be introduced. He dressed up for the occasion, in baby cardigan and tie. Jade lovingly referred to it as his "nerd outfit." I preferred to call him Chandler.

Jade is one of my YD coworkers, who works in Anacortes, and she's been a great peer mentor whose illustrating what it looks like to blend desires for career and family. She's always been an inspiration to me in the ministry: she was the marketing director when I started at YD; she married at age 28, when everyone told her she was too old; and she waited until age 30 to have a baby. Now, she's attempting to work 3/4 time and raise Caedmon--she wants to do both. I'm so anxious to watch her work through this time of figuring out what it means to be a youth minister and a mom...

As fun as it was to carry a baby around for fifteen minutes, I have to say that he gets heavy, and I was glad to give him back. I can't really comprehend what it's like to have something that needs you all of the time and doesn't care if you're trying to take a nap or do work. Thinking about that kind of responsibility just makes me feel naïve and immature and selfish.

The other night in Austin, one of my coworkers asked me how I plan to balance ministry and family. I stared blankly, because I was thinking, "How on earth do I, Ms. Poster Child for the Naïve 'Don't Box Me Into Your Presuppositions' Mentalities" have any context to answer that question and sound intelligent. In fact, how can I even begin to predict a feeling I'll have years from now, after I give birth to this person I've never even met. I stumbled through an answer that basically said, "I don't know. Ask me 15 years from now, when I'm a mom trying to figure it out."

He went on to explain that he really believes that you can't become a whole person until you have kids. I stared blankly again, because I do not understand. And while I would normally say, "How dare you tell me I'm not a whole person," the more humble answer is, "Yeah, I really don't know." Because I don't.

It's really difficult to have someone look at you as you're doing your best to live life and serve the Lord and say that you're not a whole person...yet I watch Jade brought to tears saying, "I've never loved like this before" and I feel like I really am missing out on something.

I know I'm not ready, but I know that Jade is. I'm excited to see her work through these questions and glad to have her as a mentor in my life. The whole morning reminds me of a song Pam and I wrote on a Saturday afternoon in Oak Harbor:

The calendar says that we turned 25
And we don't really know what that means.
So far it seems that it's just a long list
Of what others expect us to be.

And we know we're not ready for
Houses or babies or
A life that is more complex
Than a Saturday walk
With our West Coast friends.

I was talking with friends last week saying, "Why was I more sure of what I wanted and more sure of my strong desire for kids when I was 20 than I am at 25." There's no good answer to that...other than life is strange, and God's always at work.