My Journey to Valuing Motherhood

and thoughts on undoing regrets

Today I wanted to write a personal piece to show you how I’ve wrestled with this whole “enjoying parenting” concept that I wrote about yesterday. I hope my story encourages you, whatever your life and dreams look like ❤️

I had five kids by the time I was 28.

As a kid, I can only think of a few instances in which I daydreamed about being a mom someday. I had more exciting, important ideas in mind. Grown-ups had always told me that I would do big things. In my senior year of high school, I was homecoming queen, student body vice president, and ready to do things that matter.

When I told a longtime friend that I was pregnant—at 19, after I’d been married for a few months—her response was searing: “But you had so much potential.” A reaction from a relative: “Oh no, Hope…you didn’t.”

The feedback got worse as I had more kids, whether it was from close relatives or strangers at the grocery store. I’ll spare you, because they are very blunt and crude. But one of the most painful to process was an honest question asked behind my back: “She used to be a role model for my daughters. What happened?”

What happened is a friend died suddenly in June 2011. My husband I had been married for a month. We felt rocked by how short this life can be, and I decided to stop taking the birth control pill and be open to starting a family. In early August, I held a positive pregnancy test in my hands.

For the next several months, I felt shame, as if I had done something wrong or stupid. I also felt nauseous and like I’d been hit with a horse tranquilizer; it felt like my hormones were trying to destroy me. I started to resent the child in my womb. What had I done to my life?

I didn’t have any friends who were moms. My high school didn’t offer Home Ec or any domestic-related courses (which men and women both desperately need.) Nobody had ever really talked about motherhood or parenting as a future life path, because we live in America; we have so many opportunities to do anything we want! I’d spent almost none of my imagination on a future that involves children, especially children from my own body. 

I remember crying in regret about the path I had chosen for my life, and my husband wisely asked, “Who were you hoping to be?” We both knew I wanted to be like the people I read biographies about, people who lived epic lives saving the whole world. Not people who changed diapers. I didn’t realize how deeply rooted my expectations were.

So I had to wrestle. I realized that I had a bit of a savior complex, for one thing, and that’s not healthy. But I also realized that parenting is an incredible calling. As a Christian, I’m convinced that no one graduates to a more meaningful task than love. Love is the peak. And when you’re a parent, you get to do that a lot.

The more I talk to people and ask about their relationships with their parents, the more I see that being a parent is the most formative role a person could have. How I love a child matters and shapes who they are. Parents create a culture inside the home that will one day go outside the home and affect the culture at large. It takes incredible courage to do this task well.

Maybe parenting was a more epic life path than I thought.

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I write all this to say it worked out. For the next eight years, I found more and more meaning and joy in motherhood—most importantly, love for my kids—and continued to be open to having children. I'm currently 30 and our kids are now 11, 9, 7, 5, and 2. We hope to foster or adopt someday.

We’re not a 12-person family full of musical prodigies, but my husband and I have a bunch of amazing and happy children. I dare to say that we’re good parents, and we’re surrounded by a community who helps us become better. Our house is always messy—we’re working on that—but the kids seem to be thriving. Homeschooling allows us to customize the kids’ education to each of their passions and to meet them where they are. We travel to faraway lands in readalouds, and we go on lots of real-life adventures, too.

I make mistakes a lot, but my kids will grow up and make mistakes too. One of the best things I can show them is how to make things right and move on after you’ve messed up.

Sometimes my days feel futile, but most of them feel full.

My dreams of becoming a paradigm-shifting journalist or overseas humanitarian worker might’ve been rerouted for a season, but I hold to the old saying that “The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.” If my passion is to make the world a better place, it’s not a waste of my twenties and thirties to focus on loving five people and raising them up to go out and make the world a better place, too.

Plus, I probably have time to fully give myself to those dream careers anyway. Life is short, but it’s also long. One of my favorite theologians, Tim Keller, didn’t write The Reason for God until he was in his late fifties. After that, he’s come out with bangers every year, as if it’s easy.

It is easier to produce tomes of wisdom when you’ve spent decades putting in the work and growing in knowledge through challenging, real-life situations. I went ten years without sleeping through the night, so that’s sure to pay off someday, somehow, right?  

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But this hard work is also happy work. Through parenting little ones, which, again, I had never felt particularly passionate about, I have found passions that are well-suited for me. Parenting is a lot easier when you enjoy it. Plus, your kids notice if you like them or not.

In a Venn diagram of their interests vs my interests, I like to make that overlapping section in the middle thick. I skipped classic lullabies and Mother Goose, and instead found music and stories for my kids that I love, too. I have never watched a full episode of Paw Patrol, and I'm proud of that. When we read aloud, I’m as emotionally gripped by the story as my kids are…or moreso.

Some unpleasantries, like cleaning or diaper-changing, I’ve been unable to circumvent. I’ve been wiping bottoms nonstop since 2012, and I. Am. Over. It.

These years have had dark moments of depression, marital strife, work stress, panic attacks, and more. Seriously, it’s been rough. But that’s also just part of being a human in the world we’re in. Everyone’s life is hard if you live long enough.

I had a huge realization after reading Matt Haig’s novel The Midnight Library (language/content warning if you read it.) The protagonist, Nora Seed, felt miserably regretful about her life and, in a dreamlike space, she got to try out all the other paths she could’ve taken: rock star, glaciologist, winery owner, mother, and many more. Each one had its own joys and difficulties. All of her paths included pain and disappointments. Her regrets faded and faded until we get to this incredible line: “She learned that undoing regrets was really a way of making wishes come true.”

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So…to summarize, I’ve concluded that, no, motherhood was not a waste of my potential. I don’t regret a thing. I believe that God put me on this path and has been writing a very good story for my life that’s much better than what I could’ve written for myself.

Not every woman should become a mom, and certainly not every 19-year-old. But the unique joys and rich work of loving others—particularly in a nurturing, motherly way—are expansive and necessary in every space of life. Hats off to all of you who do this work, even if you don’t have kids or never will.

I hope we can all cheer each other on and enjoy the people in our lives.

Thank you for listening.

Warmly,

Hope

P.S. Let me know if you want more stories like this.

P.P.S. This photo is cheesy and it’s a couple years old, but this is us. ❤️