As Christian moms we tend to reject the “me time” culture we see around us. We are constantly on for our children, in fact, our world revolves around them. You can be a stay-at-home mom or a working mom, either way you can get caught up in the myth that our children come first. We put our faith next, hubby third, and ourselves last.
Let us examine what this teaches our children.
- Children are a blessing or a burden (which one will depend on how your child perceives your attitude towards them).
- Raising children is incredibly time consuming.
- Your children are more important to you than your husband, their dad.
- You are not a separate individual from your children.
The ultimate lesson that your children can walk away with is that intimate relationships like that of a husband and wife are not worth working on, or that they don’t require time and effort to maintain. Your children might see intimate relationships as equal with more common, or if you will, shallower relationships like those between co-workers.
But there is another lesson your child might learn that probably hasn’t occurred to you yet. It comes once they observe what happens to your marriage when all your children are grown and moved out. Without the common bond of raising children, do you and your husband have anything left to talk about? Do you know each other anymore? Have you moved into separate worlds? Has a marriage turned into roommate status, or worse, even fallen apart?
What if you make the commitment to put your marriage first, what lessons does that teach your children? You make the effort to find a reliable and safe babysitter once a month while you go out on a date with your husband. You teach your children to wait a moment until your husband finishes his story he was telling you even though it is so much easier to ask your husband to wait (he does have more patience). If your children were to sneak out of bed (because that never happens) what would they learn if they saw you enjoying a glass of iced-tea on the front porch swing with your husband?
My hope is that in observing my husband and my efforts to strengthen our marriage that my children learn:
· Intimate relationships take time and effort to maintain. My children won’t be so quick to buy into the Hollywood myth of emotional love as true love.
· While my children will know they are the apple of our eye, they won’t think the earth revolves around them and their immediate needs.
· Raising children takes a lot of time, love, and laughter.
· They can one day raise children and still be their own person.
Something else amazing…the Bible backs this up.
“Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children…” Titus 2:4 (husbands come first in this list)
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” Genesis 2:24 (The man and woman become one, there needs to be a connection and strong bond there)
“A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives.” 1 Corinthians 7:39a
“For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through is wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.” 1 Corinthians 7:14 (the children are directly effected by the parents’ relationship)
Not to mention all the scripture that cites the husband as the head of the house, or scripture states that a husband’s body or a wife’s body is not their own but belongs to their spouse (not their children).
If you have experienced this topic in your own parenting/marriage, would you please leave a comment to share? I think this is an important topic for moms to know. Back me up, ladies!
I am becoming more aware of what my daughters see in my relationship with my husband as they get older. One particular habit I have is pushing away my husband from a hug after a few moments because I am always in the "middle of something". On the other hand, I often go out of my way to snuggle my four year old daughter until we can't snuggle any more. Why do I do this? Why do I run to my daughter for this need and not my husband? I am slowly trying to change this imbalance and the perception that my daughters might have. I am now committing to my husband's hugs and trying to put them above whatever I need to accomplish. What seems to be working for me is waiting until he lets go first. I hope that in doing this I am sending a strong message to my husband and my daughters about the importance of marriage. Besides God, it comes first above all else.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing, Janelle! My hope is that we can encourage each other to give our marriages the time and attention they deserve. :)
ReplyDeleteI know I need to work on letting my husband finish telling me something when my kids interrupt. I need to work harder to make the kids wait until daddy is done talking before I address their concerns.
We try to make sure our kids know that our marriage relationship comes first, however it's easier said than done when you are dealing with the clamoring needs of young kids. I liked your statement"You teach your children to wait a moment until your husband finishes his story he was telling you even though it is so much easier to ask your husband to wait (he does have more patience)." We try to have our kids come up and squeeze our hand if they want to tell us something, but we're in the middle of a conversation. We give them a squeeze back to let them know we're aware of them, and then they are supposed to wait until we're at a break in the conversation. It's a work in progress, but hopefully they'll see that our conversation and relationship as husband and wife is a priority. Again, we're still working on it!!
ReplyDeleteI also liked your points about teaching our kids that relationships take time and effort and aren't the "Hollywood myth" of emotional love and true love. Thanks for providing food for thought! A good reminder for me to keep our marriage a priority even though it can be so easy do otherwise.
Allison
Great comments, Allison and Janelle. Tamara, thanks for writing. So encouraging! Just what I needed today.
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