My book club is reading Lisa See's Peony in Love this month. It is the story of a young girl name Peony who lives in 17th century China. While the story is mostly about romantic love, I have found myself drawn to the mother-daughter relationships and the Chinese concept of "mother love." While helping with the binding of a young cousin's feet, Peony writes, "The written character for mother love is composed of two elements: love and pain. I had always thought this emotion was felt by the daughters for their mothers, who inflict pain on us in binding our feet, but looking at Second Aunt's tears and my mother's courage I realized that this emotion was for them. A mother suffers deeply to give birth, bind feet and say goodbye to a daughter when she marries out." (Peony in Love by Lisa See, pg 44, Random House 2008)
Four centuries and half a world away, this passage has affected me deeply. There has been much mother love happening in our house lately. My daughter Sarah, who is 5 ½, has been testing her boundaries in talking back, ignoring me and flat out being mean. Lately we have been fighting like never before. I have become that screaming mom I never thought I'd be and she's become the arrogant, and sometimes mean spirit girl I hoped she'd never become. I have heard the first five years of parenting are physically hard as you get little sleep and are constantly carrying a little one, but the next 10 years of parenting are emotionally hard as you fight to mold your child's character. I guess we are entering that second stage of parenting. I'll admit that it terrifies me and I don't feel ready.
I think the character Peony may have been wrong, mother love is an emotion for both mothers and daughters. Whether it is forming our daughters' feet or their character, the work is hard and painful on both the mother and the daughter. Last Friday, I had planned to take the girls on their first camping trip with two other moms and their daughters. Friday turned out to be a terrible day. Sarah refused to do the four simple chores assigned to her that day. Our tempers both escalated throughout the day as I insisted she do them and she continued to refuse. Sarah told me that she wished I'd go get a job because she was sick of having me around. I told her the camping trip was off. Both of our words were like arrows to the heart.
I was responsible for bringing part of dinner for camping that night. So I packed the girls in the car and drove through two hours of traffic to deliver the food. The girls had never seen a camp site. As we pulled in and they saw the tents there was much begging, pleading, and crying. I felt bad for the girls. (By the way Emmie had followed Sarah's lead all day and wouldn't do anything I asked either, so it was a fair punishment for both of them) The soft part of my heart screamed, "let them go camping!" The sensible part of my heart argued, "If you don't try to mold her now, it will only get worse." The sensible part won out and we pulled out of the campsite. They cried all the way home. My heart cried too. I realized that can no longer ease every tear with a tender embrace, a Dora sticker or a tickle fest, that's not my job. My role as mother has become much more complicated. It is time to begin in earnest the job of molding Sarah into the person God wants her to be. I guess that means there is much more painful mother love in our future.
When we got home, I went and sat on our front porch. A huge lightening storm had started. The loud crashes of thunder echoed the girls' and I's mood. I sat on the porch and prayed. I prayed for wisdom, for strength and for peace. The lightening gave way to a driving rain storm. The first we have had all summer. As the rain began to fall, Emmie came outside with me. She snuggled on my lap and we quietly watched the rain. I praised God for the rain, which drove away the heat of the day and washed away my tension. Sarah soon came to find us and we finally had a productive conversation about our day. Cuddling on the porch, watching the final drops of rain fall, I was reminded that Mother Love comes from two characters - it is not just pain, the first character is love. With the grace of God, that love will get us through this new season of mothering.
