Motherhood | Harriet Connor

A prayer for a surprise pregnancy

On 04/08/2023

When our youngest child was about to start primary school, I felt like I was about to enter a whole new stage of motherhood. I was considering two different part-time ministry jobs, as well as various opportunities to serve at our church and our kids’ school and I felt excited at what lay ahead.

On New Year’s Eve I prayed this prayer (I found it this week in my prayer journal):

Eternal Creator, Loving Father,
I kneel before you at the threshold of a new year and hand my life over to you again. I am willing—and excited—to go wherever you lead me. All I ask is that you keep equipping me for whatever you call me to—with love, wisdom, time, ideas, grace, patience, faithfulness and perseverance. Please fill me with your Spirit to speak the life-giving truth and to live by the truth. Please show me how—and who—to love with time and encouragement, food and comfort …
Amen.

When I prayed that prayer, I had no idea that God was about to answer in the most surprising way. After five-and-a-half years of believing that ‘family planning’ was something in our control, I fell pregnant for the fourth time.

I thought I was open to anything, ready to serve in whatever way God asked me to. Except for this. I’m not ready for this. I had had enough of 24-hour ‘morning’ sickness and the other discomforts and anxieties that come with pregnancy, especially at an older age. I wasn’t confident I had enough energy left to carry and give birth to another baby. I couldn’t face the thought yet more years of breastfeeding dramas, nappies and sleepless nights. I was not emotionally prepared for another five years of having a small person attached to me most of the time. I felt like I was being asked to stay back and ‘repeat’ when I had been about to graduate.

Over that summer, I slowly came to accept the fact that I really was pregnant. I gradually came to realise that carrying, birthing and raising another child was the ministry God had planned for me. It was primarily that person that God wanted me to love with my time and encouragement, food and comfort. And it was for the ministry of motherhood that I would need God’s provision of love, wisdom, time, ideas, grace, faithfulness and perseverance, as I had prayed.

I felt a mixture of emotions as I told people the news: sometimes I felt guilty that I was ‘going back for fourths’ while others were struggling to conceive even one child; other times I felt embarrassed (‘Don’t you guys know how babies are made?’); sometimes I tried to second-guess God’s plans—surely this would be that long-awaited daughter! (It wasn’t.)

Now I’ve written a new prayer for those who find themselves surprised by pregnancy:

Lord, you have searched me and you know me. Lord, you see me. Lord, you hold me—us—in your hand.

You are the God who wove me together in the depths of the earth. You formed my womb. Every day of my life was written in your book before one of them came to be. This is not the plan I had for my life, not the future I imagined. But I surrender myself to your better, wiser plans. I offer myself as an earthen vessel—a jar of clay—for you to mould and shape and use for your perfect purposes.

Now who are you knitting together in the dark depths of my womb? What days do you have planned for them?

What a privilege to have the miracle of life forming inside me—to have you at work within my womb, swirling together a universe—a new eternal soul—where there once was nothing.

To me, the future is dark and unknown: Will my baby be healthy? Will it be a boy or girl? When will it be born? Will the birth be straightforward? Will I be able to breastfeed? How will I cope?

It is tempting to let fear and worry overcome me. But darkness is as light to you. Not even a sparrow falls to the ground without your knowledge. You even know the number of hairs on my head. You feed the birds and clothe the flowers. Surely you will care for me and my baby. You know what I need before I even know what to ask you.

With Sarah and Elizabeth, I laugh with surprise: ‘After I am worn out and my husband is old, will I now have this pleasure?’ (Genesis 18:12)

With Eve may I soon say, ‘With the help of the Lord, I have brought forth a man!’ (Genesis 4:1)

But for now, with Mary, I simply say, ‘I am the Lord’s servant’ (Luke 1:38). May I faithfully carry out the ministry of motherhood that you have called me to. I receive this child as they truly are: a precious gift from you.
Amen.

Four ways feminism misunderstands motherhood

By Harriet Connor

On 03/12/2022

In Articles, Book Reviews

I recently came away from a job interview wishing I hadn’t spoken so much about motherhood. When asked to outline my experience in balancing competing projects and deadlines, the best examples I could think of were from my family life. But on reflection, that probably came across as unprofessional. Needless to say, I didn’t get the job.

In the world of work, it’s often best to pretend that we aren’t mothers at all. In fact, it’s illegal for prospective employers to ask if we are.

Feminism has fought hard for women to have an equal place in the workforce alongside men. But it has largely accomplished this by separating women from motherhood. The priorities of contemporary feminism are to enable women to avoid becoming mothers in the first place (through contraception and access to abortion) and to ensure that motherhood doesn’t inhibit a woman’s career (through access to childcare and maternity leave).

But this creates a huge tension for many women—we experience a disconnect between the promises of feminism and real-life motherhood. It feels like you can’t be a good feminist and a good mother at the same time.

Erasing mothers is not progress

By Harriet Connor

On 21/05/2022

In Articles

Everywhere you look, mothers are being erased.

In the name of inclusion and diversity:

Barnardos has cancelled its ‘Mother of the Year’ award
Volunteers from the Australian Breastfeeding Association have been investigated for their use of the word ‘mother’ on social media
The Labor Party has removed the word ‘mother’ from its policy documents

The reasoning goes: some families don’t have a mother and some mothers identify as ‘fathers’, so we should stop using sexed language for parents altogether. In the modern family, ‘mother’ and ‘father’ have been replaced by Parent 1 and (if you’re lucky) Parent 2.

Sadly, mothers are also being erased, not just from our speech, but from children’s lives. There have been some recent high-profile cases of men ‘creating’ children through surrogacy, with the intention of raising them without a mother. Depending on the arrangement, a baby can have–and lose–up to three different ‘mothers’: a genetic mother, a birth mother, and a social mother. And we are supposed to applaud.

I understand how normalising ‘diverse’ families can help the children of those families to feel less stigmatised, but deliberately removing mothers cannot possibly be called progress. This forced political correctness–telling children that mothers are optional and interchangeable–is a denial of biological reality and human need.

How Psalm 139 Made Me a Mother (Not Just a Parent)

By Harriet Connor

On 17/12/2021

In Articles

I grew up steeped in the value of gender equality. I can still remember a heated conversation around the coloring table at preschool—I was the kid arguing “There’s no such thing as girls’ colors and boys’ colors.” My all-girls high school had the unspoken motto of “Beat the boys.” We were encouraged to work hard and dream big; to become scientists, lawyers, and engineers. Our teachers rarely suggested traditionally female careers like teaching or nursing, and “the M word” (motherhood) was never mentioned.

Abigail Favale perfectly describes the kind of feminism I was raised in:

The classic feminist argument affirms sex role fluidity—a woman can do whatever a man can do. Thus, a different notion of woman’s essence is presupposed: namely, none. Instead, women and men become essentially interchangeable, essentially the same. Because a woman can do anything, she no longer is anything in particular.

As a result, I grew up very disconnected from my femaleness. Unlike other girls, I never wore pink. I never put on makeup. I never did my hair. Skirts, breasts, and menstrual periods were just minor inconveniences to be overcome in an effort to “beat the boys.”

Parenthood: Struggle for Equality

As a young adult, I thought that finding a compatible partner meant finding someone exactly like me—a man who shared not just the same values and beliefs, but the same interests and tastes, the same sense of humor and style of communication. I expected a partnership to involve two people working interchangeably toward their shared goals.

When I eventually got married and then pregnant, it was the first time I began to understand my female body as something intricately designed for a distinct purpose. And yet, once I had given birth to our first son, nursing seemed to be the only thing that distinguished my role from my husband’s. I had somehow come to parenthood with the idea that my husband’s and my relationship with our son would be more or less the same—our “parenting” would be equal and identical.

But things never seemed to work out that way. My husband’s approach to raising children was fundamentally different. At times, we had opposite beliefs about what our son needed from us. My husband thought he needed more independence, but I thought he needed more connection. He thought I was being too gentle, and I thought he was being too firm. Because of this, our family life felt like a struggle. Our innate tendencies were always pulling in different directions, making it hard to reach the elusive goal of “equality.”

Bearing the Wounds of Motherhood

By Harriet Connor

On 07/05/2021

In Articles

‘Have more babies!’ my aunty pleaded last week, when our seven-month-old was being particularly cute at a family gathering. Come to think of it, wherever we go—church, school, playgroup or the shops—our (usually) beaming baby boy brings great joy.

Everyone loves babies!

I think the reason for this is that babies are so perfect. They embody a fresh start, pure potential, hope for the future. When we look at a baby, it kindles a hope that our world might become a better place for them to grow up in. When we look at a baby, it kindles a hope that their life might be better than ours has been. When we look at a baby, it kindles a hope that we might do a better job of child-raising than previous generations.

But as an older mother with three older children, my hope for our baby is somewhat muted; it’s a bit restrained by what I’ve seen of real life. I know that our world can be a cruel place for children—we parents can’t always shelter them from bullies or accidents or sickness. I know that every child will have disadvantages to overcome—an allergy, a health problem or an anxious personality. I know that at some point, even this new baby will experience the kind of mistakes and imperfections that make me feel like the worst mother in the world.

Everyone loves babies because, for the most part, babies haven’t yet been wounded by the world. But as a mother I know that, in some shape or form, the wounds are coming and I will be powerless to stop them. And that is the wound of motherhood.

Keep reading over at Growing Faith, a Christian online magazine for parents. Find out more about Growing Faith and subscribe to our monthly e-newsletter here.

Harriet Connor

Author of Big Picture Parents

Tag: Motherhood

A prayer for a surprise pregnancy

Four ways feminism misunderstands motherhood

Erasing mothers is not progress

How Psalm 139 Made Me a Mother (Not Just a Parent)

Parenthood: Struggle for Equality

Bearing the Wounds of Motherhood

Harriet Connor

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