“The old painters, however diverse their ideas in other matters, all fixed upon one quality as proper to the pattern of Mother. The Madonna, no matter out of whose canvas she looks at you, is always serene…We should do well to hang our walls with the Madonnas of all the early Masters [of art] if the lesson, taught through the eye, would reach with calming influence to the heart.”
It can be bewildering as a new mother to watch a woman further along the journey. The mother of one toddler may quickly become exasperated by something inevitable like children getting into a fountain and mucking around with pebbles and soggy leather baby shoes.
Meanwhile, somehow, inexplicably, a heavily pregnant mother of many patiently brushes off a scraped knee and waits calmly for the mess-making to subside. How? How does she attain such peace? Is it a dulling of self or a deepening to experience such serenity in the face of such mundane activity?
The answer can be an expanding inner world through habituation. Certainly, some people start out more placid and patient than others, but for everyone who waits and watches, patience grows. You need not be staring idly, you can spend the time working out ideas, like a cow chewing her cud. You can, as Tasha Tudor suggests, read snippets of Shakespeare. You can ponder the words of Ben Johnson: “The also serve who only stand and wait.”
It is not as though a mother’s whole life is lounging about, growing in patience, and watching it all happen. There’s rather a lot to do. It is also unrealistic to expect that one can muster the mental fortitude to be patiently and joyfully present day-in and day-out without reprieve.
L.N. Laurio offers a splendid paraphrasing of Mason’s writing in language more accessible to the modern ear. I strongly encourage reading at length her interpretation of Mason’s advice at length. It’s revolutionary. On this, our dear Brenda Ueland and Ms. Mason would find common ground: mothers must leave the daily grind of an afternoon for a respite and refreshment. A mother who is not whole and joyful will not offer a life worthy of imitation to her children.
We also should calibrate our expectations for our children so as to really enjoy them. Just as our marriages can crumble when we neglect the simple, ordinary gestures of affection and stability on which we unknowingly rely, so our children will come to irk us if we do not regularly give them the opportunity to be delightful. And children are delightful. Their frankness and simplicity can so easily surprise and endear us.
However, if we are trying to walk through fine art museums or attend a ritzy brunch, all of this charm is quite well concealed. Children who learn to sleep well and eat well and are given luxurious hours of mud and fresh air are at their most captivating. It’s loads of work to ensure that they do sleep and have good food to eat and the mud will horrify anyone who is ultimately responsible for cleaning up the mess, but the rewards can be the true enjoyment of children.
The secret might be identifying places in which more children actually make for more fun. There are numerous instances one can call to mind in which more than one child—or even a lone little tyke—are unbearable. Shopping for dishes, shopping in general, lengthy choir recitals, doctors’ offices, houses with many breakable objects. The noise and frenetic energy that escalates between children in such situations can be dizzying.
On the other hand, there are well designed playgrounds and pools, trails, creeks, outdoor birthday parties, and houses set up with rambunctious, loud children in mind. In these instances, the more children there are, the more fun to be had. “The more the merrier” may be a phrase to which Uncle Ambrose objects strenuously, but it holds true for gatherings of small children in which it is easy for them to have fun without destroying things and the noise is able to dissipate.
The mother calmly steering a young child through a meltdown, the mother cleaning up the kitchen again in a radiant glow of contentment, the mother who knows that unsupervised children in the backyard means that large quantities of mud will be tracked from the backdoor up to the bath but willingly and without resentment lets them go anyway—all these mothers are usually people who have grown through slow and tedious development. They have set expectations to match the life—and the children—they have.
They also might have had a Mama Sabbath in recent weeks to renew their joy in the daily happenings of hearth and home. It is beautiful, but you will struggle to see it when hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. Ask me how I know…
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