Motherhood is a Mission, Not an Identity

Maybe it’s my phase of life. I’m creeping ever closer to 50 years old, and suddenly all of those young mom things that I used to be targeted by on social media have changed. Now instead I’m getting empty nester posts. I’m seeing thoughts and complaints and struggles of moms who are sending kids to college or who are navigating relationships with adult children.

One theme that continues to come through in these posts and comments is that older moms are struggling to make some transitions. They aren’t handling change well. They are overly concerned with their own feelings, and their feelings reveal a sense of betrayal, hurt, and self-obssession as they watch their kids begin lives that are separate from their own.

I don’t mean to sound harsh. I’m only stating the facts as I see them coming through in the grumbling and hurt feelings of these mothers. And I don’t want to trivialize what some older moms may be going through in an age when many young adults are convinced that going no contact with parents is reasonable. I fully acknowledge that there are a lot of relationship problems that exist between older moms and their children, and many legitimate hurts sometimes exist on both sides. But I’m not really writing to address the problems that moms may be having with young adult children. I’d like to address instead what I see in these complaints: I see mothers who have confused identities. Somewhere along the way, Christian women have drifted into identifying as mothers first and daughters of God second, and I’m convinced this is where a lot of their hurt is coming from.

I recently read a long diatribe written by a woman who was crushed that she made pies for her kids and grandkids at Christmas, and none of them ate them. They were all watching their sugar intake, and the mother felt like her purpose in life was over. Another mom wrote about how her adult children only asked her to come over for Christmas lunch and not Christmas morning. Her pain was evident. Her complaint, however unreasonable, felt justified. She saw no reason why she couldn’t continue in the same pattern of being the mommy at Christmastime. These are just two examples in a sea of hurts from women my age, and over and over again I see the symptoms crop up: these women have forgotten that motherhood is a mission, not an identity.

You are worth no less if no one eats your pies. A lunch invitation on Christmas day instead of a breakfast invitation does not mean that you are not loved or wanted. Even if your child has unfairly excluded you from her life, you are not drifting around on this earth with no purpose or identity. My nest, too, is emptying. Things change, and more drastic changes are ahead for me. Some things about having adult children are tough to adjust to, but one thing I know is that motherhood is not the root of who I am. It’s a wonderful part of my life. Many phases of it, at least with my older children, have already come and gone, days that will never again return. Motherhood is a moving, living, breathing organism that moves and changes and comes and goes. The phases ebb and flow. The job starts really hard and then gets easier and then gets hard again. If we try to find our identity in this mission of neverending termporary phases, the inevitable end for moms is hurt and pain. What are we worth when our children don’t need or want us quite as much anymore?

This is how we know as Christians that motherhood is the wrong place to find our meaning in this world. A wonderful mission is different from the core of who we are. The only thing in this world that determines our identity is our faith in Christ; He is the only thing that is constant and true and completely good in this universe or in the history of the world. Placing our identity in anything less is just setting ourselves up for a total internal crisis when our motherhood mission changes, becomes less prominent in our lives, or disappears all together.

Motherhood is absolutely an eternal mission. But our position and prominence in our kids’ lives is temporal, and if we find that we are living in a cloud of hurt and sadness as each phase moves and changes, then it may be a symptom that we have built our identity on a good, but wrong foundation. Jesus is the only cornerstone we can build abundant life on. Motherhood is a beautiful and critical mission in life, but it isn’t who we are. We must identify with Christ alone and nothing less, and then when the winds of change blow, when our kids age and become independent adults, we won’t consider who is eating pie to be the measure of who we are. When our priorities are out of order, we become unbalanced and can easily live preoccupied by things that don’t mean anything. In the end, the love of Christ is our highest prize, and motherhood, a glorious endeavor, is put in the proper perspective.