Some days you want to quit.

You may have heard, at some point, of a high-profile “domestic diva” who suddenly just up and left her husband and children and abandoned the lifestyle she’d been preaching.  (There have been several in various times and places.)

I understand.

The thing is, especially in the church, it seems to be taboo to say that we understand.

There are those who are naturally domestic and/or nurturing who stay home because they love it.  There are those who are not naturally domestic and so hand off their children to someone else to raise while they go do something “more fulfilling.”  And then there are the rest of us — those who are not naturally anything domestic but who stay home anyway because we believe it’s the right thing to do — what is best for our families.

When it’s “not your thing”

Those of us in this last category are often without support.  In today’s culture, there’s little support for the choice to stay home in the first place, but add the fact that it often seems taboo within the church to say that you struggle, and it’s even harder.  Perhaps worst of all is the fact that if a mother does have the courage to admit she’s having a hard time, she’s immediately told it’s because God’s way really doesn’t work and is encouraged to abandon her babies instead of encouraged to persevere.

Some days motherhood isn’t (immediately) rewarding.

Meanwhile, the natural domestics are baffled that there’s any difficulty at all, and tell us that being a mother is the “most rewarding job there is.”  And sometimes it is.  But sometimes it isn’t.  And when it isn’t, it can be one of the least rewarding jobs available.  For hours or days or weeks on end.

When the baby has smeared the contents of his diaper all over himself and his crib or bedroom for the fortieth time, it’s the rare mama who feels “rewarded” for her work.

When the grade-schooler has been disciplined for the same thing you’ve been trying to train her not to do for the past fifteen months, mama does not feel that her work is paying off.

When she’s folding the same laundry for the millionth time, and the kids are complaining that their favorite clothes are still not available (never mind that it’s their fault because they never picked them up off the floor and put them in the hamper), mama does not feel rewarded.

Bear one another’s burdens.

None of this is intended as a complaint.  There are those days when mama can’t remember why she ever thought this job was a pain in the neck — when the babies volunteer their kisses or the grade-schoolers say they’re glad to have her for a mom.

But I think perhaps the church needs a wake-up call.  Being a full-time mom is a hard job, and one that often goes unappreciated.  Maybe we need to encourage our mamas to share their difficulties and actually help bear their burdens, as Galatians instructs.  Maybe we need to encourage and strengthen those who are doing what the Bible calls a “good work,” instead of discouraging their efforts to persevere in countering our culture.

And maybe, just maybe, we should consider even helping them in their task.  According to Titus 2, older women are train the younger women to “love their children,” but many of the older women in today’s churches are not even available.  Help preparing younger moms to nurture and train and discipline their children is often entirely lacking (although there are older women in many churches perfectly willing and eager to take our children off our hands while reinforcing the notion that we are not sufficiently “equipped” to train our own children).

Maybe it’s time for the church to help teach the next generation how to “rock the cradle.”