Skip to main content

Where Mother Is...




A while ago I was trying to make an important decision about a significant opportunity in my life. It would have been a dream come true for many people and it seemed too good to pass up. The only problem was that no matter how I tried to make it work, it would require a significant amount of time away from my growing family.

I prayed, stewed and turned it over in my mind. One day I was driving home and I looked up to the mountain. Something caught my attention that I had never noticed before. Going down the mountain was a line of trees surrounded by brown – brown being the common color in our arid climate. I knew they were following a water line and that that was the only way for trees to grow in this mountain desert. And then suddenly I had a thought flash into my mind: “where mother is, children grow.”

This was a decision maker for me. I knew that as much as I wanted this opportunity and as much as it “made sense” in every conceivable way, it was not right because I would be depriving my children of the mother’s presence needed for their growth.

Children need attention, they need nurturing, they need a mother who cares and who is available. We can so easily be busy with our occupation, with our social gatherings or with our volunteer work. But children need mother. They need her around.

I found this unattributed quote in a talk by President David O. McKay: “True motherhood is the most beautiful of all arts, the greatest of all professions. She who can paint a masterpiece, or who can write a book that will influence millions, deserves the admiration and plaudits of mankind; but she who rears successfully a family of healthy, beautiful sons and daughters, whose immortal souls will exert an influence throughout the ages long after paintings shall have faded, and books and statues shall have decayed or have been destroyed, deserves the highest honor that man can give, and the choicest blessings of God.”



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Perspective

  Yesterday I was just upset.  Our family Come Follow Me lesson on contentment (no kidding) had been a disaster.  My husband fell asleep during Come Follow Me.  My boys launched into a sock-throwing war.  Everyone was making rude and sarcastic comments.  Did NO ONE in the family appreciate my efforts to prepare this Come Follow Me lesson on contentment and gratitude?  I was certainly NOT content and I let my sarcastic remarks and tears brighten everyone's day. I felt prompted to go over to the computer.  I decided to go onto Facebook and look up a friend I had not seen in a while. We attended church together growing up but her family had been hit by extreme bad luck. They had three little boys and a girl.  Two of the children were pretty normal but the other two boys were severely handicapped and required vast amounts of time and attention.  Not long after we got to know the Howes family they discovered that David - a brilliant former Rhodes scholar - had Alzheimer's disease
Post a Comment
Read more

A Character-Building Summer Reading List for Boys

  A Character-Building Summer Reading List for Boys I realized that I have been dropping the ball with some of my younger children and have not had expectations that they read the literature of the best and highest quality.  This has been reflected in their manners. If we want our boys (and girls) to learn kindness, honesty, and respect for others - where better than in the literature they read (and I lament the fact that many boys aren’t reading at all)?  Hopefully, we would not let our children eat a steady diet of junk food.  But are we as careful with the media that they consume?  Over the years I have put a lot of effort into studying book lists and also learning what great men have read.  Then I try to have these books available for my boys. I have taught my children to read using the Book of Mormon, and I consider that and the Bible the most important literature I will teach them. I have tried to read the Book of Mormon one time with each child: Some parents find it helpful t
Post a Comment
Read more

5 Steps to Sound Family Finances

If family finance wasn't already bad enough, Covid hit, and now we have discovered that many people find themselves in a state of financial despair.  Lost jobs, rising prices, strange income situations - they have all taken their toll. Our family is not wealthy by any means.  We live on the salary of one engineer.  But I have found that the following principles have contributed to peace about our family finances: Give first.   We have followed this principle throughout our married life.  We give before we do anything else with our paycheck.  We have chosen to donate to our church and also give money to humanitarian aid and other worthwhile  Save for the future.   Saving 10% is a good rule of thumb. Again, the savings comes out before we do other things.  We have been saving like this for years.  Now, as our children are going off to college we aren't stressed.  We saved money for these expenses a long time ago. Budget.   For years I did not budget well (the only thing that save
Post a Comment
Read more