We need to stop imprisoning mothers with words of fear and dread.
I’m not sure we’re entirely aware of the weight of our words.
Sometimes we mean well.
Sometimes we speak impulsively.
Sometimes we just repeat what we’ve always heard.
But “death and life are in the power of the tongue”.
Telling us what our experiences in motherhood will be like based on your own is to taint something intended to be beautiful.
By no means withhold truth,
But when we speak,
Let’s lead with love,
With hope,
With joy.
Next time you’re getting ready to tell a woman how her pregnancy is going to steal her joy when it disrupts daily life,
How fearful and painful the birth experience is going to be,
How awful the newborn season is going to be
when she’s sleep deprived for the
next decade,
How she won’t be able to do any of the things she enjoyed before because “just you wait and see”,
-Whether it’s based on personal experience, what is considered the “norm”, or what you’ve read-
Ask yourself what you’re hoping to evoke in her when you share those words and consider what it might actually be doing.
Are you sewing seeds of doubt,
Of fear,
Of dread?
Are you enslaving that woman with feelings of inadequacy?
Or are you helping with the equipping of this generation’s women who’ll be mothering our future leaders?
Are we contributing to their confidence and joy in this new (or continuous) role as ‘Mom’?
Instead of declaring negativity,
Let’s offer words of encouragement.
Instead of fear-mongering,
Let’s offer our help, our time, our ears, our knowledge, our prayers of faith.
Let’s let women discover their own experiences without tainting them with preconceived notions.
Let’s remember that what is true of one woman’s experience is not definitive of another’s.
[None of the statements above are meant to be mistaken for the encouragement to be dishonest or misleading but to tear down a culture of fear we’ve collectively accepted as “normal” and to start one that uplifts fellow mothers.]
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