What is childcare?

After enjoying a lovely night out with my husband for my birthday, I was talking with my Mom about how the time with the kiddos went.  She and my Dad (wonderful grandparents that they are!) had an interesting conversation while we were gone.  While playing out in the sandbox on an oddly warm January day, my Dad commented that watching the kids was "sometimes kind of boring, a lot of just being there" to which she responded that "it is what you make it."

That really got me to thinking.  Childcare is simply having kids with you while you go about life.  It is discipling them in all the little "when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." (Deuteronomy 11:18) moments.  Essentially, I am teaching my children how to be a little me.  I'm showing them what 'we do' in life.  This usually involves a lot of talking about the proper way to do things too, whether it's how to fold that towel or what kind of words we use when we ask for something.  It's a lot of little things that add up to the biggest thing most of us do in life: training up children.

I think if Momma is feeling bored like watching the kids is 'just being there,' there are two possible reasons.

1.  She doesn't really want to train them to be like her

Perhaps she doesn't really want her kids to spend their time surfing the internet or watching TV so she doesn't want to fill their time with those things... yet they are the things she's waiting until they go to bed to do.  Their presence is an inconvenience because it's keeping her from the things she wants to do.  This is a momma who isn't quite living by her convictions I'm afraid.  If she thought that what she wanted to do was truely a valuable pursuit, why not have the kids join her in it?

2.  She doesn't really want to train them to be like her

Let's be honest -- keeping the kids with you and teaching them how to do life is a lot of work!  A one year old doesn't naturally know to sweep that stuff on the floor into the dustpan.  A three year old will need repeated instruction on how to speak nicely to you or his sister.  It will simply take a lot longer to get things done if you're training your kids to help you do them....  but that's OK, that's why I'm at home just working on the basics anyway!  Why not let it take all morning to clean the bathrooms?  Why is it so important to hurry up and finish the chores?  So I can engage in entertainment that I don't want my kids joining me in?  I hope not!

3.  She doesn't really want to be a living sacrifice

This is something God has really been working on in my heart since we added our third child a few months ago.  My moments are not my own.  By the time the chores get done with little ones around, it's usually time for a nap and then to do some more chores.  Not so much room for the little "me time" window I used to have.  That means that my moments - pretty much all of them - are not my own.  Is that really so terrible, though?  Aren't we supposed to be a 'living sacrifice'?  Doesn't that mean my whole life is not my own?

Here's how this looks for me.  The house is mostly clean for now, the baby's napping, and we've got a half hour until lunch.  "Hmm, wouldn't it be nice to curl up on the couch and read that book I've got going?"  I think.  The kids are into books too so maybe we can all have a book time.  Up on the couch we go with our books in hand.  Quiet reigns.  It's glorious.  I'm enjoying my "me time."  Two minutes, or perhaps thirty seconds later, little hands start crawling up onto my lap and pushing my book away.  "Mommy, do you want to read me this book?"  "Mommy, what's this?"  I sigh and put away my book.  I thank God that these little people want so much to spend time with me and I give them the time that spells love to them.  It is a sacrifice, but it's God's great gift to me too.

The Monastery of Motherhood

Oh, squishy baby snuggles!  Tiny arms!  Innocent smiles and the ability to calm them by holding them because I am just their whole world!  Cute toddler first words and first steps!  Funny preschooler insights and imaginations!  Motherhood is lovely.  Breathtakingly precious.  Take it from my emotional mothering self.  There are times I just cry because it's so sweet!

And mixed in with that sweetness, there's a lot that's tough too.  Waking up in the middle of the night for the second time to answer hungry baby cries while my husband sleeps; waking up in the morning after that to a full day with energetic toddlers; seeing that bathroom I just finally got around to cleaning get dirty again far too soon; cleaning up a potty training accident for the third time that day; listening to angry cries as I calmly discipline.  Oh it is hard to stay calm while doing that disciplining sometimes!  And hard to keep a good attitude when the mess that will never be cleaned if I don't do it threaten to overwhelm me.

But I heard a phrase once that has really come alive for me as we've added our third baby to the home this winter: "the monastery of motherhood."  It is in a way.  It is a place that God is using to burn the selfishness off of me.  Everyday I have a dozen opportunities to kill my selfishness.  I can't say I succeed at every one of those moments (or really even half of them some days!), but oh it is growing sweeter and sweeter to rest in God's strength to do so.  Truly giving Him my moments as a "living sacrifice" to serve the "least of these" I find nearest at hand.  Oh it's nothing glamorous enough for a Nobel prize or even a salary, but "they shall reap a harvest if they faint not," right?  It's a life's work really and I'm just 4 years in, but I am finding such hope and rest for my soul in knowing that this is what God designed to refine me.