In 2010, when my children were ten, eight, five, and three, we moved to Sydney, and I embarked upon the homeschooling journey. A few months in, I was so flummoxed, angry, frustrated, overwhelmed, and felt a complete failure, that I announced to the children, “I am sorry, but you will need to come with me to a novena of daily Masses.”
Such was my desperation!
The fruit of this novena was the realisation that I needed to learn to “delight” in my children. I was a little shocked by this revelation. Surely, this comes naturally?! After all, they are my children! I had them! I raised them; I changed their nappies; I fed them. Heck! I kept them alive!
And therein lies the rub; although we keep our children alive, although we wash their clothes, clean up their vomit, and mop their brow – do we take delight in them – utter delight!?
To delight in someone is to: “take a high degree of gratification or pleasure.” The question that I had to ask myself was – am I deeply grateful for my children? Do I allow them to give me great pleasure?
The answer was…not, really. Although I loved them, I suspect that I had adopted an attitude of forbearance, long sufferance, and, “I am really doing you all a favour here.” What really brought this home to me was being at the shops – in the middle of the day (a no-no for homeschool mums if you wish to avoid scrutiny).
This woman says, “Are they all your children?” (I have four – a modest number by Catholic homeschool standards).
“Yes,” I reply, “we homeschool” (fool! Shoosh, Sarah!!).
“Oh, I don’t know how you stand it!” she says.
“Me either!” I respond whilst rolling my eyes in the acceptable fashion.
In rolling my eyes, I took in my eldest daughter’s expression; she was looking at me with confusion – as if to say, “Are we really such a nuisance?”
At that moment, I was disgusted with myself. In that moment, I realised that in trying to be impressive to this complete stranger, I had wounded the heart of my daughter. In an instance, I experienced a metanoia – a conversion. I realised that in playing along to the narrative that my children were a nuisance, an interruption to my “career”, a social interruption, I had failed to truly delight in their very existence.
I set about to remedy this. I decided to smile with my eyes at my kids. I decided to look at them with eyes that said, “Lordy, I love you so much!” I decided to take time with them. I resolved to think of them as the best thing that ever happened to me. I decided to “prefer” to be with them. I undertook to be proud of them in public.
I decided to look at them with eyes that said, “Lordy, I love you so much!"
One example was when we lived in Western Sydney, we went fortnightly to the library and would borrow about forty books at a time. One such visit was timed just before a hairdressing appointment. At the hairdressers, my children sat quietly devouring books, as I had my hair cut. The other “stylists” were amazed at this phenomenon. I found myself prodigiously proud of them and said, “Aren’t they fabulous?!”
This period of time set me on a course of taking radical delight in my children. It was not out of my strength, but a sort of epiphany that it was, in fact, rather miraculous that I even had these four children. I had married at thirty and had never had a maternal bone in my body before that. My sister and brother-in-law arrived home after ten years in London, and my brother-in-law kept saying, “Sarsy, you have four kids! You have four kids!” And I would laugh and agree that it was really rather amazing.
Our youngest two are studying at Campion College; our eldest two have finished their studies and are now working full time. All four children reckon I am an “ace” mum. My eldest called me for advice the other day at the behest of her brother. “Call mum, she’ll know what to do,” he said. Such a beautiful miracle of grace.
More importantly, they have all chosen the faith and actively seek a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Each of them is drawn to a slightly different spirituality within the breadth of the Catholic Church.
Each time they call me, each time they let their hearts unfold to me in tears or in hilarity, I experience this surge of delight and extreme privilege at being the mum to four amazing human beings. I am keenly aware of the role of being a steward for them, and I am keenly aware that I was such a ratbag at their age, and so lost in my twenties that I cannot take the credit. The grace is all the Lord’s.
But I can say this: the epiphany that led to my decision to take delight in my children has been the seedbed for the adult relationships that I now am blessed with. My husband always had this gift, but I am choleric and quite demanding, so for me, the Lord’s grace has been so wonderful and so rich and so delightful.
A dear friend says of taking delight in one’s children, “It may be the miraculous ingredient in why our children love us.”
To take delight in someone is to communicate to them that their very existence is just a fabulous gift. My prayer today is to fully know the Lord’s delight in me, that I may delight in those He sends me – especially the children He has blessed me with.
Make God the utmost delight and pleasure of your life, and he will provide for you what you desire the most. Psalm 37:4.
Sarah is Editor of Litany of the Home. She lives with her husband in Wagga Wagga where they both teach. Through homeschooling her now four grown up children, she developed a love of writing and correct grammar use. Sarah has been writing and speaking about faith, friendship, and being female for well over a decade. She and her husband, James, are members of the Fraternity of the Heart of Jesus in the Emmanuel Community.
11 Responses
So beautiful! Exactly what I needed to read today.
thank you!
Beautifully written Sarah. Thank you for sharing.
thank you for your comment!
I pray that I may start this now! I been pulling my hair out lately and losing it far to much. Come Holy Spirit!
God bless and prayers your way! Thank you 🥰
A good reminder for us all! Thank you for your comment and your prayers.
This is truly beautiful, I loved every minute of reading it.
Sarah writes beautifully. Thank you for your comment.
What a great read to give us perspective. I’m currently in the thick of it all and losing my mind more often than I’d like to admit. I hope I can embrace and embody this skill
Just what I needed to read, beautiful Sarsy. Xx