When mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy!
I’ve heard that saying a lot in recent years. It is said with such regularity and assurance you would think it came from a well-known and respected source, like the bible, or at least the Farmer’s Almanac. I really could not find the origins for the saying although I’m willing to bet it is not more than 30-50 years or so old. I think that saying says a lot about our own culture, and about the warped values we’ve picked up from feminism, whether we embraced feminist cultural ideals or not. I think it is an ideal that has unwaringly permeated our thoughts and values.
The phrase also gets paraphrased into something like, “A happy mama makes a happy baby,” or sometimes with a twist i.e. , “a happy mama is a good mama. But is that really the message that a Christian wife and mother needs to focus on? Is her happiness paramount and supreme to the well-being of her family? Or does true happiness for a wife and mother other come from trying to live out her commitments to her husband and family the way God intended? What does scripture say about mama being happy?
When I first reverted back to my Catholic faith, one of the first verses that spoke to me as a wife and mother was from the book of Romans chapter 12:
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
Women have a unique opportunity to really live this out, as much of our vocation is so physical. Pregnancy and childbirth are definitely times in a woman’s life when her body is truly making a living and holy sacrifice. The time of childbirth, whether vaginal or via C-section is a time that we endure a special suffering for the good of our child. I also think that nursing a child, taking that special very short time in our baby’s life to be there completely and fully for them, is also an act of being a living sacrifice.
Romans continues: And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Elizabeth, who commented on my bloggings about breastfeeding could have had this verse in mind when she said:
Breastfeeding on demand trains a woman to lay down her life for her child. I think that from the very beginning, the breastfeeding relationship is a unique and valuable one for both mother and baby.
In a very tangible way, breastfeeding transforms the woman from being concerned for herself, to in an indescribable reality of loving her child so completely that she would indeed sacrifice her life. In an equally real way the mother who wishes to nurse her child but cannot due to medical problems for either her or the baby, is also being transformed through her sacrifice. In a very real sense that is what mother’s do. In little bits of time everyday, over weeks, months, years and decades, they sacrifice their lives. A mother gives her life to her child and it starts with the sacrifice of her body through pregnancy, childbirth, and nursing. I think that is a very different message than one the culture perpetuates of seeking happiness first.
In Luke Jesus says:
23 And he said to all: If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
That’s a very powerful message. But look at what it doesn’t say. It does not say to go out and seek crosses, or borrow one from your neighbor, or trade your current cross in for a different one. Jesus tells us to take up OUR cross, the one that comes with our daily life, our vocation and for a mother that means the care and well-being of her family. What’s more in doing that, in embracing our cross of married life and motherhood, we are following Jesus.
In 1 Timothy we read: “But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety. This is our mission, our vocation and our way to live out our Christian life. We continue our pilgrimage towards heaven following Jesus by being faithful to these things. In my opinion that is a very different paradigm than the one that encourage mothers to seek their own happiness first.
Related Tags: motherhood, childbirth, pregnancy, breastfeeding, scripture, Jesus, Christianity, pick up your cross, 1 Timothy, Romans 12, Luke
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