Seeking Encouragement

Once in awhile I read a very interesting and lovely blog called Amy's Humble Musings. Today I was looking through it, clicking links, and I ended up reading an old entry on a site I'd never visited before: Dear Homeschooling Mother, by Carmon @ Buried Treasure. She is discussing negative responses to homeschooling, and quotes reformed Professor Carl Trueman:

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For every omnicompetent wife who seems to be able to run the world and then some, and still look like a million dollars when hubbie gets home for dinner (already on the table, of course), there are ten or more who look crushed and dispirited, who really need to send their kids out of the house in the morning so they can get some rest and some mental sanity, who need their husbands to see the problem and take steps to help them. Are they inadequate as Christian mothers? No. They are crushed by a "Christian" culture that demands their all and gives no slack.

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Obviously Carmon did not agree with this assessment, and neither do I. As someone who suffers from clinical depression I often receive the advice that I should stop having children, and send the ones I do have to school, preschool, or daycare. I am often told that the children must be contributing to my depression. The problem with this advice is that it ignores the chemical imbalance in my head, and blames my children instead.

Would anyone think it "made sense" for the woman with nine children to develop cancer? Or when she's nauseous from chemo, would they suggest that the answer is to send her children away to school? I can assure you that my children have as much to do with causing chemical imbalances as they do with causing cancer, and I frankly find the insinuation quite insulting.

This kind of advice is far from helpful. We all know that neither cancer nor clinical depression will disappear with the children. These problems are difficult to deal with, and helping with them requires much more investment than simply advising that the children be sent to school. When supposed friends and counselors take this easy out, they may as well admit that they aren't going to help with the real issue. In fact, they cut the mother off from seeking any further help, knowing that she'll only be met with attacks on herself and her children. There are several people to whom I refuse to speak about my depression. Frankly, I don't want to be told that I am somehow too broken to mother my own children, or that my children are destroying my sanity simply by existing.

Furthermore, blaming the children -- whether blaming them for clinical depression or simply for the mother being tired -- robs us of the joy of serving our families. Instead of saying, "You can do this, it will be worth it, I will help you," it says, "You can't do this, I don't understand why you even try, it's not worth it." In fact, it says, "They aren't worth it." By devaluing our efforts and sacrifice as craziness we could easily avoid, you devalue the children who we believe to be worth the cost.

Homeschooling mothers don't need to be told that it's ok to give up. Most of us aren't going to feel immense relief at finally sending those pesky children away. We're going to feel as though we've lost something we wanted to keep, all because everyone assured us it was too hard to hold on.

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