The Taming of the Shrew (and the martyr) Part One

Warning: this might be a series because I have a feeling I will need continual reminders.

Warning #2: There are no cute anecdotes about the kids or even a picture.

Warning #3: This hurts my feelings and it might hurt yours too.

I read this quote on Amy's Humble Musings a few weeks ago and haven't been able to get it out of my head:

There are many Supermoms (at least 2 on my street) who can throw a birthday party for 27 kids without becoming a shrew or a martyr." --Prudence Macintosh.

It turns out, I am a shrew AND a martyr, and I've never even planned a birthday party for 27 people. In fact, we've haven't had anyone over for dinner since we moved into our house. Because of the dirty blinds etc. And the whole weird vegetarian thing. And because I am so insecure about my cooking that I'm secretly afraid I'll poison everyone. (martyr, see?)

I was at the park with the kids a few weeks ago. One of the parks that we go to that is smack in the middle of a neighborhood where the median home price is around $850,000 (read that in the Sunday paper). So usually it is me and the nannies. Because if the median home price is around $850,000, even the stay-at-home moms have nannies. Anyway, we like these parks because they are generally clean and I feel pretty sure that even if someone manages to lick something or get a skinned knee, we probably aren't going to get hepatitis B or find a used hypodermic in the tunnel slide. We can explore my hypocrisy on that later. On this particular day there happened to be another mom there. She had two sons who looked to be around 4 and 2. She was on her phone the entire time, wandering behind them, occasionally admonishing them to "be careful" or helping them off something that was too high. I caught snippets of her conversation as she would wander into my radius, and the phrase I kept hearing, again and again was, "But that was MY TIME! and now I never have any time for ME!" I never caught what tragedy had befallen her to so cruelly steal her MY TIME away--perhaps her nanny had quit without much notice, or her preschool plans had fallen through, or their Gymboree class had changed days. Anyway, I found myself feeling quite disgusted with her lament. Disgusted that she was so unable to deal with the loss of her gym time or her weekly mani-pedi or her shopping for new jeans or her volunteer work or her writing of The Great American Novel or whatever. You know why?

Because it sounded just like me. I whine that whine continually. And it wasn't until I heard it coming from someone else that I realized how obnoxious it sounds. To, for example, someone struggling with infertility. Or someone whose adoption has just fallen through. Or someone who longs to be married but is not. Or maybe someone like Sarah, who went to Ecclesia (I regrettably didn't get to know her) and who died, at 28 years old, of a rare cancer this last week after a noble, joy-infused struggle. Or maybe a nanny who has her own kids in daycare so she can care for someone else's kids. Or maybe a husband who works very hard to provide for his family only to get home to a cranky shrew whining about ME, MINE, MY.

So the struggle is to embrace the US, the WE, the OURS. I remember learning, when my parents and I were traveling through Amish country many years ago, that the Amish sing in unison and not harmony in worship. Because it reminds them of the US, the WE, the OURS. We are in community. We are one voice. Not in the weird, crazy, utter abdication of individualism like what we see in Ayn Rand's Anthem, where, in order to make her point about communism, she has the narrator refer to himself in the plural until the very end, when he discovers the light bulb and realizes he is an "I". But in the sense that God loves community enough that He Himself is IN IT (see: the Trinity). So we should see ourselves as beautifully unique AND also beautifully able to practice agape.

Which doesn't mean that I think it's sinful to want to go see a movie or take a walk or get a cup of coffee by myself on occasion. Or go to dinner with my friends once in awhile. I think the key is weighing my motives. I gave birth to three kids in three and a half years. That was our choice. Three baby humans require much of me, even more so, perhaps, now that they are maturing. I resolve not to be a shrew or a martyr in the midst of all this blessing. I resolve to remember that when I signed up for this Gospel-infused life (or WAS sighed up FOR, if I am true to the Reformers) I did not sign up for a ME-focused life. But neither did I sign up for a husband-focused life or a child-focused life. My chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. The result of that will be US, and WE, and OURS. May it be so. I write it because it holds me accountable. May it be SO.