What I Wish the Christian Advice Mom/Wife Bloggers Understood

 As I have observed a few very harsh mom/wife bloggers/authors over the last couple of years, I have a few things I wish they understood:

• Not all single moms are single by choice. Sometimes, even though they did their best to submit and be a “proper” wife, their husbands leave them for another. That sin is their husband's, not theirs, and they are left to do the best they can with what they have been given.
• Some single moms are widows, and they also have to do the best they can with what they were given. Sometimes people die, and no sin was involved. I know a young lady whose husband got cancer when they were basically still newlyweds. He didn’t make it. They didn’t have kids, but if they did, these advice moms would still heap guilt on her for having to go to work to make ends meet, even though she had absolutely no control over her circumstances. Another young lady my girls know just became a widow because her husband died in a car accident. She has a toddler and is expecting her second child. I don’t know her financial situation, but if she has to go to work, even part time, it isn’t something she can control, and she should NOT feel guilty about working to make sure her kids eat. Stuff happens.
• Not all Christian moms are cut out to homeschool. Some use co-ops, some opt for Christian school, some public school. You don’t know how they were raised and what kind of confidence level they have in their abilities to educate their children. Shaming them is definitely not going to make them more confident. Encouraging them with love might. But it might not. And ultimately, since it is between them and God, and they may take awhile to change their views on the issue, who are we to treat them harshly or as bad moms for doing something different?
• Abuse does happen. We cannot belittle those who are abused and tell them to stay in dangerous marriages because we believe if they were just better wives, their husbands wouldn’t be harsh with them. Some may be just being more dramatic and considering something abuse that isn’t, but it isn’t my place to determine that. Every mom/wife has to figure out what that line is for themselves.
• Not all couples that courted have a better marriage than those that dated. Some couples that court wind up divorced, and some who date stay happily married for decades. Courtship is not really any better, and there are no guarantees that the marriage will be good just because purity standards were upheld. Also, purity standards are a matter of the heart, not a list of rules to follow. Rules can be broken or technically upheld while the heart is still not staying pure. Stop holding up a particular system as superior when we have already seen a lot of marriages under this system fail. Some of these couples get married so fast they don’t actually know what they are getting themselves into. There has to be a balance between upholding purity standards and actually getting to know your future spouse.
• Not all women with children work by choice. Some women are actually submitting to their husbands by working, because that is what their husbands want. What would you say to those moms…do they “rebel” against their husbands and quit their jobs, or do they work, as their husbands ask?
• Not every single woman is single by choice, nor is she necessarily a feminist, even if she stays single into her 40’s or longer. Some desire a husband and children, but God has not yet provided one for them, and having one isn’t a guarantee. Being single isn’t worse than being married as far as the kingdom is concerned. And spending a season of life working in some area you are gifted in is NOT a sin simply because you are female. God has a unique story for every person, and some of those stories include college and a career for a season. Or forever. It’s up to Him how to use each believer, and who are we to judge just because every female isn’t called to be a stay at home daughter?
• Children don’t always rebel because of something a parent did or didn’t do. Wonderful parents often have a mixture of faithful and unfaithful children, and the children were all raised the same way by the same parents. There are no guarantees with our children, and it makes you little more than a Pharisee to blame the parents when their children don’t walk in the same faith.
• Rude and harsh rhetoric and attempting to scare young moms into doing things by your prescribed checklist or method seems counterproductive in most cases. Since most Christian moms are trying to do the best they can, shaming them when they choose a different path does nothing more than turn them towards the thing they are being criticized for. Grace, empathy and understanding go a lot further in gently guiding younger women than harsh, judgmental edicts.

If I have learned anything from some of my godly mentors, including my dear grandma and one of my aunts, we need to realize that we haven’t walked in these other ladies’ shoes. We don’t know what they deal with behind closed doors. We don’t know if their husbands are harsh, if they drink too much, if they are cold and distant, if they are emotionally abusive and manipulative. We don’t know if they have a major health issue that causes them tremendous pain to where they have issues even getting around, let alone being the perfect wife and mother by your standards. These harsh mom bloggers/authors need to know that simply being someone’s friend and having a dialog about different things women have to deal with and extending them kindness and understanding will make them more open to your ideas. There are some moms that need a kick in the pants and appreciate it, but there are a lot more that need gentle loving kindness and understanding, with advice to deal with the situation they find themselves in…not guilt and condemnation for the way they aren’t being the perfect Christian wife and mother, at least by the standard of the blogger/author.

I asked one of my girls to proofread this post (because my daughters are all awesome like that and we regularly proofread things for each other) and she said she wished more people would read the beginning of 1 Corinthians 13 and take it to heart. Here is what it says: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3) Her comment (paraphrased) was that it doesn’t matter how right we are, if we deliver the message in an unloving manner, no one will listen. And that’s what I want to leave you with. “When given the choice between being right or being kind, choose kind.” Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, as quoted in R.J. Palacio’s Wonder