Finding Patience in Motherhood
As a young teacher, I delighted in creating original lesson plans, rotating the materials on the shelf, and even creating new materials from what I could find in the cabinet. I’m sorry to say I didn’t have much work/life balance back then, and it did stress my newlywed relationship a bit. I stayed at school as long as I could in the evenings and came up Saturday and Sunday mornings to make the classroom ready for the next week. I was a hard worker, and I reveled in it.
All of this ground to a halt when I became a mother.
Babies are not easy beings to care for, and there is a different rhythm in the day-to-day nursing and diapering and playing and household maintenance that many new moms coming from a hectic workplace find difficult to transition to.
This transition also came with an incredible gift: extended opportunities for patience. Nursing a newborn cannot be rushed. On paper, it looks simple: put babe to breast. Accomplished. But in reality, the process often requires a lot more than a nipple and a babe’s willing mouth. Mom has to be relaxed, babe has to be focused, and both need a lot of time and space - away from distractions and worries. Oxytocin helps with this. So does experience.
Yet mama and babe’s need for extra time and space to accomplish a seemingly simple task does not end when the child is weaned, and it is far from the defining experience in motherhood that changes the way we see ourselves. The repetition required in raising a young child can be monotonous.
Wake, breakfast, potty, play, potty, snack, potty, play, potty, lunch, play, nap, snack, potty, play, potty, snack, play, potty, dinner, play, potty, bed. Sleep. Wake...and it all starts over again.
I needed more than this. My mind craved new projects. So I learned to sew, play ukulele, and to make bread. All of these hobbies required me to dedicate time and space so that I could focus. I was good at none of these things right away. I did notice, however, that there were unanticipated benefits of becoming, as some might say, a crafty granola mom.
I loved the breadmaking the most and became quite good at it! It can take you all day - sometimes two, depending on your method. Five basic steps: gather, mix, knead, let rise, and then bake. How long does one mix? How long does one knead? How long does the bread need to rise? How long should it bake? No one can tell you this exactly. It depends on the type of flour, whether you’re using wild yeast or commercial, how warm it is in your house, whether your oven runs a little warm or cool, and all sorts of other factors.
I can tell you that when you knead, you are not finished until the dough begins to relax languorously, when a pinch of it feels like your earlobe, when you can hold a piece of it to the light and stretch it without a tear, when you hold the whole lump in your hands and it feels ALIVE, like an extension of your hands, a product of your own creation, a gift from your soul.
That is when you put it to bed. Tuck it in somewhere warm with a moist towel and turn off the light. And then you wait...and wait...and wait. It will not be rushed.
Being able to relax and trust in the process - know that there WILL eventually be a delicious-smelling something coming out of your oven eventually - is key. It may be lopsided or too dense, or lacking in salt, or too crusty - but it will be YOUR loaf, and your family will race in and devour most of it before it cools.
Even making a single loaf of bread takes hard work, and your patience is always rewarded.
Breathing.
Trusting.
Knowing.
Practicing patience required in other activities like cooking and crafting can help us learn the skills to have patience when our toddlers are reaching in quick as a wink and flicking paint toward the curtains or smearing poop on the walls.
Continuing to practice patience as our children get older helps us stay the course when they run away when we say it’s time for a spelling lesson or when they openly defy us to pursue own interests.
Raising good, kind human beings who understand themselves and their place in the world is not easy - and there will be unanticipated challenges along the way that you will face at every age and stage.
So let’s start with you and how you are cultivating a patience practice in your life right now.
What are you kneading in your life right now? What is requiring your effort and hard work?
