a new survey<\/a> from Barna Group\u2014say they struggle to \u201cfeel like they are enough\u201d as a mother. Only 19 percent said that they feel they are \u201cable to contribute meaningfully to the world.\u201d <\/p>\nWhat does it mean to be \u201cenough,\u201d and where do moms look as they try to figure it out? <\/p>\n
Overwhelmed young moms see social media feeds filled with practical tips, assurance, and, at times, unrealistic expectations. Christian influencers suggest moms should be doing everything from building seasonal sensory bins to catechizing their kids at snack times. <\/p>\n
\u201cMoms are discouraged,\u201d said Sissy Goff, cohost of the podcast Raising Boys and Girls<\/em> and author of The Worry-Free Parent<\/em>. \u201cThey feel defeated or like failures now more than ever in my 30 years of counseling.\u201d <\/p>\nWith those changes in attitudes, the tone of popular Christian parenting literature and advice has also changed over the past few decades. It\u2019s less combative than what parents found in bestsellers like James Dobson\u2019s Dare to Discipline <\/em>(1970) or The Strong-Willed Child<\/em> (1978). <\/p>\nInstead of emphasizing the importance of requiring good behavior and first-time obedience, newer resources encourage parents to look inward and consider how their beliefs, perceptions, and anxieties affect their ability to train up children in the way they should go.<\/p>\n
And yet, Goff observed, this shift away from behaviorism to a gentler approach to Christian parenting guidance hasn\u2019t done much to lessen the guilt and pressure many mothers feel. Books and podcasts can\u2019t compete with the ever-presence and magnetism of social media. And on social media, moms find content that\u2019s meant to be inspirational but still sets up new hoops to jump through. <\/p>\n
\u201cPart of the problem is that parents have too many voices, too many gurus,\u201d said Goff. \u201cAnd there are influencers whose job is to curate the best birthday parties, put together the best-looking meals and Christmas decorations. We\u2019re seeing all of these highlight reels.\u201d <\/p>\n
For years, Christian moms have felt the pressure. Books like Stormie Omartian\u2019s The Power of a Praying Mom<\/em> and Sally Clarkson\u2019s Ministry of Motherhood<\/em> set the bar high for spiritual nurturing. Sarah Milano Redelman, a mom in Aurora, Illinois, recalls receiving Clarkson\u2019s book as a new mother. She found it discouraging. <\/p>\n\u201cI felt a lot of shame, like I\u2019m never doing enough,\u201d said Redelman, who has four kids between the ages of 5 and 10.<\/p>\n
Courtney Bontrager, a mother of two who also holds a master\u2019s degree in marriage and family therapy, notes that on social media even the content that foregrounds messiness or imperfection doesn\u2019t solve the problem of moms looking to someone else for validation and affirmation of their performance of Christian motherhood. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll see posts that say things like \u2018You don\u2019t have to be perfect,\u2019 but even those posts can go wrong too,\u201d said Bontrager, who pastors a church in Indianapolis with her husband. \u201cWhose opinion matters? What you focus on gets bigger. Even though there are external pressures, we can choose how we respond.\u201d <\/p>\n
Christian parents have always had to contend with external pressures. Those who became parents in the 1980s and \u201990s, during the dominance of James Dobson and Focus on the Family, were told that discipline was a battle for the souls of children and perhaps for the soul of the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing short of a great Civil War of Values rages today throughout North America. Two sides with vastly differing and incompatible world-views are locked in a bitter conflict that permeates every level of society,\u201d wrote Dobson and his coauthor in their 1990 book, Children at Risk. <\/em><\/p>\nDobson was part of what Ann Hulbert labeled the \u201cparent-centered\u201d camp of child-rearing experts in her 2003 book, Raising America.<\/em> Hulbert reflected on what she saw as two opposing (but by no means monolithic) camps of parenting teachers and authors: the parent-centered (discipline-oriented, behaviorist figures like Dobson) and the child-centered (advocates of child-led, attachment-oriented parenting like Benjamin Spock). <\/p>\nThe publication of Dobson\u2019s best-selling Dare to Discipline<\/em> in 1970 was a milestone in the formation of a growing body of popular Christian parenting books that offered practical advice and often capitalized on parental fears about discipline, obedience, and the faith formation of children. Dobson and his peers in the Christian market were parent-centered in their insistence that parents establish authority and refuse to be governed by the desires and demands of their children.<\/p>\nRecent books like Paul David Tripp\u2019s Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family<\/em> (2016) emphasize parental recognition of the spiritual weight of their position: \u201cThe big picture starts with knowing who you are as a parent,\u201d Tripp writes in the introduction. <\/p>\nGoff\u2019s The Worry-Free Parent, <\/em>released earlier this year, directly addresses parental mental health, encouraging Christian mothers and fathers to get the help they need to cope with their anxiety, which has the potential to negatively affect their children. In it, Goff cites research that shows that children of parents who struggle with anxiety are seven times more likely to struggle with it as well. <\/p>\nNewer popular Christian parenting literature is still arguably parent-focused. But rather than emphasizing parental authority and behavior management, authors and teachers encourage parents to work on themselves, to prioritize their own spiritual growth and go to therapy to deal with their emotional baggage. <\/p>\n
This shift in focus from child behavior to parent behavior might have promised a healthier perspective that removed some of the pressure on parents to control the behavior of their children. But it also lends credibility to those modeling a performative and aspirational vision of Christian parenthood built on aesthetics. <\/p>\n
The Christian momfluencer sphere is also decidedly parent-centered but not in the way Hulbert described in her book (which predates the rise of social media altogether). Influencer content centers the persona and experience of the Christian mother. <\/p>\n
It provides desirable models: edited or carefully posed images of female bodies in well-appointed homes, merchandise that promises to move followers closer to their ideal of motherhood, and an aesthetic lexicon that has become the filter through which many mothers see their own experiences of motherhood. <\/p>\n
Without the grounding support of a flesh-and-blood spiritual community, immersion in the momfluencer sphere can be disorienting or breed discontentment. But living in close community with other parents can be intimidating too. More than half (55%) of the participants in Barna\u2019s study agreed that they \u201coften feel judged by other mothers.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to get away from \u2018rightness\u2019 and \u2018wrongness\u2019 when it comes to parenting,\u201d said Bontrager, whose diverse Indianapolis congregation is trying to embrace a truly communal approach to parenting, in part because of the example of collaborative parenting among those in its substantial Nigerian population. <\/p>\n
Church community can be a place of rest or yet another place to perform \u201cgood parenting,\u201d and for some parents, just sitting in a Sunday service fills them with performance anxiety. As a newer mom, Redelman struggled to turn off the urge to compare her parenting and her kids\u2019 behavior with other families in the pews. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d see other families with their well-behaved kids in church. Everyone\u2019s quiet; no one is crawling all over or complaining that they forgot their activity bag,\u201d said Redelman. \u201cAnd I\u2019d think, All of these other parents must be doing a better job. They must be doing something right.<\/em>\u201d <\/p>\nThe desire to \u201cdo it right\u201d or \u201cbe enough\u201d drives mothers to seek out sources that promise to help them become better parents. This is especially true for Christian mothers, who see eternal stakes in their choices and practices. <\/p>\n
As a reminder to let go of the pressure to \u201cget it right,\u201d Redelman has a printed copy of a post by author Ann Voskamp: \u201c10 Real Helps for Really Busy Moms.\u201d Point number 10 on the list is \u201cThe art of really celebrating life isn\u2019t about getting it right\u2014but about receiving Grace.<\/em>\u201d <\/p>\nThe post is part of a series of \u201cSticky Notes for the Soul\u201d created by Voskamp\u2014shareable text boxes emailed to subscribers and posted to social media. Redelman got the post in a subscriber email six years ago, and it\u2019s still hanging on her fridge. <\/p>\n
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