• It happens in the grocery store aisle, when someone else’s children are behaving better or worse than your own.
  • Or in the church nursery, when your child bites another mom’s toddler, or vice versa.
  • Or at the park, when, after being called, your child (or hers) runs in the opposite direction.

But where it’s really happening is in your head. 

That’s where the question is being answered, again and again, sometimes with one answer, and sometimes with another:

AM I A BETTER MOM THAN SHE IS?

I remember the feelings clear as day. 13 years ago, my college best friend, sister-in-law, and I all had our first babies within 6 months of each other. Back and forth the issues would be volleyed:

  • labor— what came first? how long did it go? how long did you hold out before you got pain meds? did the doctor do this procedure? or that one? what was your recovery like?
  • breastfeeding— how often? how long? on both sides each time, or just one side at a time? on a schedule or on demand? any problems nursing? did you ever supplement with formula?
  • weight/height/length— how big at birth? did baby have a conehead? how much did they lose before gaining again? how fast did they gain? did baby have problems gaining weight?
  • and on the comparisons went.  

Some of it was normal; we were all learning the ropes of motherhood. But some was unhealthy, as we each compared and judged ourselves to be better or worse mothers in one area or another.

When we have our identity wrapped up in this job of mothering, we self-glorify or self-loathe.
 When we wrap up other women’s value with the job of mothering, we idolize or disdain.

If we’re not careful to fight them, these attitudes will follow us through motherhood. 

I recently listened to Tim Keller’s sermon, Blessed Self-Forgetfulness, and want to share with you some of the highlights from it. Below, I’m taking his points and bringing them to the place where his thoughts meet us here in our real lives as mothers.

Here’s the whole thing, and if you have time to watch it (40 minutes), I highly recommend it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hgLeNwSXyo

THE PROBLEM OF SELF-ESTEEM

As moms, we are continually tempted to control our lives in such a way that we achieve “self-worth” and find our identity in our motherhood, rather than in God’s assessment of us. We are often tempted to do this through pride that comes from comparison.

“Pride is essentially competitive – is competitive by its very nature – while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better looking than others. If every one else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud, the pleasure of being above the rest.” ~C.S. Lewis

When we give in to this temptation to compare ourselves as mothers, we are tempted to have contempt for those who do things both less and more “successfully” than us. 

  • When I’m more organized than HER, I feel good.
  • When she’s a better cook than me, I feel bad.
  • When I use more organic foods than her, I feel good.
  • When her child gains weight easier than mine, I feel bad.
  • When my child is the one throwing a tantrum, I feel humiliated.
  • When her child is the one throwing the tantrum, I feel puffed up.

Comparison never leaves us sober and measured in our estimate of self and others. Comparison as the source of worth always leads us to pride or humiliation… a critical spirit, or an idolatrous spirit. 

SELF-FORGETFULNESS… FOR MOMS

In the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, Keller finds these basic ideas in Paul’s attitude:

  1. I don’t care what you think of me.
  2. I don’t care what I think of me.
  3. My clear conscience doesn’t make me innocent/right.
  4. Your judgments don’t make me guilty/wrong.
  5. God alone is my judge.

The remedy of low self-opinion is not high self-opinion. The remedy of high self-opinion is not low self-opinion.

The remedy for both is looking to God’s opinion.