Women are as varied in their beauty, in the shape and hue of their glory, as are the flowers; as much an ever-changing source of pleasure and delight. And love is the kernel around which all their beauty, wisdom and joy are formed.
As Louisa May Alcott observed, "Love is a great beautifier." And no one gives love, craves love or knows more about love than women. Charlotte Bronte wrote of one of her heroines: "Now she seemed merry as a lark; in her lover's genial presence, she glanced like some soft glad light. How beautiful she grew in her happiness."
Women have a special capacity for responding to and desiring the things of the Spirit, but the world works to dull and destroy this — to diminish the eternal qualities of women — and weaken the sacred differences that define each sex.
If you think about it, great men and great women, through all generations of time, have honored womanhood. It is only lesser men and lesser women who abuse and dishonor it. This seems to apply especially to the role of motherhood.
I like what Sophia Loren said. She had been a movie star, a steamy, sexy model for many years, during which she had been unable to have a child. When at last the miracle happened, her reaction was: "You can spend so much time with children! I don't do anything all day except be with the baby, see what he wants, watch him learn and discover himself — nothing very strenuous for me, and yet I'm so tired at night! It's like coming from 30 hours of steady work."
And we say that motherhood is not a full-time occupation! Thirty hours of grueling film work is a sobering and impressive comparison. Understanding fosters respect, and respect of this sacred role is essential, for the God-given power of Woman and the Home is what Satan wants most to destroy.
What of the joys and rewards of the stay-at-home mother? Latter-day Saint women, regrettably, ofttimes gaze longingly at the world, wistfully wondering what they have missed out on by "choosing the right." I like Rachel Ward's insights into this matter when she stated: "I never thought this would bring me as much satisfaction as success, fame and money — that being married to an Australian, living in a suburb of Sydney and having a child would be particularly satisfying. But I love it! I find it much more rewarding that getting parts in films!"
She names all the world has to offer, does she not? Success, fame, money. It couldn't be more clearly stated than that.
C. S. Lewis said, "The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only — and that is to support this ultimate career."
Well! — And, if only! Yet this desired behavior has to start, as all things do, within the mind and spirit of each individual man and woman. On one hand, the man can fail to nurture the needs and desires of the woman he loves, fail to respect and support her; on the other hand the woman must ask: "What do I give my husband to respect? What do I do to protect and enhance my own womanhood?"
I have six children, and I used to say that my last daughter (born six years after her sister) came along to keep me an honest woman. I had been preaching motherhood in the talks I gave for a good many years. Now I had to, as it were, start all over again — all my other children in school and a new baby to care for. If she had not come to be part of the equation of my life, I fear I might have veered off in the path of self-interest, seeing to my career, my work, my personal desires, because I had the freedom to do so.
Instead, I was flooded anew with the delight and privilege of being a mother. I was reminded of what I had learned after I wrote my first book. To be a published writer was the fulfillment of the dreams I had harbored from earliest childhood: joy, fulfillment, wonder, magic and a certain amount of fame — my true self coming forth, for I knew that at the core of my being (before spirit, mortal, woman, wife or mother were attached) I was a creator. Yet, what marvel was this? I saw at once that this self-fulfilling pleasure had not a portion of the joy I received from being a mother. Nothing could compare to the purity of those moments when my children ran toward me, arms outstretched; when I watched them at play; when I listened to their prayers; when I saw the beauty of their spirits and personalities unfold.
"I've become a mother," Kathleen Cleaver wrote. "That's why women grow up, and men don't."
"There are unnumbered women who have 'mothered' children who are not their own … Mother is a title that belongs to every woman by lineage from our earliest mother, Eve — and also by eternal destiny," Barbara Smith reminds us persuasively.
We tend to think the ideal is both unrealistic and unattainable, but each woman has a fair share of the ideal within her. As we draw closer to our own womanhood and embrace it — as we make time to serve and to bless those around us, we will come to know more fully who we are, and we will experience more and more joy.
"I want, by understanding myself," Katherine Mansfield stated, "to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming."
We are told in scripture that we find joy by fulfilling the measure of our creation. Remembering this, we know that we are in the midst of a joyous, rewarding work, as we learn, grow, overcome, provide, achieve — and bloom, fragrant with beauty, in the garden of life.
George Sand, the brilliant, radical French writer, also called "the most womanly woman," cried with the delight all women can understand: "I have just come from playing with my little children. They are so dear, and my big children are so good to me, that I shall die, I believe, smiling at them."
Susan Evans McCloud is author of more than 40 books, including historical fiction, biography and mystery. She has published screenplays, a book of poetry and lyrics, including two songs in the LDS hymnbook. She is the mother of six children. Her column, "In Our Lovely Deseret," runs Wednesdays on MormonTimes.com.
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To read more from Susan Evans McCloud and other regular columnists and bloggers, visit MormonTimes.com. This Sunday, Becky Thomas writes about how a woman can be a mother without necessarily having children.