Real Families

The wife of a recent seminary graduate on a service assignment in east Africa emailed me a couple months ago. She wrote: “I’m sitting at my kitchen table trying to pick a few harmless fruit worms out of the guava I’m eating. I’ve been in Kenya for a year and somehow still can’t convince myself to just eat the guava without looking. Anyway, I picked up your book And Then There Were Three again the other day for the third time since I became a parent. I had been toying with the idea of writing a similar book myself but breathed a sigh of relief as I browsed yours: The book in my head has already been written. How convenient!

“The main thrust of the book is so refreshing to me,” she wrote. “I really identify with the struggle to parent well and have my identity survive. You had framed the struggle in a life-giving way. However, since I was born in the ’80s, I get lost on the details about wrestling with the feminist movement of the ’60s and ’70s. I wondered if you’ve considered doing another edition.

“I know that the survival of young parents isn’t the primary issue on your plate these days, but the book is so good I would like to see it connecting with another generation of Mennonite parents. Have you ever considered it?”

I was gratified to hear that my labor of love from 24 years ago has resonance with a next-generation mother. I still hear from women (my age) who remark on how critically important the book was for them when they began parenting. I agreed to consider a rewrite of the book. In the meantime—for Mother’s Day, here is an edited excerpt from the Introduction:

On a cold winter night, our family made a stressful overnight train trip from Switzerland to (former) Yugoslavia. Gerald was assigned to a men’s sleeping compartment with our 3-year-old son. I had a berth in a women’s compartment with our 3-month-old baby.

My two cabinmates expected the worst. The baby was screaming in full fury as the journey began. Frequent nursing and soothing kept him in line through border crossings, customs inspections and a blaring radio with raucous drunken laughter in the next compartment.

As dawn began to gleam, Gerald came to give me a break. While he paced the passageway, babe in arms, a burly fellow laughed in derision nearby.

“I never touched mine until they were at least 2 years old,” he scoffed.

I winced. His scorn was directed both at my adequacy and at Gerald’s masculinity. But then a powerful gratitude welled up—gratitude for a husband who is man enough to care for little ones, gratitude that I am not the slave of a man who despises babies and those who are intimately involved in their care, and gratitude that I am part of a faith community that welcomes women to exercise their gifts in the church and encourages men to minister to the children.

[This book] emerges from my deep conviction that women and men are equal partners in life, co-heirs both of the capability and the responsibility to serve God with their total beings.

Oh for a chalet on the quiet shores of a golden pond from which to ponder my metamorphosis into motherhood! But no, the baby at my knee impatiently clamoring, and the boy at my elbow drawing zany clowns “for you, Mom” add poignancy and urgency to my reflection on this enormous upheaval in the life of any woman.

I was present several years ago at a church Mother’s Day celebration. Little children in the most endearing voices recited poems in honor of their mothers. Many an adult eye filled with tears. The pastor reminded the congregation of the sacrifices their mothers had made for them. Bouquets of flowers had been prepared for each child to carry to his or her mother. My 3-year-old bounded up gleefully, bouquet in hand, and thrust it to me. “Mama, this is for you.”

My response was mixed. It was the first time I had attended a Mother’s Day program as a mother. That my son singled me out was heartwarming. But why had mothers been spoken of in such reverent, teary voices? Why were women’s gifts (other than motherhood) undervalued, rarely mentioned and never exercised in that pulpit?

I gladly received my son’s bouquet and gave him a squeeze. Then I suggested that we share it with his father and another friend beside us. He readily agreed. The benefits of good parenting flow among all of us.

A woman called out to Jesus, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that you sucked.” Jesus responded, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it.”

Performing the motherly functions of birthing and nurturing is not enough. Jesus calls for understanding and obedience, theological awareness and witness by all his followers.

Sara Wenger Shenk is an author and serves as associate dean and associate professor of Christian practices at Eastern Mennonite Seminary, Harrisonburg, Va