Choosing Motherhood (part 2 of a 3 part essay)

Choosing.  The older I get, the more I think that choosing is one of the trickiest part of living.  Here's why:  The most important choices we have to make are made when we have the least amount of experience to make them.  That's another reason why Gilbert's philosophy bothers me.  It just seems a little short sighted. 

See, I had a grandmother, as well.  Two to be exact.  Like Gilbert's grandmother, my Grandma Doty cut up a lot of things, too: Scraps of fabric were made into quilts for beds; old clothes were revamped and resized as needed; cardboard was cut to shelter feet where soles of shoes had worn through.  It was the depression.  It was hard, and it was heavy, but it would be a great assumption on my part to say that she was unhappy.  I was a spectator of her later years.  Much of her life is a mystery to me, and so I wonder:  Is Ms. Gilbert's grandmother's unhappiness a fact?  Or is it her own personal bias talking? 

Perhaps it is just as possible that her grandmother, thinking she would never have the chance to marry and have children, was deeply fulfilled.  Maybe not in the way of foreign travel or exotic foods--those things that Ms. Gilbert values--but maybe in the way of a warm hearth, and Sunday dinners, and kisses goodnight.  I'm sure she wasn't happy all the time, but who is?  I can also safely say that I'm sure she wasn't unhappy all the time either.  And, besides that, who's to say that "happy" is the great guidepost of life, anyway?

Sometimes, what will make us happy in the short run, will not be what's best for us long term.  The question is:  How are we to know that when our experience is so limited?

One of the reasons I am devoutly religious is that it gives me perspective outside of myself through thousands of years of discovery regarding the human soul.  It is not possible for me to live long enough or to conduct enough personal experiments to attain the wisdom I find in religious tenet, and I find it interesting that almost every religious theory has some basic belief in sacrifice or selflessness.  In some way, they all teach that in living for something beyond ourselves our lives will be more meaningful and satisfying--a long term result that often has difficult beginnings.  It isn't easy to give up some of the things I want.  It isn't easy to consider someone else all the time.  It isn't easy to compromise.  What is easy is doing exactly what I want, when I want to do it. 

That seems to be the road Elizabeth Gilbert chose in her book, and you know what?  I'm okay with that.  It's her choice, and I don't have to agree with it.  But what bothers me is the thousands of women she has influenced in both obvious and subtle ways.  She writes a book about her perspective--her truth--and we laugh along with her and nod our heads and get all excited about girl power, and it changes us a bit.  After reading it, how does a girl view motherhood?  How does a young mother feel about her new calling?  Do I, as a mother, consider my life wasted because it doesn't drip with excitement and self exploration?

Elizabeth Gilbert can write what she wants; I just want to be a voice for motherhood.  I believe in it.  We need good, devoted, intentional mothers because the world of tomorrow is riding on the backs of the moms today.  For the most part we are not glamorous; we are not famous; but we are, simply, the life-blood of the future. 

Look, I learned something from my grandma, too, and it is this:  At the end of the very long road of her 102 years, it was not the places she had been or the things that she had done that gave her life meaning.  No.  It was her children, her grandchildren, and her great grandchildren that meant the most.  She was surrounded and lifted up in our love, and while achievements will be forgotten, books will disinegrate, and careers will be ignored, my grandmother has left a living legacy that will never disappear.

Those are long-term results.  One's that aren't always evident in the short run of diaper changes, tantrums, or account balances.  I don't know if Ms. Gilbert is living with the end in mind, but I'm trying to.  Choices are a tricky thing.  Let's at least choose thoughtfully.