Thank Heaven for Little Girls

As I watched my 4 granddaughters playing ‘house’ in the backyard cubby last weekend I could feel my heart strangely warmed. The whole scene had a look of being just as it ought: little girls copying mummy and preparing for their own families one day. You can travel to any continent in the world and you will see little girls playing this game, which clearly indicates that homemaking and motherhood is part of our DNA.

Now, lest I lose my feminist readers, let me say that I was of the first generation that encouraged girls to pursue their education beyond high school, for which I am deeply grateful. Also, we will be doing everything we can to encourage and support ALL of our grandchildren’s education, just as we did their parents. (After all, I was a teacher!)
BUT, I part company with the modern feminist who denigrates fulltime motherhood as an occupation unworthy of an intelligent woman.

Firstly, I see motherhood and the making of a happy home as a calling, if not a career. It does not require a university degree, but it wouldn’t hurt if it did, such is the challenge and importance of raising healthy, confident and secure children to adulthood.

Secondly, if nurturing the young and making a happy home is part of our DNA, it is quite unkind to shame young women out of it by questioning their intelligence. The expectations on young mums to desert the home are immense, and those who do are rarely given the respect and encouragement they deserve. They deserve medals! School teachers would line up to deliver them.

Thirdly, as I have said before, our whole future as a nation depends on the women of Australia building homes as safe havens and raising healthy, happy children. Not only are our schools employing more and more welfare coordinators and psychologists, but our hospitals and prisons are bulging with young adults who are dysfunctional and desperately unhappy. Today’s children will either build our nation or bleed it.

So encourage your little girls when they play house and give them a healthy understanding of their God-given, awesome responsibility of bearing and raising children. By all means encourage them to study and learn… the smarter our future homemakers the better… but to also understand ‘timing’ and ‘priority’. Perhaps this way we will also have healthy and happy mums.

Inspire Me

Dreamers inspire me.

I’m not just talking about the big visionaries and go-getters, but the ordinary folk, the quiet achievers with a dream they pursue with equal amounts of joy, determination and diligence. It’s their passion that inspires; the light in their eyes, the enthusiasm in their voice, the brightness of their countenance and posture when they share their dream. I can’t get enough of it, whatever they do.

But they take some finding, as they often pursue their dreams with such focus and intent that they have no time for the usual consumer driven pursuits of the ‘passionless’ nor the idle chatter of the ‘aimless’. To find these dreamers you definitely need to be a ‘there-you-are’ sort of person, entering new relationships and conversations armed with a few good questions such as “what do you enjoy doing with your free time?’ or , ‘what are your dreams for the future?” If you’ve been honing your listening skills up till then you’ll end up being inspired, guaranteed. You will definitely learn something.

 It really doesn’t matter what a person’s dream is, whether it’s growing, restoring or building things, learning, mastering or teaching a skill, righting wrongs or healing hurts. I don’t believe one person’s dream is more valuable or important than any one else’s. It is a part of who God made us to be, a signpost to our purpose, our contribution to the world.

I have recently been inspired by a missionary whose dream is to help relieve poverty in Eastern Europe;

a farmer who dreams of returning farms, animals and people to their natural state of good health;

a Philippines teacher of the deaf who is helping them become self-supporting;

a young gardener who grows and preserves her own food;

lots of young mums providing safe, nurturing homes for their little ones in a world becoming increasingly averse to traditional family values;

volunteer firefighters, CRE teachers, Kids Hope mentors, mental health and elderly carers;

a high school chaplain who loves and cares for unhappy, confused teenagers;

These dreamers lift my heart when it becomes heavy with too much of the ‘nightly news’. They remind me that all is NOT bad in the world

So pursue those dreams, fan those passions. Someone like me will love hearing about it and be inspired.