Because She Chose Motherhood

Jake Frost ponders the blessings in his life that are there because his mom and his wife both chose motherhood.

I was sitting on the deck in the cool of the morning having my coffee and bagel before work and talking with the kids about our grand adventure. In a few weeks we’ll be taking our first ever really big trip together as a family, and we’re taking to the air!

For the kids it will be their first time ever on an airplane. They’ve got lots of questions. Will we fly over any national monuments? What can you see from the airplane window? Will we be in first class? (No, we won’t.) Will we get snacks on the airplane? What can we take with us on the airplane?

That last question is very important because the packing is well underway. Weeks in advance! During the school year I can barely get these kids to pack their backpacks for school the night before. Maybe I should start passing out little bags of pretzels on the drive to school.

It’s pretty fun, though. Their excitement is contagious.

A lot of things are like that with kids. An outing after work to the public beach at the county park just down the road gets a big “Hooray!“ and the kids skip and smile the whole half mile from the parking lot to the beach.

Or if you want to see excitement, check out one of our wiffle ball games in the backyard. From the sound of it, with all the whooping and hollering, you’d think it was College Football Saturday.

And the laughter. There is so much laughter living with kids.

Even driving to the grocery store. They all start singing in unison and then branch off into their own ad-lib lyrics and pretty soon they’re cracking themselves up so much that they can’t sing anymore. It doesn’t matter that most of their humor is lost on me. Once they get going like that, I can’t help but laugh myself.

It’s infections.

Joy is infectious with kids around.

The quiet joy, too, in little unexpected things, like a daughter making a Harry Potter doll for her little brother, just because she thought he’d like it (he did!). Or when one sibling spills a snack and another says, “Here, take half of mine.”

He ain’t hungry, he’s my brother.

Or when I’m praying a Rosary in the living room and a child comes and joins in, on her own, without saying anything about it, just sitting down and joining the prayers.

With everything that’s been happening in our country the last weeks, I’ve thought about motherhood, and how I’ve been blessed by the mothers in my life, including my own mother, and my wife, the mother of my children.

Because she chose motherhood, I get to be the dad for these amazing people.

Motherhood is hard. It calls for sacrifices. No question about it. But when women choose motherhood, they bring life and love and joy into the world.

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When women choose motherhood, they bring life and love and joy into the world. #catholicmom

Sitting on the deck in the morning talking luggage with my four beautiful children, I realized how truly blessed I am, and I was grateful that my wife chose motherhood.

And I realized that I’ve been writing for Catholic Mom for almost a decade now and thought it was time to say: thank you!

Thank you to all you moms! Thank you for choosing motherhood. It’s a lot of work, but there’s nothing more worthwhile.

Right now seems like a good time to pray for our country and our families and our moms.

And who better to turn to than Our Lady? We could use some Rosaries. And if we pray them, you just never know who might join in.

Copyright 2022 Jake Frost
Images: Canva