To all the Mothers out there…

I felt the need to hijack my wife's blog again. I don't know what comes over me. I think it's the romantic in me, as Captain Renault said in Casablanca.

Yesterday was of course, Mother's Day, and with that comes breakfast in bed for Melissa and a special Sunday Dinner, both of which I have the honor of cooking.

Breakfast is easy. I have been cooking it since I was a little boy. I don't know why I learned to do that. My mom was always right there to cook for us. Maybe she was sleeping in? You tell me mama.

Dinner on the other hand was not easy. First off, I don't know where anything is and the kids don't seem to either, even though they help Melissa cook and bake all the time. I grew frustrated and as I struggled, I began to realize that I didn't like the job too much. It's kind of ironic because as most of you know, I usually love to cook. 

So then I started to think about the fact that my wife does this every day… multiple times. As the day went on, I went in the bedroom where she was relaxing and asked her how she is able to go through a day without killing the kids.

Here is what I mean:

I was trying to follow directions with these new recipes and Ariana felt she needed to shout out nonstop exactly what she was doing. Ammon was crying because he couldn't figure out how to wrap his present to Melissa. Zoë couldn't figure out how to oil and flour a cake pan- even after I showed her multiple times. Tori was biting bananas- through the peels. Britain and Kalixta felt they needed to make 28 homemade Mother's Day cards apiece because 27 wasn't enough- which meant that there were scraps of papers and crayons everywhere. My only savior was Nik until he decided to take a magnifying glass and use the sun to burn Ammon on the back of the neck.

Then Melissa came out and reminded me that I still needed to make this and that. I began to feel overwhelmed and of course I cracked and had to ask for her help. She did it happily making me feel even more guilty.

I wanted to post this because I know that many of you are mother's who read this blog. I want to tell you that I NEVER want your job. It takes a special person to be able to do that day in and day out… it takes a woman. I grew up indirectly being taught that women's work was lesser or not as important as man's work…. baloney! I feel sorry for any man or woman who says or thinks that. Thank goodness I belong to a church whose leaders constantly remind us men how blessed we are to have a woman in our homes. As President Dieter F. Uchtdorf says, the soul of a woman is truly remarkable.

I know society looks down upon motherhood. I have heard some women say that they don't want to ONLY become a housewife. Many of them want to prove that they are just as capable at working a job as men are, so they forgoe or put off motherhood to accomplish that. I have worked with some of these women and you know what? They are right… they are just as capable as we are and more often than not, even more so.

So in light of that, how amazing it is to see a brilliant woman relegate herself to ONLY being a housewife. She could be doing so much more right? She could be managing people, leading her company in sales or running the whole thing. I honor those of you elect women who seek and choose motherhood. Your job is the hardest on the planet and the most important. Thank you for honoring the role that you play. 

I hope that all you mother's out there never forget how amazing you are. I don't care if you don't do everything perfect, or that you forget things, or that so and so seems like such a better mother than you. Don't listen to that. It's just that old nemesis of ours, Scratch, and he hates you. He hates all of your kind, and he'll never leave you alone until he has convinced you that you are worthless. There is nothing farther from the truth… than that.

~Adam