When Mothers Cry: The Book

You have expressed how you felt about motherhood secretly to God, relatives, and friends and for some of you, you wish you hadn't! I know, people look at you differently don't they? They just don't understand, but I do. I know what it feels like to be so stressed out to the point that you are sick to your stomach! It seems the only free time you have for yourself is late at night. Can I tell you that I even lost a friend or two, because I simply had made no time for them. My excuse, busy! So busy with the man and children that it actually bothered me to have to answer my phone and take time out to talk, because my free time was so limited!

I also found that women who are head over heels in love with their children, think that I have a disease. They think that if they come around a woman like me they may catch some kind of, "I hate my children disease!" The truth of the matter is frustrated moms at least many of them don't hate their children, if anything they love them maybe too much. Everything has to be right, perfect, nothing out of order! Our children have to have the best doctors, schools, be a part of some group or participate in some extra activity, they have to pray and read the Bible, and do whatever else we tell them to do that will make the whole family look good! Am I right? So a frustrated, angry mom never wanted to one day resent her children. Hey the road to hell is paved with good intentions, you know?! All she wanted was the best, so much in fact that she can't see nothing less. Maybe that's why she is slow to get some help, because in her eyes, to express weakness is to admit defeat! She reasons that "there is nothing wrong with me." She says that "it is okay not to like being a mother," but when it becomes a daily feeling that engulfs one's spirit, there is a serious problem.

So with all that said, it is time for the book, When Mothers Cry by Nicholl McGuire. This book was written for mothers who have journeyed through life for everyone but themselves. The book provides tips to help you get over the trials and tribulations that have caused you to neglect who you are as a woman! The cover is done, the editing process is almost complete and the book will be ready before the children go back to school in September 2009! Audio will soon follow and video has been discussed. The wait is almost over! However, it costs money to promote this project and what I will need from my supporters are donations, anything you can spare. So if you can give, please do. I will be making books available for free in the future for a limited time to those who can't afford to pay.

Well, thanks again for sticking through the ups and downs of this blog! If you would like to subscribe to it, just fill out the form at the end of the blog. For suggestions, feel free to send me an email at virtualassistant007@yahoo.com. We are temporarily accepting emails at this address.

Keep reading and thanks for your support!
Nicholl McGuire

Standing Up for Your Children

When a child can’t speak for him or herself, a mother comes to her child’s rescue. How dare anyone insult, belittle, abuse, threaten or even murder her child! A mother, who has had a son or daughter go through any one of these issues, is a mother with an angry cry.

May God have mercy on the one who hurt her child! She will come like a raging bull with police, relatives, church members, petitions, lawyers, or weapons whatever it takes to get justice for her child. Why would anyone in their right mind think that they could hurt someone’s child and get away with it?

I remember when a girl back in high school decided she was going to tell some people that she wanted to kill me. I knew she was jealous of me, but not to the point of threatening me behind my back. When word reached my mother’s ears, we practically ran to the school. Within a matter of minutes there was a meeting with the girl, a school counselor and the principal. Notice I didn’t mention her mother, wonder where she was? Word traveled fast, “Nicky’s mother was up at the school.” Now it is very unpopular for a parent to show up at your high school when you are in your teen years. I remember we all tried very hard to keep our parents out of our business, but someone threatening to kill you, is just cause to get everyone involved. The message sent to staff and students after my mother’s visit was “think twice about messing with my child.”

When a person who has wronged you knows that you have “mother” backup, they will try to resolve whatever issue they have with you. It gives the curse word “motherfu…r” a whole new meaning! The sales clerk doesn’t want your elderly mother to have a heart attack on his shift over an incorrect price on your sales receipt. The bank manager doesn’t want your mother to withdraw her life savings, because of a minor issue that could be resolved with one phone call for you. The principal doesn’t want your mother talking about him at the next PTA meeting, so he will clear his calendar for you. The pastor doesn’t want your mother not paying her tithes or spreading gossip, so he may go above and beyond for you. Most of all, your husband or boyfriend will not want your mother to tell you that he is no good for you, so he may not only be nicer to you, but offer to assist your mother too.

There is an experience that one, without a relationship with his or her mother, will never know or ever understand. It is when you are battling an issue or need someone that knows you well to speak on your behalf, a good mother doesn’t have to be asked twice. She will fight for you whether you are guilty or innocent. She will defend you when no one else will. She will stand up for you when everyone else wants to give up on you! She will fight, lie, steal, cheat or beg for you! She will pray for you and God will listen. However, a bad mother won’t do a damn thing for you when you need her! There are mothers reading this that are thinking about the times when their mother just didn’t seem to care when they came to her with a problem. The mother went so far as to ask the devastating question of “What did you do to cause this?” These mothers are crying every time they think about how their mother went against them when they needed her most. They had often wished for someone else to be their mother. Some of these mothers have gone so far as to disown their biological mother and take up a new one.

For a woman to call herself a mother and allow a defenseless child to drown in a mess that her child didn’t cause is a woman without a cry. She is the mother who will read something like this and ask, “What are all these mothers crying about?” She hasn’t allowed herself to experience pain or hasn’t been through enough yet to bring her to the floor in a fit of tears, but as we all know her day is coming. The day when she will not be able to run from her child’s cry or numb the pain with any alcohol, drugs, sex, religion, or ignorance. She will have to open her mouth and speak up for her child even when she rather not. She will have to reach down in her purse, find her wallet, take out some money and pay for something to help her child, even though she can’t afford to, and then she will begin to see what other mothers have been experiencing. What’s it like for a mother to have to do for her child when she doesn’t want to and they don’t deserve her help? It’s like a temporary inconvenience in her daily life. The dishwasher stops working, the lights get cut off, the car breaks down, all temporary problems, but when these things happen too often someone will want to hold someone accountable, dealing with children who have issues works the same way. However, when your child’s problem, becomes someone else’s, society blames no one, but you.

When a mother takes a stand for her child, she is doing something that services her more than anyone else. She is letting the world know that, “This is my child!” She doesn’t take too kindly to someone who doesn’t have children telling her how to raise her children either. To her, that is an insult, “Who does she think she is telling me how to raise my child?” She yells. It doesn’t matter that her child is the cause of the problem, but what matters is that she loves her child unconditionally. A love that is very hard to understand when you are a mother without a cry. Crying is like a flood it washes away whatever is in its path. Pain, guilt, sadness, worry, whatever, it cleanses the emotional poisons within and around us if we allow ourselves to cry. Children remember their mother’s cries and those tears will either force them to change or cause them to run away; however, whatever path they choose, they have learned a new element of pain that is much greater than when they fell and scraped their knees. They know that if mother cries something must be terribly wrong and they may try to comfort her by changing whatever they are doing to make her stop crying.

A mother who cries is a good mother. Crying is not a weakness for her, it is her strength it washes away selfishness, anger, resentment and confusion too. Crying brings clarity, strength, compassion, and a sense of self-worth. It reminds us that we are living, breathing, and only human. While some women will grow stronger mentally and physically as a result of defending their children’s cries, others will grow weak from the guilt of wishing they had done something, anything to help their children.

Written by Nicholl McGuire

Before She Became a Mother She was a Woman

Before she was a mother she was a single, working woman. She enjoyed her carefree life. She went to work, came home, made herself something to eat, chatted on the phone with friends, and went out wherever she wanted at whatever hour. When people asked her if she would marry and have children one day, she may have said yes to marriage, but no to children. The mere thought took her to a time when she cried far too often as a child wishing nothing more than to escape her dysfunctional family. She just didn't want to be bothered comforting a child that may or may not grow up with the same worries and fears that she had, it was a gamble that she never wanted to take.

But then along came a man whom she fell in love and unexpectedly she became pregnant. It was then that she said goodbye to everything that she had ever known. Now she is embarking into a new journey, all the while persuading herself to accept motherhood despite her bitter feelings about it. "A mother says this, a mother does that," she tells herself. Then she looks to other women, books, TV, and radio for every answer that mother's intuition doesn't give her.

This realization of having to crucify the old her and become the new her was the start of her crisis. There are those women who suffer with midlife and menopausal crisis, but there are others like the new mother in this story who go from being a single, career-oriented, independent super woman of sorts to becoming a single mother vulnerable, lonely, and confused. A young woman who thought of children as nothing more than "cute", now has to face the reality that spreadsheets, books, meetings, dating, and entertaining will have to be replaced with parenting books, doctors' appointments, diapers, baby bottles, bibs, and much, much more!

Her family that she had no time for when she was busy studying for exams, winning accolades, and hanging out with friends, is now an all too important support system. Without her family, friends, co-workers, church, government and strangers, she thinks, she could be like some of the women she read about or watched on television talk shows that became so emotionally and physically drained with the responsibility of caring for their children that one day they just snapped!

The mother who loses her job because of her pregnancy, the family who doesn't like her choice in a man, the abusive partner who didn't want a baby, religious leaders who will not accept childbearing outside of wedlock and so many other issues have sent many mothers to the mental institution or to their graves with broken hearts and tears.

As her baby becomes bigger in her womb, she reflects on those simpler days when it was just "Me, Myself and I" like a chocolate craving, she yearns for the life she use to have. Her friends tell her, "Get over it." She goes into hiding, "they are no comfort," she tells herself. So she doesn't bother answering the phone anymore, they no longer have too much in common with her these days anyway.

The crying child, the unsupportive partner, the negative attitude of relatives, and the distance of friends have all contributed to her motherhood crisis. Other mothers like her never planned on having children either, but had them anyway knowing that they had yet to get over those very serious feelings of resentment, something that a mother who has accepted her role will never understand that is why she says things to unhappy mothers that cause more harm than good, "You should be happy. Children are from God. Just think of all the women who can't have children..." While these mothers act as if they don't have a clue as to why the new mother feels depressed about how drastic her life has changed, some of these well-meaning mothers forgot or failed to mention how they struggled when they too first heard the news about their own unplanned pregnancies, they put on fake smiles too, all the while thinking, "I don't want this."

Unlike her sisters who could bravely undergo an operation to rid themselves of something they couldn't handle, the new mother on the other hand, had her child and wished she hadn't. Although she doesn't look like the type, whatever "the type" maybe she doesn't want children, she quite honestly doesn't want hers so she is weighing all her options. But she can't tell anyone, because no one would understand. She is a mother crying on the inside every day, because she didn't want children. She doesn't feel the honor of being a mother, the love of a mother, the insight of a mother, the compassion of a mother, she feels nothing but numb. She almost feels like she has been raped by a God who made her a mother even though she prayed, "Please don't!"

People around her mistake her eyes of tears for eyes of joy. What does she feel joyful about when it's hard for her to see the goodness of motherhood? The same God she feels has raped her will have to be the same God who will have to open her eyes to the joys of parenting. Many mothers are pained inside that they even feel this way, but it's hard when all they can see is another mouth to feed, another invite they have to pass up, another job offer they have to turn down because of childcare hours, another man who doesn't want to date her because she has a child, another memory of a past she would rather forget, and so many "anothers" too long to mention here.

What can you say or do for a new mother whose mind is in this state without being critical or bragging about how great you feel about being a mother? She isn't you or maybe you are her and have only been deceiving yourself for years. "I love children, but they can't touch my things, play on my furniture,or bother me," some women say. "I love children, but don't expect me to watch my grandchildren," some grandparents say. "I love children, but I can't wait until they get older so they can move out of my house!" many mothers say. Get my point?

Now that the new mother has given birth to her baby, she feels somewhat at ease, but still subconsciously she is hoping to have a speedy recovery and get back to work. Her child makes her disgruntled mother open her eyes more and more to the world around her, she starts to see other mothers like her, still disappointed with the choices they made in life including letting their unborn children live. She questions those spankings mothers give their children, "Could it be that they really aren't disciplining them, but hating them for their very existence?" What about those curse words they bestow upon their children, "Could it be that the child reminds her of a poor choice she made years ago while dating?" What about those evil stares she gives her child when she thinks no one is looking? "Could it be the child represents her lost freedom?"

While I, you or anyone who knows a mother similar to the one in this article grappling with her role, avoid the temptation to pass judgment, some of us could be considered delusional look at the way some mothers talk the talk of loving their children, but aren't walking the walk. Maybe this disappointed mother is representative of our truth and we are just too scared, busy, worried, or ignorant to bother with it? I would have said too content to worry over it as well, but it wouldn't make sense since this article is not written for content mothers.

Maybe our depressed sister in motherhood is more in touch with herself than we think and all she needs is someone to show her where she can find her peace of mind.

(This is an excerpt from a new book on motherhood coming out in 2009 on Amazon entitled, "When Mothers Cry" by Nicholl McGuire. You can reserve your copy simply by sending an email request to the writer of this article.)