Motherhood and works righteousness

The title says it all. There's really not a whole lot to add. If you hang out with moms for any amount of time you'll rapidly figure out that a lot of us are desperately trying to control our child's health, safety, mental/physical development, and future prospects by doing everything "right." It's the organic food and the early interventions and the best toys and the kindermusic and the rest of it. That's all fine as far as it goes, but then I read of some mom posting, as though it were something to be proud of, her response to another mom's question about a sick child. Honestly made me see red for a minute because it was essentially a laundry list of things you should do to keep your child from getting sick. There was one suggestion about helping get over being sick - the rest were all preventative.

Now, being proactive about our children is just part of what we do as moms. It's our job, and we should take it seriously. However, the message I got from the mom mentioned is "If you aren't doing all these things it's probably your fault that your kid is sick." She's a sweet mom and probably didn't mean it that way, but so much of this advice boils down to "if you do things right (aka my way) then you won't have whatever problem that's worrying you."

Guess what folks - my husband had a super crunchy mom and still dealt with asthma, food allergies, pneumonia, etc all before he was even an adult. They ate good food, ran around outside, and he still has health challenges. Works righteousness won't save you eternally, and it won't save you temporally. You cannot guarantee that your child or life will go smoothly, and we darn well don't need to be treating other moms like it's there fault when their kid gets an earache or strep throat or whatever is going around at the time. Maybe she needs a little encouragement on better health choices. That's fine - just don't act like if she'd just done XYZ her child wouldn't be sick now. Unless she's giving her kid decayed and rotten food you really don't know that.

So enough with the works righteousness. Take your vitamin C, pray, and trust God. Be faithful in the small things because you honestly can't control the big stuff anyway. And, please, cut each other a little slack. Seriously.