Lily1918

Like Marmee from Louisa May Alcott's novel Little Women. She raised her four daughters to be strong in who they are, not who society said they should be. She forbade restrictive corsets and always directed them to their higher power for hope and strength. She did all of this in the 1860s, and for a majority of the story, she did it alone, without a husband to care for her. She encouraged her eldest, Meg, not to marry for money, or to be dependent on a man for happiness. Her next eldest, Josephine, was a tomboy in a time when women were women, and men were men. Marmee encouraged her to write, and run away to the big city and put down the "right" marriage because it just was not who Jo was. Her 3rd daughter, Beth, she burried at a very young age and yet still trekked on all in the name of hope and peace. Finally, her youngest Amy, was vain, and arrogant, and Marmee did all she could to teach her the value of life and not possessions.

Most importantly, Marmee let her girls go and be free to be who they chose to be, and never bound them to be what she thought they should be. She worked hard, and enjoyed every moment with her family, and in my mind, is the perfect example of motherhood.

Just my thoughts for the day. I find that "focusing on me" has turned my focus more to the role of mom. My kids are still very young. My son is 4 and my daughter is 6. The time to let at least my daughter go will come before I know it, and at least for now, she is still very dependent on me. How in the world could I bring an addict into their lives? And what do I do now that they look to him as a father? What a terrible father I have chosen for them. How much time in recovery must he have before I allow him to return? My daughter asks for him to return every day. I say he is where God has called him to be, and we should thank god for the time He gave him to us.

My greatest fear is letting him back into their lives and him failing them. He has written to her, but I have not given her the letter. I think I will tomorrow. Maybe. What have you all done concerning your children? How do I know what God would want me to do?

jzeb2008

I'm relating to what you are saying about finding myself has turned me back into the mother than I used to be and God made me to be.Much easier to do when I'm not raising a "juvenile delinquent teenager who is really 37".I have my own children to raise who really ARE children. After my husband left yesterday from his 45 minute visit consisting of mainly nothing but ranting and raving, our 23 month old daughter who has been so very close to him kept asking, "Where'd Daddy go?"I didn't really know what to tell her.I did explain something to the other children in a way that I thought that they ywould understand. I asked them, "If an insane person was screaming at you from a window, would you yell back at them or walk away? "They all answered in unison, "Walk away! "I just told him that's how we need to think about Daddy right now, especially when he's acting pitiful like he did today and trying to start an argument because he's very sick and there no talking any sense into him.