Identity by Lisa Gormley

I never had a clear-cut plan of what motherhood looked like for me, but I knew that I wanted many children in order to emulate what I grew up with. I didn’t even give it much more thought when my now-husband and I decided to get married what is now considered at a “young” age and I was still in my Master’s program. I started my first job as a therapist the year of our engagement and loved every minute of it (still do). We admittedly didn’t prepare very much by way of natural family planning, both knowing we were ready and open to life from the get-go. I also think that in the back of my mind, I figured it would take some time. But God had other plans! We were married on October 13th, 2018 and on November 18th that same year, we stared at a positive pregnancy test, indicating I was already four weeks pregnant. Albeit a little surprised and overwhelmed, we were both so happy and ready.

By seven weeks pregnant, it’s like something clicked- “Wait, what am I going to do about my clients?” Subconsciously I think that I had imagined taking significant time off when we first started having babies because, well, “work wasn’t as important as raising children.” Now that I had a caseload of individuals I had been working with for quite some time and developed strong rapport with, I felt something I hadn’t felt before, and that was God nudging me to continue on this path.

You better believe I told my boss that I was pregnant that very week, and I am embarrassed to admit that I was embarrassed to admit it; that is, until she told me that “This baby was meant to be here at this exact timing.” Not everyone is as lucky as I was to have so much support from my place of work, and I am eternally grateful for it. Because she was right. That positive pregnancy test was always my little Noah, and I couldn’t imagine what life would look like without him.

Now I had to consider something that I hadn’t ever before- maternity leave. I don’t mean to convey that I had presumptuously planned to not financially need to work; but I do think that our desires often become our expectations, which can leave us feeling “taken off guard” when those very expectations require a drastic change. I was the first of my siblings, and even any aunts, to have to consider this designated time period and prepare to somehow be ready to bounce back into work within those 12 or so weeks. Filling out the paperwork left me overwhelmed. People asking me what my plans were left me overwhelmed. Planning ahead who will be watching the baby who I hadn’t even met yet left me overwhelmed. Having to stop taking new clients months in advance left me overwhelmed. Are you noticing a pattern?

Just about one year later from returning to work, I am looking ahead to another upcoming maternity leave.  And yes, I am overwhelmed again. I had only gotten my “groove back” this spring, and yet I had to again stop taking new clients by the summertime. Approaching a second maternity leave confronted me with another reality: I must not be “taking time off while the babies are babies.” Again, this was another belief or plan that I had without even realizing it- the idea that “when we start our family, I will have to take a break from work while they are all little.

Maybe until they are in school.” There came that nudge again from God that made it feel like a non-option: I was to continue seeing my clients and making it work, as He had made it work for me over the past year. I would not say that I am quite at the point of “radical acceptance,” hoping to take things as they come, but I am also pleasantly surprised by my newfound confidence in seeing the work that I do as an extension of my vocation, and not simply as just “work.”

I’ve had to reprocess and unlearn so many beliefs about the labels we use to identify ourselves as mothers specifically stay-at-home-mom versus working-mom. If I was being extremely honest, I never identified with, nor liked, either one of these titles. In a society that judges and hyper imposes itself in our life-decisions and identities, we see people clinging to these titles, perhaps out of defensiveness, and maybe even rightfully so. I am going to make a radical statement, however, and that’s that unless your identity is rooted in Christ first and foremost, nothing about either one of those titles you may identify with makes you anything special. Harsh? Let me elaborate. 

SAH moms are judged for “not doing anything” or seen as just SAH moms. Working moms are judged for having extended time away from their children or choosing “success” over raising their families. Do you know who are the worst offenders of these judgements? Moms. I will be the first to admit it! When people do things differently than us, perhaps even better than us, we have a tendency to create a scenario in our heads that lessons the impact on our own self-esteem or confidence as moms.

“She works and still goes to every single school function? Her marriage must be suffering.”

“Her house is always perfectly decorated with all the time she has on her hands. It has got to feel weird spending her husband’s money on all that.”

“All I am saying, is that if that was me….. [insert something you would “never” do].”

These sentiments are not coming from a place of confidence. They are nonsensical attacks that only aim to distract from discontent in our hearts- a discontent, mind you, that only Christ can fill. The remedy for this is not simply to be supportive of other people’s life-decisions. Rather, it is to be supportive of your own decisions. This claim in identity inevitably leads to the support of others, however different from you. Most importantly, this claim in identify helps us to live it out in the fullest way possible; the way in which God intended us to live.

So what does all of this have to do with my own experience? I am in that very process of seeking God’s purpose for my life as it changes so rapidly. I am in the process of understanding my role first as a child of God, then as a wife, certainly as mother, and finally as a therapist. One thing I’ve realized is that this order of importance does not translate to “time spent” on each of these identities.

Prioritization has to translate to something far deeper than “choosing one thing above another or at the expense of another.” In that light, I try to see it as “The better I am at the former listed, the more effective and fulfilled I am in the latter.” And why wouldn’t it work out that way?! It’s the way that God designed it. He created us to be His children, forever. All other titles will give us no sincere fulfillment. They are temporary. They are of this world. It doesn’t make them irrelevant, but it requires us to not hold our sense of worth, purpose, and meaning within them.

I have to first decide to identify as His daughter, and live life in a way that reflects this. I have to make time and space for the relationship with my husband. I have to, along with my husband, be present, available, and nurturing to my children. I have to be a dependable, prepared, and motivated therapist. Breaking it down in these seemingly “smaller” objectives helps me accomplish them because they are actions that can be more objectively addressed.

I will never decide to identify as either a SAHM or a working mom. Sometimes I am one, sometimes the other, and for me personally, they just don’t matter. I am a mother. I am a wife. I am a therapist. Some of those are non-negotiables, some are not. Until He tells me otherwise, I will continue pursuing the urges that He sets ablaze in my heart and trust in His will, His timing, and His plan. After all, what’s that phrase about wanting to make God laugh?

Oh yes- tell him your plans.