Why despise motherhood?

In light of our pursuit to adopt, I've been reading as much as I can and sharing our news with every one.  My heart has been devastated by people's (not our family) reaction to the idea of adoption. 

These are the most common reactions:
They aren't your own children, you can't love them like you love Joelle
 Aren't adopted people bad people?
You already have one child, and that's enough
One person can't take care of three children
If you want more children, you should just get pregnant again

The last one is particularly hard to swallow, seeing as our last round of failed fertility treatments was only six months ago.  But, honestly, it's only hard because it's so recent... our despair has slowly given way to the understanding that God simply has something better for us.

The thing I can't understand is not just their ignorance of the beauty of adoption, but how parenthood is generally despised.  And it's not just here in China- a lot of American families have more cats than children, and I've heard a thousand-too-many-times "Stay at home mom? What a waste of a college degree!"

It is a growing trend among women to not chose motherhood, so of course adoption is just plain absurd.  I don't even want to raise any natural born children, let alone someone else's child! 

Women of God need to come back to a Biblical view of our role in life.  Society has told us that a career and "following our dreams" are the admirable things in life, but the Lord says that the woman who rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household surpasses all others.  The movie Eat, Pray, Love very much encouraged women to abandon all responsibility in order to "find yourself".  Ladies: find yourself in God.

Now, I admire working women- I was one and enjoyed it and at times I miss it.  But I wonder if the incline in all the problems we are seeing in young people today is in any way linked to the incline of women who push back "starting a family" in order to concentrate on their career?  I'm not speaking out against child care, but can we really be surprised to find out that our children have gotten into all kinds of trouble when they have been being raised by a stranger for 8 hours out of the day?

When I think about my own mother, I consider her to be a woman who had the best of both worlds.  I often find myself bragging about how she has started businesses and a ministry from the ground up- but she was not a woman who despised motherhood.  So much so that she decided to become a mother to two children who were not "her own".  She and my father adopted my brother and I and MADE us "their own."  She put aside her career to stay home with us and help us walk through very troublesome years.  She did not let strangers at day-care or the T.V. guide me in my impressionable years.  My sister is a lot like that.  She works as a nurse so she and her husband can have two incomes but works nights so she can stay home with her four children during the day.  I'm pretty sure she moonlights as wonder woman on the weekends.

I also think about my friend, Emily, who just had her third baby and recently blogged about how she went about her Saturday like any other day cleaning, playing and all those full-time-mommy things.  Emily does not despise this season of life- quite the opposite. She prayed for these days of no sleep and round the clock feedings to come.

When we asked Scott's brother what he thought of taking custody of the five children we hope to have one day (even though he already he has four of his own)if something ever happened to us he said, Doesn't the Bible say that it's a blessing to have a quiver full?  Well, Jason and Shanna, you'd have about two quiver fulls. haha

Why should we let a secular, depraved world define what a woman's role in society is?   The world tells us "SOW YOUR WILD OATS! Find yourself! See the world before you settle down, because once you have children, it's all over!"  (ahem, my child was born in Thailand and has already traveled and lived in three countries. Myth busted)  Realize it is the voice of the serpent that is hissing, "your talents are being wasted on keeping house all day! "

Pregnancy, childbirth, the toddler years and teenagers are not easy, but if we despise these years it will start a near-unbreakable cycle.  I once read, "Raise your children, or you'll raise your grandchildren."

Women all around me try to encourage me to find a nanny to stay with Joelle so I can go to work.  Luckily for me, I don't have a college degree so I can't get paid enough to cover the cost of a nanny!  (how's that for making lemonade out of lemons?)  But even if I was a rocket scientist, I was counseled by women older and wiser than me that these years of wiping noses, cleaning spaghetti off the ceiling and Little Einstein's reruns are the years that matter most.

This is the truth: no one cares enough about your children to love them with discipline.  Believe me- I worked in child care a loooong time.  I disciplined my classroom for the sake of my own sanity.  But I discipline my daughter because I can look into her future and know that if she learns a love of the law now, she will crave it as an adult.

I hope you will cherish motherhood however it comes to you.