June 3, 2015
From the Desk of Laura Bunker:
In the U.S., we are right between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. So today, we offer an encouraging message for mothers and fathers everywhere.
We often speak of the many ways children need mothers and fathers, but we sometimes forget it goes both ways. Marriage and parenthood are transformative experiences for men and women, contributing significantly to healthier, more productive, and longer lives.
Today’s thought-provoking and beautifully written article by Jenet Erickson reminds us that “we need children — for their sakes as well as ours.” Speaking from both a professional and personal perspective, Dr. Erickson shows how parenthood gives opportunities for men and women to become their best selves:
“As a mother, I cannot fake kindness, patience, organization, discipline and humility all day. In ordinary moments as my character is tested, I get to see who I truly am, and most humbling of all they get to see who I am.”
We agree with Dr. Erickson’s powerful conclusion that, “We need children because we need to be changed. We need what nurturing them teaches us, what it reveals to us about ourselves and the change that it invites in us.”
All of us at UFI wish you a Happy Mother’s Day, Happy Father’s Day, and Happy Trails in your challenging journey of parenthood!
Warm Regards,
Laura Bunker
United Families International, President
We Need Children – For Their Sakes as Well as Ours
By Jenet Jacob Erickson
By the time my husband and I had our first child, I’d been exposed to years of research and theory about the influence of parents on children. Early attachment theory had long provided evidence for the importance of mothers. Maternal sensitivity was identified as the strongest and most consistent predictor of children’s development. Countless other studies indicated fathers’ key influence on children’s safety, social behaviors and sexual development. And then there was the massive body of research exploring the effects of parental discipline and interaction patterns. Entering motherhood, I knew that, for better or worse, I mattered in the lives of our children. They needed me and the best that I could give.
What I was not prepared for, however, was how much I needed their influence on me. There is research on some aspects of that, or course: Men and women who have children live longer than their childless counterparts, even when holding everything else equal. Neuropsychological research indicates that motherhood alters the brain of a mother — enhancing certain cognitive abilities that are important to helping offspring survive and thrive. Fathers, in turn, experience changes that prime them to be more nurturing, attentive and less aggressive. Men with children earn 40 percent more income than their childless counterparts, engage in less risky behaviors and live longer.
But it was not those influences that surprised me when I became a mother. What surprised me was how mothering our children opened my eyes to myself, and many weaknesses that I knew I needed to change. As a mother, I cannot fake kindness, patience, organization, discipline and humility all day. In ordinary moments as my character is tested, I get to see who I truly am, and most humbling of all they get to see who I am.
I know I am not alone in those feelings. Michael Novak once described, “Being married and having children has impressed on my mind certain lessons. … Most of what I am forced to learn about myself is not pleasant. The quantity of sheer impenetrable selfishness in the human breast (in my breast) is a never-failing source of wonderment. … Seeing myself through the unblinking eyes of an honest spouse [and child] is humiliating beyond anticipation ….”
Which is, as Novak recognized, why we so desperately need families — and children. Our recognition of their dependence and need for us is exactly what keeps us repenting, trying to do better and give better. In our efforts to care we see how far we fall from what they might really need, and it invites us to humbly seek for better.
Leo Tolstoy understood this well. In “Anna Karenina,” he describes the effect of Anna’s extramarital affair on her abandoned son. Repeatedly, in his daily walks, Seryozha is “constantly keeping a lookout for his mother.” But he does not find her, and one is left with a poignant image of his broken heart. For Tolstoy, as scholar David Patterson notes, Seryozha, like all children, is “the compass which showed the degree of [his mother’s and her lover’s] divergence from what they knew was right, but did not want to see.”
I, like Anna, have sometimes not wanted to see what the “compass” caring for our children reveals to me about how far I have diverged. But it is far more painful to think about life without that precious compass to guide me.
In our current culture, we don’t often talk about children being an irreplaceable “compass.” Instead we talk a lot about how expensive and exhausting children are; how mothers, in particular, should carefully weigh the effect children will have on their career dreams. But the truth is, we need children. We need children because we need to be changed. We need what nurturing them teaches us, what it reveals to us about ourselves and the change that it invites in us.
It has been painful to be so exposed to my own weaknesses in mothering. And the truth is, READ MORE…
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Dr. Jenet Jacob Erickson is a family science researcher who specializes 
in maternal wellbeing. After completing a Ph.D. in Family Social Science from the University of Minnesota, she was an assistant professor in the School of Family Life until 2008 when she became a mother. She and her husband Michael are the parents of two young children.
Originally Published in the Deseret News, republished with permission.