What is Motherhood and Progression?

Motherhood and progression is a movement for Latter-Day Saint mothers who want to find greater balance in parenting and to more confidently embrace their spiritual progression. It aims to deconstruct anxious, child-focused parenting messages, which stem from church cultural beliefs and our society at large. It does so by teaching the research-based ideas of Bowen Family Systems theory, a main family therapy theory, integrated with doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ. 

Taken together, these bodies of knowledge help support the view that balance and progression in motherhood are not only good for mothers, but good for children. They both help teach that as mothers embrace their progression and promote more balanced relationships with their children, they can help children become autonomous, self-reliant agents who can do many good things of their own free will and who can progress toward their fullest potential. 

This is because having balanced relationships not only free mothers to achieve agency, self-reliance, and progression, but it frees children to also experience these things. In contrast, codependent relationships between mothers and children keep them anxiously focused on each other–the mother anxiously focused on doing more for the child than they realistically need, and the child anxiously focused on getting the mother to continue to meet unrealistic expectations they have been trained to need. This type of relationship is not healthy and does not allow for the spiritual progression of either mother and child. 

My Experience

I was motivated to create motherhood and progression because of my own experiences. I was always very influenced by cultural beliefs about motherhood in our church, largely the belief that I shouldn’t have a career but that I needed to be a stay-at-home mom. This led me to focus in on relationships as the source of my happiness, neglecting a focus on developing a love of learning and my own identity.

 Ironically, this was the worst thing I could do for my marriage, as it made me very codependent, unable to be a self-reliant, agent unto myself–I thought my husband was responsible for my happiness, and when he didn’t meet my expectations, I blamed him. We had a really hard time in our first year of marriage, and not until I humbled myself and shifted my focus to growing myself did things improve. 

The Need to Progress

I started to realize I needed to have my own identity, and I started to love learning. I realized that my happiness was up to me, and that if I wanted to have strong relationships, I needed to meet my own needs for individuality–my needs to learn, develop myself, grow my skills and talents, and create and contribute meaningfully to the world. I stopped letting my life be dictated by cultural beliefs about motherhood adn instead started to seek out personal revelation to help me to determine my life path. This led me to seek higher education an a career amidst motherhood, something I never would have previously imagined for myself. 

Accepting answers to prayer that invited me to follow this life path was not always easy. I initially felt a lot of guilt about not being able to be constantly available to my children, and ended up overcompensating by trying to give as much of my attention, involvement, and support to them as possible whenever I was with them. This unfortunately led to a very codependent relationship that led my children to become overly dependent on me and which led me to feel overwhelmed and burnt out. 

Seeking Inspiration

Recognizing that this wasn’t going well, I decided to say a prayer to know how to be a better mother. After saying this prayer, I felt a powerful rush of love overwhelm me, and the idea came to mind that I needed to embrace my autonomy–that this would help me relationships with my kids to be more balanced and allow us all to be happier. As I implemented this, I found that it really did work. My relaitonship with my kids became more balanced, I was finally free from guilt and burnout, and they grew to be more confident, self-reliant, and happy. 

I started to research this idea of autonomy in relationships, and came across a theory called Bowen family systems theory. It discussed the need for a balance of autonomy and connection in relationships, and it perfectly outlined the codependent pattern I had found myself in with my kids. It also offered the same advice I had received as an answer to prayer–that I needed to meet my need for autonomy and seek a more balanced relationship with my kids–that the codependent relationship was not helpful to me or my children. It also provided a wealth of information that helped fill in the gaps of my understanding. I consider this whole experience to be a miracle that I truly needed to overcome my mom guilt and find freedom in motherhood. 

Christ’s Compassion on Mothers

Another powerful experience I had came after this initial discovery of Bowen theory. I was in the process of creating a workshop for Latter-Day Saint mothers based in Bowen theory’s ideas, and I wanted to better understand Christ’s compassion and mothers. So I decided to say a prayer. After praying, I felt I needed to open my scriptures. I did so, and ended up turning to Luke 7. I started to read, and found that I was reading the story of the widow of Nain, a mother whose son, Lazarus had died. 

The scriptrues read: “And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. And he came and touched the bier: and they that bare him stood still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered him to his mother.” (Luke 7:13-15).

When I came to the words, “he had compassion on her,” I felt a powerful rush of emotion sweep over my whole body, and I felt an immense sense of the Savior’s love for mothers–and had this awareness that mothers often carry very heavy burdens, and that the Savior longs to help relieve their suffering. Its hard to describe just how powerful these feelings were–I felt that I couldn’t contain them, and I sat and sobbed for a few minutes. 

Called to Help Mothers

Ever since this experience, I’ve felt a calling to help Christ to relieve the suffering of mothers. I’ve felt this strong sense of urgency to not only help all of the mothers of the world (which I am seeking to do through my parenting approach, Balanced Parenting which is based in Bowen theory) but also to help Latter-Day Saint mothers with ther particular challenges.

I have felt strongly that I needed to create Motherhood and Progression to help bring the miracle that I experienced to others experiencing the same challenges. I know that feeling that God was pleased with my life path was vital to my confidence in seeking to embrace my autonomy, so I know that Latter-Day Saint mothers truly need not only Bowen theory, but to see that the doctrine of Christ’s church also supports their progression and balance in motherhood. 

I believe that as mothers can recognize this, it will free them in a powerful way to start their own spiritual journey of finding greater peace, joy, and love in their family relationships and greater fulfillment, purpose, and excitement about life. They can start to understand their purpose and follow a life path that helps them to partner with Christ in helping to accomplish God’s work. And as they do so, they will also free their children to do the same.