Dear Young Moms... Please Listen To Mine

Dear Young Moms,


I see a lot of your blogposts on the internet. They go something like this:

"An old lady stopped me in the supermarket to tell me how cute my kids were and that I need to remember it goes by so fast. Please stop. You don't know what it's like to be exhausted and have a disastrous house and crazy kids smearing syrup on walls and flushing car keys. But guess what, fellow young moms? It's okay! You don't need a clean, Pinterest-worthy hospitable house with craft time and cute snacks and traditions and routine. Because life is crazy and we have Jesus, so forget cleaning and just kick back and relax and let things go nuts because Jesus loves you and it's okay."


I am not a young mother. I certainly hope to be one someday. But I do know one thing. Yes, Jesus loves you, but aforementioned scenario is not okay.


I am a teenager. You probably don't have one of me yet, but you will. You've probably heard all of the jokes about how twos and teens are the terrible years.  I am a college student. I am often told, "Oh, you think you're tired NOW?"

I understand that your life is more chaotic than mine. However, what if I kicked back and relaxed and let things go nuts? What if I chose to ignore the advice of my mentors and parents because they just didn't understand? Jesus loves me and my imperfections, it doesn't matter! To heck with my grades!

What if I told my mom "please stop" and "you don't know"?

This is my mom. She is a hard, hard-working, godly woman. Before and during college, she worked with hundreds of babies in a care center (many of whom are probably your age now.) She has raised/is raising four of us mini-Stevensons, and has done so despite having moved from Philadelphia to Williamsport, from Williamsport to Greenville, South Carolina, and from Greenville to Tulsa, each time packing the house herself. She has done so despite being an elder's and then a pastor's wife, a camp director, a Christian and homeschool teacher, having her youngest and later her husband hospitalized with serious illnesses, a massive, emotionally-grueling upheaval with an organization, volunteering at the Seminary in Greenville, Sunday School teaching and coordinating, church planting, hosting, holding the hands of the suffering, and listening to you tell her she doesn't know what you're talking about.

Yes, young mothers (and older ones as well) have told my mom she doesn't know what she's talking about when it comes to babies (despite the four of us and the dozens at the care center before us).

Young mothers have said to my mom, "Well, you only have four kids." 

Young mothers have told my mom, "Well, you don't any little ones." (As if we were never little all at once.) 

Young mothers have directly and passive-aggressively criticized my mom for hosting well in a clean house with good food for their kids to eat and well-kept toys for their kids to play with. Apparently that's not genuine or something. 

Young mothers have told my mom she should be more relational. Apparently relational means being messy, less hard-working, and complaining a lot. Apparently relational does not mean listening to you complain and offer to pray for you and help you out. 

Young mothers have told my mom, "You don't understand."

Simply because she no longer has someone under five in her legal jurisdiction and immediate family.

My mom isn't the only one who is told these things. I stand by and watch mothers with her experience smile and nod at younger mothers who look them in the eye and say, "You don't know." Which essentially means, "I don't want or need your advice because it won't be relevant to me." 

Let me be completely honest with you for a second.

Remember when you were a teenager, like me? Undoubtedly at some point you thought, "My parents just don't understand."

In retrospect, you realize that they not only understood, but they knew way more than you would give them credit at the time. 

Guess what?

The same goes for my mom when you tell her, "You just don't understand." You're emotionally and socially being a teenager toward her.  

Now for me. Young moms like me because I am a good babysitter. I am successful in school and successful socially and am striving to one day join the ranks of young housewives while still investing in my talents. Young moms like me because they were just where I am not that long ago themselves. Young moms like my siblings because they, too, make an effort to play with little kids and help out when hosted by clearing tables and picking up toys and also hope to be parents someday. 

This is us. 

Guess what? Once upon a time, we each looked like this.

Eighteen years since the photo on the left, I am here.

Guess who raised me to this point?

Yup, my mom (and my dad, of course, but I'll talk about him another time.)

And whenever I'm standing there next to her, and you tell her that she doesn't understand, I have to bite my tongue. 

Because if there's anyone who doesn't understand, it's you. 

Titus 2 is an oft-quoted passage among Christian women. The older women are to teach the younger women. Nowhere in that verse does it say, "The younger women are to accept advice from older women who have babies/if they feel like it/are to complain about it/are to tell the older women they just don't understand." It says the older women are to teach the younger.

No, you won't agree with all the advice my mom has to offer. Everyone has their own situation and struggles. However, my mom has given birth, raised babies, toddlers, elementary kids, pre-teens, teenagers, and now, adults, as have many other women in her generation and women in the preceding generations who taught them. 

They know what they're talking about.

They do understand. 

And someday, you will too.