Article March 20, 2000 Issue

Mother's helper

"Prayer definitely made a difference in my ability to stay calm and to keep my emotions under control."

By Ruth McCleary Truscott

I remember often feeling not only inadequate in raising six children but guilty about not doing a better job. Many days didn't start or end happily. Yet I had a keen desire to do better and to meet the challenges of parenting in a more spiritual way.

When the children did something they weren't supposed to do, I would be upset. As hard as I tried not to be ruffled, it didn't work. When I tucked them in at night, I'd resolve that tomorrow, no matter what happened, I wouldn't react. But tomorrow would come, and the first trivial incident—spilled milk, disobedience, fighting—there I would go again reacting, getting impatient and sometimes very angry. Of course, this upset everyone.

My progress in overcoming this impatient, reactive behavior started with the study of Christian Science. I learned to pray for myself and for our children. In prayer, I began with God as the only creator, the divine Parent. I acknowledged that He created me as well as them in His likeness. That meant they weren't undeveloped beings whom I had to make whole through my parenting. They were already complete expressions of God. And it meant that I wasn't just a little human being trying to be good. Rather, I was the way God made me—patient, patient, patient, good, and loving—so I couldn't help but behave that way. What a change! I didn't always measure up (nor did they), but I continued to identify us all as correctly (that is, as spiritually) as I knew how.

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