Avoiding Fatal Sleep

It is a sad tale I hear from girls, waking up in the morning ready for minute-by-minute instructions from Mother, working in the kitchen with the cacophony of “no, not like that� and “now do this� echoing behind them, asking “Mother, may I practice the violin now?�, eagerly anticipating a momentary reprieve in which they can sneak in a few pages of reading, always dodging around Mother’s watchful eyes to do “what I really want.� If you are 12, this way of living is not so bad, but if you are 20, this lifestyle is leading you into future years of distress.

The transition from being a little girl in your father’s house to being an adult woman is a delicate one and one that is made much smoother by the constant working together with your parents. I’ve debated which comes first – acting like an adult or being treated like one. Regardless, there are several things we as daughters can do to aid ourselves in the growing-up process.

First of all, we must recognize that we are responsible for our own lives. We choose to do or not do something; we choose to behave in certain ways. The way we live is the way we have chosen to live. We are held accountable for our own choices.

Secondly, because of this we must “become thoughtful� ourselves. This means we must understand the reasons behind what we do. Do you dress in a feminine way? Why? Because your parents say so or because you hold the same convictions? Why do you live at home? Because you have no other choice or because you have chosen this choice above others? Think. Understand. Study. Learn the why behind the what. I’m not saying you should make drastic changes in your lifestyle because you suddenly decide you don’t agree with your parents, but I am saying that you need to know why you do what you do. If you disagree with them on something, then your choice is to submit or not to submit (and the obvious choice is right there); choosing not to think about it or have an opinion is not an adult option. Adults know why they do what they do and take responsibility for their own choices. Robertson says that neglecting these things has the potential to send us “headlong to evil� and here’s why: the world is full of contrary arguments. Eventually you will run into some of them and if you have no basis for what you believe, you will cave in under pressure. We need to be strong now and always, holding firm our beliefs.

Third, we must take initiative in household responsibilities. This means that Mom shouldn’t have to ask you to do the dishes; you live in the house, so you should jump up and have them washed before anyone needs to ask. You can and should keep the grocery list current, the laundry washed, the floors clean, etc., without having to be reminded or questioned about it. (Of course you already keep your own room tidy and your own bed made!) By the time you are of adult age (say, 18 or so), your mother should not have to look over your shoulder all the time, whether it be in the kitchen or elsewhere. If she’s having to, it’s for one of two reasons; either you are not trustworthy to stay at your post or you do not care enough to know how to do things right. Moms want things done right and you ought to be able to be trusted to do what you’re supposed to do when you’re supposed to do it and to do it right. If you can’t, get remedial help! Ideally, you should have entire areas of the household management as your duty. At my house, I do the coupon cutting, the girls and I almost always do the shopping, Hannah does the laundry, Martha is responsible for kitchen maintenance and Alice the bathrooms. We take turns with the grass mowing and other odd jobs. In order to have a system like that, it’s understood that we know how to do our jobs well and that we will be faithful to do them. We are adults.

Fourth, we must take initiative in our own spiritual and educational growth. If you want to study something, get books from the library. If you have an interest, search out ways to develop it. If you want to become more faithful at prayer, do it! Your parents should not have to come to you and convince you to read certain books or learn certain things; you should be going to them with proposals. This is not 3rd grade and we don’t need to be led by the hand. However, you do need to learn things and so if you’re not coming up with things on your own, your parents will be forced to baby you. You are responsible for who you are becoming and for what kind of woman, wife, or mother you will be. Marriage doesn’t make you grow up. Work does.

Fifth, we must not avoid difficult situations. No one likes getting their hands dirty, but being a mature adult woman requires that we do some dirty work. So the book is tough to understand, the child is sick and throwing up on you, the person you’re helping has seizures, the opportunity for service means you’ll be away and might get homesick, the people you need to interact with are emotionally draining, the older people you want to visit are crabby and yell at you. OH WELL. When we shy away from the places, people, and opportunities that might be less than fun, we are destined to remain immature children. The only way to grow and mature is to be squeezed a little bit. Pressure molds us into adults and the better we get at dealing with hard things, the more grown-up we become.

I’ve done several difficult things recently. I’ve sat with my grandpa during his time with cancer, sometimes at the clinic watching the blue chemo iv drip into his body, other times trying to help him breathe and being ready at his request to take him to the hospital. I’ve worked with people with disabilities, learning to deal with feeding tubes, watching them turn blue during a seizure, cleaning up bodily fluids of various kinds. I’ve been away from home for sundry reasons for many weeks at a time. I’ve been places where people are yelling at me through no fault of my own, where nothing I do seems right to them, where I am berated for my beliefs and lifestyle. These are in no way difficult when compared to what other people go through, but we have to start somewhere. All of these things have made me stronger and older and have given me a more realistic outlook on life. If your life is a particularly easy one, try to do some volunteer work where there are people with real problems! You can’t exactly complain of a bad hair day when you’re sitting next to someone who’s lost theirs to cancer.

We can’t afford to “live as if we had nothing to do but enjoy [our]selves.� If we desire to be godly women, to be servants of the king, to be able to stand our ground for the kingdom, we need to be adults. This means we must think hard, work hard, pray hard, and do hard things. We don’t need to be babied or coddled. Having a husband is not going to make us instant adults; in fact, if we don’t learn how to be responsible for ourselves and our schedule and our activities now, we will be hopeless when we get married! How do you expect to run an entire household if you can’t even manage to get up in the morning and empty the dishwasher without being prodded?

We don’t want to be left “unprepared. . . hurried, confused, [and] scarcely able to stand� because of our refusal to “learn what is good� and do it. Our lives are easy compared to most, but we still have plenty of work to do. If we want to live and function as the adults that we are, we need to work at being responsible, becoming thoughtful, taking initiative, and doing hard things. Maturity requires purification, refinement, and molding, but the end result is that we as daughters “may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace� (Psalms 144:12).