The Frivolity of Motherhood….or not.

I admit it. Sometimes I just want to read fluff. The old sort of novel that entertains yet motivates me to serve my family sweetly. Louisa May Alcott writes like this, as does Elizabeth Prentiss (specifically in Aunt Jane’s Hero). These seemingly simplistic works of fiction that extoll what now seem to be considered archaic virtues in women draw me more and more. Since my teenage years I have kept one of these nearby.

Recently I was gifted a copy of Mother, by Kathleen Norris. I thought the name was cute and the vintage cover art attractive, so I used it as a decoration for a few months. When Christmas came, I moved around decorations and ended using the book, well, as a book. I read it. In one sitting. I loved it. Really loved it. I will make my daughters read it.

Originally released in 1911, this particular edition was restored and published by Vision Forum, which re-inserted some Christian worldview references that had been removed in secular editions. It follows the post high school years of a girl who leaves home to live and work among the glamorous. Margaret appreciates her mother, but looks upon the calling with some the of immaturity that is common to young women who are just beginning their interactions with varying philosophies of child-raising. As she goes out to spread her wings, she is able to evaluate differing lifestyles, and interact with the women who live them and eloquently defend them. She eventually makes her choice.

What I particularly enjoyed about this book was the writing itself. Simple pleasures are extolled and portrayed with accuracy and grace. Here are some excerpts:

She was, in a word, old-fashioned, hopelessly out of the modern current of thoughts and events. She secretly regarded her children as marvelous treasures, even while she laughed down their youthful conceit and punished their naughtiness. P.29

And suddenly theories and speculation ended, and she knew. She knew that faithful, self-forgetting service and the love that spends itself over and over, only to be renewed again and again, are the secret to happiness. For another world, perhaps leisure and beauty and luxury-but in this one, “Whosoever loses his life shall gain it.” Margaret knew now that her mother was not only the truest, the finest, the most generous woman she had ever known, but the happiest as well. P. 191

In light of this, you may decide this would be a good gift to give your daughter for Valentine’s Day, then maybe you will reap the benefits of her new appreciation for you by Mothers Day! Happy reading.