Good on Following Christ, Weak on Motherhood
How Can I Feel Productive as a Mom, by Esther Englesma
Reviewed by Caleb Nelson
How Can I Feel Productive as a Mom is an excellent general primer on the Christian life, with most of its illustrations taken from the work of motherhood. Engelsma, a young mother with one small baby and a passion for productivity, begins and ends her book with a call to lift one’s eyes. She quotes Gloria Furman: “The long view of motherhood scans the horizon of eternity” (pg. 3), and then ends with an apt metaphor of the carpenter who “starts obsessing over how many nails he can pound in a day” rather than “on the love and laughter his family will one day share in the house he is building” (pp. 34-35).
And it is there, on the missing level in between the nails and eternity, that one sees the chief weakness of Engelsma’s book. A mom’s obsession with “getting things done” is rightly compared with a carpenter’s obsession with pounding as many nails as possible in a day. But focusing on the joy a home brings to a family doesn’t tell anyone how to build it — whether in the wooden sense or the metaphorical sense. Engelsma never even mentions Scripture’s descriptions of a woman’s primary tasks. This, alongside her repeated protestations that her heart is not at peace with God’s plan and she would certainly have preferred that the Almighty do things differently, testifies uncomfortably to the limits of the book’s scoping question: How Can I Feel Productive as a Mom? A more useful question would ask this: What Does Scripture Say About Productive Motherhood?
It’s a common vice of book reviewers to protest that the author didn’t write the book the reviewer wanted. Certainly Engelsma has written a good answer to the question of how to feel productive: focus on your own and your children’s conformity to Christ. Let that shape your feelings, rather than vice versa. But again, like her exhortation to the carpenter to think of how wonderful a good house is, her exhortations to moms lack the concreteness of Scripture’s instructions for mothers. “I could never figure out if I should be cooking, cleaning, playing, working, snuggling, relaxing, or sleeping,” she testifies on pg. 1. Her answer to the conundrum? Figure out how much time and energy you have, whether your children are awake or asleep, and whether there are any urgent needs. “Based on these factors, you figure out what to do right now to make the best use of your time” (pg. 8). That clears it all up for the overwhelmed homemaker, I’m sure. Adding later that “a calendar, a routine, and a to-do list” can tell you the best use of your time (pg. 12) only continues to beg the question. What goals does Christ set for homemakers in His word? Engelsma provides excellent general advice on living as a faithful Christian. She provides no particular insight into the specific tasks of motherhood — only into the general circumstances and temptations surrounding those tasks.
This is likely to be expected from a new mom who is just starting to learn the job. But such a person may not have been the best candidate to teach others about wise motherhood. Why didn’t RHB ask a grandmother with many happy daughters and grandchildren to write this book?
Engelsma’s fifth recommendation, “Realize that the work of motherhood must be learned” (pg. 29), is the book’s most valuable specific contribution. Exactly. And it must be learned by turning to the word of God, which says things like “teach the younger women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands” and “I would have the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, and give the adversary no occasion for slander.” This is the intermediate step between the basic task — say, nail-pounding or laundry-folding — and the ultimate goal of eternity with Christ. Moms, set up your priorities, to-do lists, and calendars around the specific tasks of sustaining your marriage, caring for your children (“feeding” them, as Paul literally says in Eph. 6:4)), and guiding your house. The specifics of these things are to be found in general revelation, as Englesma rightly points out. The carpenter doesn’t need Scripture to tell him that a 16-ft tripled 2x12 can carry a thousand pounds. Hanging weights from the beam is the way to figure that out. The wise mother doesn’t need scripture to tell her that preparing meals on time needs to be top priority. Watching the whole family melt down when dinner is late is the way to figure that out.
Mrs. Englesma, I have leveled some hard words at your work. Please know that I am grateful for your willingness to wrestle with these things, and that I blame Revs. Beeke and McGraw for most of the weaknesses that I have identified. It was their duty to correct these weaknesses, and to provide you with a more helpful scoping question. Feeling productive is not a bad aspect of motherhood — but one would hardly expect a junior carpenter on the construction site to sit down with the boss for a discussion of how to feel more productive in his work. Being more productive, wisely advancing the construction of the home, rather than merely feeling better about the level of work he’s already doing, is the skill in which the boss would rightly instruct this young tradesman. The same goes for one who would, as an older woman, reverent in behavior, undertake to teach the younger women to love their children with skill.
This book will encourage you in being a Christian, but it gives little specific help in ordering your life as a mother pleasing to Christ.
