Family's not in the way; they are the way
Reflecting on a movie I saw and celebrating a year of One Tired Mother
There was a Christian movie in town, I heard. First, from my mom; then from a poster on our local parish bulletin board. I’m always skeptical of Christian movies, in the same way that I’m skeptical of Christian writers. I go to art for depth, for nuance, for beauty—and often the “Christian” brand of art is shallow, simplistic, and heavy-handed.
(Not to mention annoyingly preachy.)
But something felt good about this one. Soccer was cancelled for the night due to rain, so I snagged a last-minute babysitter and we went to see it. Apart from a few *ever-so-slightly* melodramatic scenes, I was amazed. It was an absolutely beautiful film. I had tears in my eyes not just in some parts; for most of the movie. It was just wonderful, even my husband said so. Though I’m usually the one that’s more apt to hate on Christian movies, he isn’t usually as enthusiastic about the quality of movies in general. (“It was pretty good” is usually his response, whereas I have typically have a detailed review to give, lol.)
The movie is Unsung Hero. It’s the true story of the family of Christian singers Rebecca St. James and For King and Country (2 of her brothers)—how they came from Australia to the U.S. and the hardship of the family due to the father’s professional hardships and ensuing struggles with mental health. It was a beautiful portrayal of all that family is. Being taken back to the 1990s world of Christian music—at one point I had to restrain myself from belting out “Place in this World”—was just icing on the cake.
The unsung hero is the mother, Helen. The matriarch of the family, she’s a woman deeply committed to her husband and her family, and her experience is the center of the film. Aside from the good writing and beautiful cinematography, I loved the portrayal of this mother for two reasons.
First, it’s refreshing to see the role of mother played out in such an honorable and realistic way. In a culture where moms are not cool or powerful or interesting, her character is all of the above. The film also shows the expansive work of a mother: to love people into their potential, and also to, like, figure out where everyone’s going to sleep. And it does it all in a way that isn’t cheesy or overly sentimental.
Second, she is not the stereotypical weak, “submissive” wife of mainstream Christian family folklore. Yes, she spends her days on the work of children and home, but she always gives her opinion (and her husband asks for it). It’s clear there’s a dynamic of respect there. She also doesn’t put up with bad behavior. At one point, her husband is taking out his issues on their daughter. She perceives this and warns him, and when he doesn’t stop, she slaps him across the face.
I like this. I like this a lot. Not the slapping across the face specifically, but the entire vibe of the main character. I really like a Christian movie where a woman is a dedicated mother and loyal wife but is also strong and thoughtful and unwilling to tolerate BS when she sees it.
Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of this publication—I hit publish on the first post last year on Mother’s Day. In that inaugural post, I explored why, every year since becoming a mother, I tend to feel angsty in the days leading up to this holiday. Then I wrote a post about invisible work—work like parenting and homemaking and healing and relationships. After that I wrote about mothers being marginalized in our culture.
Those three posts capture a lot of the angst. So much of what I’ve struggled with since becoming a mom is finding a place to land where the way motherhood is considered reflects the way I’ve experienced it: as deep and powerful.
(And encompassing a lot of real, actual work.)
I don’t like the cultural denigration of motherhood, but for a long time I didn’t see another viable place to land. Because the only other place where I knew motherhood to be honored and uplifted was in the church, and that wasn’t it for me either. There, motherhood—though revered with words—felt oppressive, a role that confined women to relentless, unappreciated work (along with all the weird stuff about being quiet and submissive).
It was a lonely place to be. I’m finding my way though, and I’m excited to keep sharing about it.
Back to the movie. Unsung: not a word we hear much except in that particular phrase. For fun I looked it up on Power Thesaurus, and I immediately winced. A few synonyms from the long list: unappreciated, uncelebrated, unvalued. (It’s a doozy.)
Part of me bristles at that title for the film, as if it normalizes the work of caring and homemaking as being these things. Like, if we just keep calling mothers “heroes” and telling them they’re doing “the most important job in the world,” they’ll keep it up. They’ll continue to keep literal life going with love and food and everything else and be fine that no one really notices or gives them credit where credit is due.
There’s another part of me, though, that increasingly sees the work of motherhood in another way. That sees the beauty in the hidden and thankless tasks, the strength in doing world-shaping work mostly unnoticed. A year ago, in the very first post here, I wrote:
Maybe Mother’s Day feels underwhelming not just because we have a major lack of truth and nuance in our culture around motherhood, but because so much of motherhood is feminine energy, and feminine energy is inherently harder to pin down. It’s intuition over logic. It’s being over doing. It’s community over efficiency. It’s caring and relating over accomplishing. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s beautiful. Because maybe part of what it means to be a mother is to exist outside of the need for external validation or outward celebration and just do what needs to be done because we know, deep inside, what we’re up to and how much it matters.
I’m not trying to re-package the syrupy selflessness that’s long been sold to us, that because motherhood is so noble it’s worth becoming small and invisible in our work and our identities. I’m challenging the assumption that acclaim and approval and praise are as valuable as we tend to think.
I’m also not saying women can’t or shouldn’t have some ambivalence as they pour into their families. There’s a part at the very beginning of the movie where one of the sons is asking why dad isn’t home, again, and she explains that he’s chasing his dream and that that takes a lot of work. He asks about the mom’s dream, and she says she’s always dreamed of having a big family. He says, “So you already have your dream?” She doesn’t say “Yes, honey, I already have my dream.” She smiles, holding gentle, contemplative space for the question and all its complexity, and says “Goodnight.”
There’s a great line in the movie that says “Family’s not in the way. They are the way.”
*Chills.*
The plot of the movie reflects the meaning of this in a straightforward manner: the father’s professional failures in the music industry lead to—through the mother’s influence—an emphasis on the life of the family, which actually leads to success in the music industry in the end (with the success of the kids’ music careers).
But it also reflects a broader truth. We tend to think of motherhood as an obstacle to women fulfilling their highest potential. Whether we’re talking about a woman’s prospects specifically or an awesome existence in general, I think this perspective is huge. Family is not an obstacle to the good life. Family is the good life.
That doesn’t mean it needs to look a certain way. It’s a mindset, I think, more than anything. I think part of the reason I’m being called to homeschooling is so that I can be challenged to live this out, the idea that the needs of my children and my own well-being are not opposed. Can I be with my kids while I also maintain who I am as a woman, with my own needs and preferences and other (paid) work to attend to? Can I live into the belief that it isn’t an either/or dichotomy and craft a life where I’m both a mother and a whole woman?
Can I trust that my family isn’t in the way?
My brother and his wife just had their first child about a week ago. My other brother and his wife have a firstborn the age of our youngest and another who was born in January. They all live up the street, and our parents live a few miles away. We moved here to this small town with a sense that living near family is something good, something meaningful. It isn’t without its hiccups, but I think our sense was correct.
At the end of the day, I don’t think there’s anything I’d rather do than commit my time and energy to my home and my family, both my own and my family of origin. It’s a legacy thing. As much as I want to do meaningful work out in the world, like teach and speak and write, I want to do this more. And what I’m learning is that I don’t think I have to choose.
“I want to die as a matriarch: surrounded by children and grandchildren, who are grateful for the role I played in their lives and who see and value the purpose I had there.”
-Lucy Dearden
The quote above is from this article at Fairer Disputations, a great read that makes the case for female leadership in care and community regardless of biological motherhood.
A year of writing here on Substack—wow! Thank you for reading the words I write, and a special thank you to my paid subscribers. I do offer a few perks for “going paid,” but mostly it’s simply my immense gratitude for supporting my writing work! It means so much that you’d support me in such a tangible way, and it really encourages me to keep going.
Happy Mother's Day and congratulations on one year!
This movie looks really cool. Also, the whole idea about family being the way instead of "in the way" reminds me of the C.S. Lewis quote, have you seen it before? "The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own,' or 'real' life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life -- the life God is sending one day by day."