I decided to write this article because I have spent time searching the internet for information on this topic and I could not find anything. My thought is that children absorb the spiritual condition of their mothers. The reason I think this is because throughout the stages of my spiritual journey, I have realized that my wounds have been directly related to my relationship with my mother and that I have inherited my spiritual weaknesses from her. At the same time, I have also inherited spiritual strengths from her.
Even though my mother and I have very different personalities, I still believe that I have inherited her spiritual condition. The wounds and strengths just manifest themselves in different ways. As a bit of a background, my mother is an extrovert who has to meet everyone at a party and she loves the domestic arts such as scrap-booking, sewing, and crocheting. I am an introvert that would rather be in a small gathering of close friends than in a large party. I do not hate the domestic arts, but I would rather do something else with my time. Even though our personalities are very different, I would still say that I have inherited my mother’s spiritual condition.
For example, my mother places a lot of emphasis on getting married and having children. She is always trying to play matchmaker with her single friends. I think she finds a lot of worth in her own life in those things. Even though I am a career woman, I still struggle to find my worth in my relationships. When I was single, I was so worried about getting married in time to have children. Now that I am married and have a child, I feel unnecessarily proud that God has granted these things to me. I have grown a lot in this area, but fundamentally I absorbed my mother’s sense of worth in relationships and children.
My mother also struggles with feeling “good enough” in areas of her life, especially feeling good enough in her role as a mother. I also struggle with feeling good enough, such as with job performance. This has been deeply ingrained in me for a long time. One way that my mother makes herself feel better is by spending more time talking to people, no matter who it is. She will talk to random people on the street. One way I deal with not feeling good enough is by turning to food to comfort me. She and I have different coping mechanisms, but the central issue of not feeling good enough is still the same.
I have also absorbed many of my mother’s strengths. I have never struggled with speaking honesty or truly expressing my feelings. I try to treat everyone fairly and am not influenced by the “crowd” if I believe something is not morally right. I do not give up easily.
One thing I also think about when considering this issue is whether I absorbed my mother’s spiritual condition in utero or whether it is a result of her role as my primary child care giver. I may not ever know the answer to this question, but I do not think we can dismiss a fetus’s experience in utero. The fetus can hear the tone of the mother’s voice and it experiences her changes in hormones from stress, fear, and relief. I think the fetus absorbs much more than we know. At the same time, those early childhood years are very important for shaping the personality of a human. If my father had been the primary care taker, maybe I would have inherited more of his spiritual strengths and weaknesses. There may not be a concrete answer to this question, but it is something I think about.
I have also wondered whether I have absorbed my mother’s spiritual condition more so because I am a female and she is a female. If I had been born a male, maybe I would have patterned more after my father. In observing the struggles and strengths of my brother, however, I do not think that is the case. He exhibits far more of the spiritual traits of my mother than of my father. He is also an honest person who perseveres through hard times. He may not find his worth in relationships, but he finds his worth in other things like in the prestige of his career and how much money he brings in for his family. But the root of the condition is still not feeling good enough and needing to find his worth in external things, which is the same with me.
No matter what our spiritual condition from birth, I believe that we all have the opportunity to grow and heal from the wounds that we have inherited from our mothers through our relationship with God. For me, it has been learning to embrace and accept that God is a perfect Mother and can make up for the shortfalls of my human mother. We may struggle with certain issues, but God can help us heal from those weaknesses, no matter where we started in life. Spiritual growth is a chance to prevent ourselves from passing on negative characteristics to our own children.
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