10 Qualities My Momma Taught Me, and I’ve Taught My Kids

 You know as young woman, I wondered if God would give me the privilege and honor of being a mom. I had made a lot of mistakes as a young person, and didn’t feel deserving of motherhood. I wasn’t even sure if I could be a good mom. I sure had God all wrong! We serve a faithful, merciful, loving God. Not only was I able to have children...I had four in five years. Thankfully, I was blessed with an amazing mother who not only has tremendous wisdom and insight, but lots of love to pour out to her children. I never needed her more in my lifetime, than as a young mother of four kids under the age of 5.  It was her advice to me to have four kids and not spread them out too much. She said to me, "Michelle, it may be tough during those early years, but one day when they are older it will pay off." I figured, she would know since she had five kids, of course me being the oldest (smile). She was so right. I am so very thankful for my four treasures. There is not a day that goes by I don't feel blessed for the impact they have had on my life. I am grateful. So grateful, I wanted to share with you some of the gold nuggets of truth my mom has shared with me through the years, and I have picked up on from being a mother. These are just some of the qualities she taught me as I raised my four children who are now all teenagers

 

1. Love them in their uniqueness. - As the mother of four children, it was pretty obvious from the beginning each of them had their own distinctive personality and gifts. It has been extremely important I have found, to treat each one of my kids according to their gifts and unique abilities. This is the first quality a every mother should possess. The ability to see each child for who they are, and to treat them accordingly is so important.

Before they are born it is easy to have expectations of how they are going to be – throw the list out and ask God to show you what their purpose is, their heart is, their gifts are and get around them and support them. Allow your children to be different and do things you may not understand or necessarily like and then figure it out how to support them in those things.

 

2. Leave your failures and shortcomings in Gods hands – The question is not will you make mistakes, but when you will make mistakes. Every mother is going to fail.  I personally don’t know one who hasn’t, me included. The willingness to be humble with your kids when you mess up or disappoint them is key. The ability to leave your mistakes in Gods hands, and pray He will make up for them is essential. God made up for my mom’s mistakes, and as great as a mother as she has been, she made plenty of them. She just never allowed herself to live in guilt and as a result, I remember her strengths, her contributions in my life, instead of her mistakes. Guilt is a huge distraction to keep you from being the great mom God has called you to be.  The focus of any great mom is to be the best she can be. No one can expect more.

 

3. Rule from a Place of Faith not Fear  – Every mom is going to experience fear. There is no way around it. We want the best for our kids and for some of us who have experienced major heart bruises in life; we definitely want to protect our kids from the same. However, parenting from a negative fearful place only reaps the very thing you are fearful of.  Manipulation, control, anger, and performance over relationship, are all results of fear -based parenting.  I had some very terrible things happen to me as a teenager, and it would be easy for me to be paranoid of my daughter doing anything with anyone. I have also heard many stories of abuse and sat and held hands and prayed with those who are still dealing with the pain of their childhood. However, while I have been cautious, I have not allowed those things to form my opinions or be at the root of every decision I make regarding my kids.  Instead, I use wisdom in a situation. I get a lot of information and get to know the parents and kids my children are hanging out with. I am never lazy when it comes to taking care of their well-being. I don’t let them roam the streets or go to people’s houses without checking out who they are. Those are decisions made because I am being wise, not because I am afraid. I have had to surrender my children to the Lord. Their safety, their very lives, their education, their choices, I have had to leave in Gods hands. Saving them, over protecting them, rescuing them from consequences, can possibly thwart their growth and hinder their success in the long run.

4. Being the gatekeeper of our homes. – This is a very passionate topic for me.  We are truly the gate- keeper to our homes as moms. What are you allowing into your home? Do you know what the kids are seeing on their laptops? What are they listening to on their i-phones and i-pods? What movies are you allowing them to see? Do you even check what they are watching on TV. When my kids were a bit younger they would get frustrated with me because I had a very stringent guideline for a movie. It was pretty much a no brainer rated R movies were out of the picture, but we didn’t go by ratings, we went by content. If there was sexual situations, or crude joking, or disrespectfulness to elders, they were not gonna see it. I remember my oldest son Josh who is now 19 saying to me “mom, when I am 18 I am going to see whatever I want. I am going to rent a stack of movies that I want to see!” Of course, my reply was, “Josh, when you are 18 and out of my house (notice how I said out of my house) you can rent whatever you want.” Well, Josh is 19 and living on his own and he recently called me and told me he was in a movie and was so offended he walked out. I wasn’t their to legislate his morality, but I had trained him to understand that the heart is the wellspring of life and what goes into the heart, the spirit, will be what comes out.

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Proverbs 4:23

 

5. Taking a stand – It’s easy to just go with the status quo of what everyone else is doing. It’s not an easy thing when your kids friends are doing things your kids are not able. The way I handled this was to basically say for example “The Smiths do not do those things. I don’t’ care if every family in the country is doing it, we do not. “ Imparting truth to your children is so important. If you don’t impart truth when they are young, you will pay later. Here are a few scriptures on imparting truth. Truth comes from Gods word. His principles on kindness, love, peace, joy, forgiveness, anger, lust, lies, deception, money, pride, will give them the tools they need for life. Get it out and read it to them and impart it into their lives. 

 

6. Imparting Truth - Part of helping our children find their path is to give them guidance and teach them truth. Here are a few truths my mom imparted to us, and I have imparted to my kids and some scriptures to back you up as you speak truth into their little lives.

Do not let kindness and truth leave you: Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good repute in the sight of God and man. Prov. 3:3-4

Don’t look for happiness in the wrong places. He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income. This too is vanity. Ecclesiastes 4:10

Forgiveness -  Teach your kids the power of forgiveness. This is so critical in life. I am grateful my mother modeled forgiveness or I would be one bitter woman and my children would be bitter with me. For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But, if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." Mat 6:14-15 (NIV) "

Gratefulness - This is such a big deal in the US. We are so spoiled we don’t know how to be grateful for the little things that come our way. “Well you don’t understand what I am going through” I hear people say. We are all going through stuff and some are in different seasons than others. It’s learning to appreciate the good and the bad, the times of plenty and the time of not so much. In Prov. 20:12 he points out that our eyes and ears should be appreciated as the incredible gifts they are. You may be thinking “What does having ears and eyes have to do with being grateful”? Everything! Working in music, media and as an author I use both my ears and eyes constantly to do what I do.

It is impossible to be grateful and be unhappy at the same time. Any time you have chosen to be ungrateful or unhappy, you have chosen to let your focus be on your problem. Let your focus be on faith in God and He will see you through

Envy – Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy? Prov. 27:4

If I had what he has, or what she has, I would be happy. Have you ever thought that? We all have! There will always be someone with more than you, someone who drives a nicer car, lives in a nicer house, has a better job, and as long as you focus on what you don’t have you will be unhappy and ungrateful.

A heart of gratefulness is one of the greatest things you can teach your children. When your heart is full of gratitude, there is no room for envy to grow. Gratefullness literally means to be full of gratitude.

A sense of entitlement – Every man’s way is right in his own eyes. Prov. 21:2

Today in our culture no matter what we have or what we have been given, we often feel we are entitled to more. Says who???? We are entitled to what God decides for us to have and that is all. As long as we are always feeling like we don’t have what we should have we will remain a victim. We are overcomers in Christ, not victims meant to live in frustration because life isn’t what we want it to be.

Trusting in My Ways instead of the Lord Ways -  He that trusts in his own heart is a fool, But whosever walks wisely will be delivered. Prov. 28:26

When we teach our children by modeling this idea we are to rely solely on our own wisdom, our own heart, our own feelings which constantly lie to us and we make decisions based on those lies, we are teaching our children to rely on a faulty foundation. One that can be driven and tossed by the wind, and be double minded and unstable in all it’s ways. We want to develop children and raise them in a way where they understand the meaning of stability and the only way to do this is to teach them how to look outside themselves and look to God for the answers. I am constantly asking the Lord for wisdom and looking to those who have gone before me to guide me in areas I may be unsure. I also am always checking my own heart, my own ways to see if they are contradicting to Gods word. It is so easy for us to get off on a path that leads us away from Christ and not to Him.

Ask yourself and teach your kids to ask themselves - 1. Does this lead you to Christ or away from Him?  2. Are decisions you make based on how you feel at the moment, or on the wisdom you have been taught and Gods word? Do you realize your feelings change constantly and lie to you?

 

7. Listen, listen, and listen - I was the oldest child in my family, and as a teenager I’d arrived home about half an hour before my siblings. Everyday when I would come home I would sit in the kitchen and talk to my mom. She still listens to me no matter when I call, or what I have to talk about. I am still so thankful her listening ear. We are all busy and its easy to put our kids off. I am guilty of this. We want our children to work around our schedule, our life, and yet this is their time and we need to be available when they are willing to open their hearts up to us. This was not always easy for me as a single mom. I struggled constantly with balance and trying to manage all four of my children needing something from me. What I learned to do is take a moment when they would come to me, to listen. Even if you just stop for a few minutes so they can feel heard, for them it will feel like it was a long time. We have to keep the door open for them to walk through when they feel like it. The older they get the less they desire to communicate so it becomes even more important to look, wait and recognize opportunities.

 

8. Personal Responsibility for Wrong - One of the hardest things for a mom is to be willing to do is to show disapproval when she feels that the child has done something wrong, even though by doing so she may risk rejection from her child. It is so important in those moment where your kids have disobeyed in school or at home, and not be a ‘friend” be a mother and use the opportunity to teach life lessons and personal responsibility. This is such an important message to teach your children. It is so easy to want to protect them and to shift blame, and yet what does that say to your children when you don’t recognize and point out to them the importance of them “kicking their own butt.” When it is always everyone else’s’ fault but theirs, or even if they are truly not at fault, having them recognize what they might have done differently is just as important. How many of us know adults who will still not take responsibility for the things they have done wrong in life? This was something formed in their youth and followed them into their adult life.

 

 

 

9.  Be a Role Model – be a mom who is willing to stand up for her own beliefs. And in doing so earn the right to have and keep her child's respect. So many mothers today do not have a firm belief system and set of values that they teach their children. Oftentimes they may say one thing and then do another. I appreciate the fact my mom lived by her beliefs and taught us to do the same.

 

Model it! - My parents didn’t have to say a whole lot. They LIVED out the Christian life. WE can go to church everyday and talk, talk, talk about God, and yet if our actions are not forgiveness, love – agape, unconditional love, kindness, compassion, joy, goodness, peace, faithfulness, gentleness and self control it all means nothing. Without love we are nothing. So if we are going around screaming at people, impatient with people, cheating and gossiping and expect our children to model the opposite then we will be sorely disappointed.

 

10. Lastly, teach your children to be life givers and not life takers - If we teach and model a life that demonstrates always what we can get, what we can take from situations and people we will raise very selfish, me focused, children. When we teach our kids life is not about “me, me, me” but about “others, others, others,” and about giving and loving, and forgiving, we will raise up children who understand the value of life.

 

Teaching our kids how to serve, how to open their hearts up and share. Teaching them this life is temporary and that nothing on this earth should be something they hoard or hold on tightly too, but instead surrender it to the Lord. We look for ways to give and become intentional in it.  Teaching our children the power of forgiveness so they can experience freedom and not bondage in bitterness. If we have not forgiven, if we are bitter or angry against someone in our life, our children will model this. We forgive for ourselves and for our children, not just for the person we are forgiving.

 

Most important remember this my friend; And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

 

None of us have perfected motherhood, and even when we think we have, our kids are still capable of making bad choices in their lives. There are no guarantees. These things I have shared with you are simply things I saw my mother do and have seen proven results. Some things I have implemented on my own, some I have gleaned from her wisdom, and all have come from the basic foundational principles of Gods Word.

 

I love my kids. I am honored and blessed to be a mother. I hope this gives you hope and encouragement in your journey as a mom.

 

From my heart to yours,

 

Michelle Borquez-Thornton