Covid19 Reflections from Mother of Three Young Children

This is from a recent Facebook post by my daughter, Cynthia Schmidt, who is weathering the virus with her three daughters in Dallas, TX. She's pictured here with Monica, her youngest. 

It's Monday, and all day I’ve been trying to get my attitude right about another day, another week, another month of parenting during the pandemic. A little, indignant voice keeps muttering “I didn’t sign up for this.” It’s an alluring point because it’s true. Six months ago, I had a delicately curated balance of staying at home with my kids while maintaining a law practice, always with a full calendar of fulfilling community service, play dates for the kids, mass on Sundays, upcoming travel, museum and zoo visits, and constant access to rich, life-giving, faith-filled friendships.

But this? This doesn’t look like that life anymore. So many things are gone, and the sense of optimism and opportunity that characterized my life before has been replaced by a kind of anxiety-ridden malaise, made worse by the sense that I should somehow be managing this whole thing better, spiritually and practically. “I don’t like this,” I think; “I have to fix this.” And so I’ve tried to fix it.  With new childcare and work arrangements, changing my risk-analysis for public outings, buying things, buying more things, doing work on our back yard, some activism, and drowning myself in reading.

I’ve tried to fix it, because I have let the world convince me I should fix instead of surrender. The gospel of today preaches that my self-fulfillment, my personal happiness, and my free exercise of my autonomy is the highest good I can strive for, and that if I do this, it will somehow necessarily result in what’s best for everyone around me.

But that gospel is a lie.

The truth is that sometimes, probably more often than we think, we are asked to do hard things for the people who love us, and it costs us. I’ve spent a lot of my life avoiding suffering with life-hacks, distractions, and a whole lot of privilege in the form of resumes, family, and networks. But this pandemic has been a cross for me, and I can’t run from that truth any longer.

I’m sharing this because maybe you’ve been tricked by the false gospel too, and you don’t have any more ideas to fix it, and you’re exhausted running from your cross. Maybe, like me, you’re too embarrassed to admit this is a cross because your small trials seem to pale in comparison to the ones others face, or you still believe, deep down, that you’re the master of your own fate and should be doing better.

Friends, there is a tender voice whispering to us in this moment. Can you hear it? It’s saying “deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow me.” It’s the voice of the true Gospel, and it is breaking boldly through the shrieking of the blind guides. It doesn’t promise ease or comfort or fixes. In fact, it pretty clearly leads to the top of that hill. But it’s only by going through the grave that we can be raised with Him, only by this dying that we can hope for true Life.