Did Jesus Have a Timeout Chair, Too?

How often have I rocked babies to sleep at 1 AM… 3 AM… 4 AM… and found comfort in wondering, “did Jesus wake up Mary all night long, too? Did she also hum delirious lullabies and pray longingly for sleep?” Probably. He probably cried with colic. Struggled to settle and skipped His naps. God gave us our King as an infant, and a fully human one at that. So, I have to imagine that as a baby, He acted fully human as well.

I love focusing on this scenario when our babies are giving us a challenge. Mary, the Mother of God… she most certainly managed through the same struggles. But she was dealing with God himself.  Did this reality make motherhood easier on her? Or harder? In those most trying moments – when the baby was screaming and patience wearing thin – was Mary able to remember that she was comforting God in the flesh? Or to her, was Jesus always fully her baby, wholly human?  Was she able to rationalize that her time with Him was fleeting, that her journey of motherhood would be cut short? As moms today we’re encouraged to live in the moment, because ‘babies don’t keep’. But Mary knew this truth more than we ever will.

Finding solidarity with Mary is a part of the Catholic faith I’ve only learned to treasure as I transitioned into my vocation of motherhood.

Although I was born into the Catholic Church, I dabbled in other Christian faiths throughout high school and college.  I understand firsthand the confusion many Christians have around “praying to” the saints and Mary in particular. And I know that this misunderstanding of the firm line we hold between reverence and worship causes many to lose out on the amazing guides God has given us in the saints.

I only began to realize Mary’s purpose in my faith after Zary’s birth. I remember when Z was three months old and I was home alone trying to get her to lay in her crib without crying for nap.  Hours in she was still resisting. I was losing my patience, tears coming down, when I suddenly thought, “Mary had to do this, too”. I remember it being such an abrupt and foreign thought. Why did I just think of Mary? But it brought such peace.  

Afterward, I would constantly find myself focusing on Mary when I was at wits end with the kids. How would Mary have talked to Jesus right now? How would Mary have calmed herself down? How would Mary have loved selflessly through this challenge? In these moments I learned with absolute clarity the precise reason God gave us the saints, and specifically why he gave us Mary: Through her selfless care of God as a child, Mary serves as a model of love, a model of human connection, and a model of obedience to our vocation.

It’s been easy as the babies are young to see them as entirely innocent and Christ-like. For sure Jesus threw tantrums at two. He must have. He was fully human, right? Jesus was once a little boy. I’m sure He tossed rocks into a well when He wasn’t supposed to.  Probably just wanted to know what noise they would make. Kind of like how I catch Maisy trying to shove toys in the central vac system. Untainted curiosity. He certainly preferred falling asleep in his mother’s arms, and Mary was probably still (maybe reluctantly?) nursing him at 19 months. That seems to be a very human preference of the children in my house, at least. Acknowledging that Jesus himself was so very human helps make the experience of mothering babies exceedingly easier.  But now that Zary is quickly approaching seven and her behavior somedays just seems so difficult [Unhinged? Moody? Unpredictable? Irrational?], I find myself wondering. Did Mary have to deal with this too?

There’s only once instance in the Bible of Jesus intentionally disobeying Mary. I think this implies that it probably didn’t happen very often. If we accept that He was fully human, but He was also free from sin, then that means that presumably, sometime around the age of reason, He became a pretty easy kid to parent.

Every now and then as my kids get older, I catch my thoughts shifting from “Mary had to do this too” to “Oh heck no Mary never had to deal with this ****”. The first few times, I found that realization alarming – I would no longer have Mary as an authentic example. But here’s what else is true.  When Jesus approached the age of reason, Mary surely began to see that his death and resurrection (and her life without her son physically present) were coming. As He grew up and became a teacher to the world and every so often stopped acting as a child, Mary probably grappled with dread of the future. Every bit of Jesus behaving more like an adult likely reminded Mary that her time with Him was slipping away. And if Mary could find in herself the means to selflessly love Jesus while knowing the future she submitted to with Him… well then, surely, we can find it in ourselves to unconditionally love our kids through all the trials that being fully human carries.  Tantrums, screaming, timeouts and all.