Motherhood Math: It's Complicated

(apologies in advanced to any mathematicians in my readership.)

When you get married you start multiplying everything by two...a nice even number. Easy third grade math.  

But then you inexplicably also divide the amount of time you spend together by two. You assumed your time together would be doubled, but life, school and work get in the way, and instead it’s halved. 

Later you realize that when you're unified, 1 x 1 = 1. Two people multiplied is greater than two people just added together.  The first of many paradoxes: One is greater than 2. 

Things get a little more complex when you add a baby. You think you could just start multiplying everything by three. But the baby equals 2.75 adult humans (diapers for one month = 2 adult t-shirts that will each last five years.) Cost of breastfeeding for first year: 0. Cost of motorized breast pump: Astronomical.  Baby also demands 6 times more attention than your husband. Divide time together by another third.

Double and triple recipes as more children are added to family. Double and triple laughter and love at same rate of recipes and grocery bills. 

Write down a number for your ideal hours of sleep per night. Multiply that number by 2/3. Try to escape sleep debt using debt-reduction formula from financial planning class. Fail.

Story problem: 

If a mother has one child to shuttle to elementary school, one to drop off at preschool, and one crawling on floor at rate of 1mph, how fast does the mother need to run to keep up with them all?

Average number of times per day you quietly move dirty dishes from sink to dishwasher: 5 

Hire a babysitter for weekly date night with spouse. Multiply mother’s hourly rate by 10. Oh, wait…that’s still zero. Scratch that. No comparison to mother’s investment. Budget x dollars a week, then double it. Multiply previous total by 5 for longer outings. Joy at finally having a 12-year-old = short-lived.

Add a teenage boy with a speeding ticket and a fender bender to your family auto insurance and multiply previous insurance premiums by four. 

Teenage boy also stays out past curfew. Reduce sleep time by another 1/3. Sleep now dangerously close to zero. Sleep debt approaches bankruptcy.

Sending first child to college = scholarship + tuition + books + housing - grandparents’ 529 plan + 2500/semester - tax credit. Repeat annually with variables. Subtract cost of feeding teenage boy at home. Multiply by four. Seeing that child in a cap and gown: worth every penny. Value of that education: priceless. 

Marry off a daughter and the price of the wedding is triple the amount of the tax credit you lose that year. Total financial loss, including incidentals: cannot add that high. Value of a stellar son-in-law: inestimable, far outweighing any financial losses.  Cost of temple sealing: 0. Value of eternal union: infinite. There is no earthly equation to equal that kind of blessing.

Youngest son leaves to serve a mission. Joy = Given. Cost zeroed out by car insurance reduced (total annual estimate for three drivers, now divided by four) plus cell phone line removed, plus packaged food and gallons of milk no longer consumed. Dirty dishes in sink now equals zero. Shoes by back door still equals 2--because I can't bear to move them. Complex emotions surface. For every missionary letter: Multiply both sides by joy raised to the power of sacrifice and faith.

Oldest son moves to New York. Multiply faith and prayers by 10. Double that number for daily and weekly miracles pouring in. Scratch head. Look at lifetime of tithing receipts. Does not come close to equalling the value of the blessings and miracles. Wipe away tears.

Delight when we hear from each of our children: Enormous. Hours we want to spend with them: infinite. 

Number of people in household now: 2. Number of empty bedrooms: 3. 
Divide all recipes by 4. (Except the ones you divide into 2/3 when married kids come over for dinner). 

Multiply time together with spouse by 2.5. Raise total to the exponent of fun, now multiplied by 30 years of depth and life experience. This is what you call rich.

What three things can help defuse teen anger?

I was talking to some mothers of teenagers the other day, and one asked about 13-year-old Boy Anger, wondering specifically, "Is that a thing?" (It is.) And "Is there anything that helps?"
(—Other than the cure for the common cold: It will eventually end?)

Our youngest just turned 18, and while I readily enjoy our kids at every age and stage, I can't say I'm sorry to see all the teenage mutant ninja hormones in the rearview mirror! But I do have some pointers for those just entering or in the throes of this parenting thrill-ride:

First, find them a physical outlet. I remember our oldest saying one day, much to my horror, "It feels so good to hit people with sticks!" Of course, he was talking about lacrosse, not beating somebody up in a dark alley, but it also revealed that deep need in a developing male's psyche to have an outlet for his anger. —A safe outlet, where he wouldn't be punished or penalized for letting some rage take over, and literally beat it out on the field, as long as he followed the rules.

It doesn't have to be lacrosse. They can ride it out on a surfboard or a snowboard, pound it out on the pavement, tackle it on the football field, pedal it out on a mountain bike, or chase it out on a tennis court. Any safe physical outlet will do. The more passionate your teenager is about the activity, the better.

Second, support them in a creative outlet. I recognize daily how much peace and deep soul-satisfying fulfillment comes through music and painting. And it turns out it's not just me. Nelson Mandela's widow, Graça Machel discovered a child's soul can be soothed by participation in the arts. Machel launched a 10-year study on Children and Conflict that concluded in part: "If their energy is channelled creatively, however, children and young people can become powerful forces for peace."  For teenagers, this effect is even stronger if they become teachers themselves, helping younger children learn to express themselves artistically.

My third piece of advice was less obvious, and came to me a little later, after things quieted down:

When our oldest and angriest son was in the throes of hormonal rage, I was praying hard about how to deal with him, and the answer came to me as a line from the 13th Article of Faith, but in a way I'd never understood it before:

"If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things."

I had always thought that meant to surround yourself with the best literature, and other beautiful things in the world. But in that moment on my knees, God taught me that it can also suggest a way to interact with your angry teenager: If there is ANYTHING virtuous, lovely or praiseworthy [about them], we seek after these things.

Praise. Could it really be that simple?

I started seeking—really looking hard—for things to praise about all our kids, and specifically our teenagers, watching for things they were doing right—ANYTHING. Then I'd point it out to them, no matter how small or obvious, both privately and in front of other people. I was determined to say every positive thing I could think of, right out loud. To them.

And it worked. Or at least it helped. Most of the time. Which is huge.

People were happier. Fewer doors were slammed. Fewer voices were raised. Fewer tears flowed. (Mine. As well as theirs.)

It wasn't the cure for cancer. Hormones will be hormones. But it did make a significant difference in the spirit of our home, and in my relationship with each child. 

It turns out, I learned later, there's scientific evidence behind the praise phenomenon. The pleasure centers in our brain crave sincere compliments more than food, alcohol, money or sex. Seriously. That could solve 80% of teenager problems. Am I right?

What has helped you in dealing with angry teenagers? What wonders have you experienced through praise? I'd love to hear about it in the box below. 

Peace At Any Price

Liz Shropshire was one of my first close friends after moving to Los Angeles. She was studying music at USC at the same time my husband, Jeff, was in USC's cinema school. We instantly found lots of common ground...music, service, movies, and adventure. Together we sat side by side frantically copying orchestra parts for an assignment due, we ventured south of Los Angeles to visit the famous Watts towers, we served in the youth center at this beautiful Santa Monica site, a bastion of peace for us both, and one day we even helped rescue an old woman whose apartment was on fire in Liz's building. We've been through a lot together.

Amazingly, each of these stand-out activities that originally bonded us as friends now stands as a symbol of something bigger in both of our lives.

• I wasn't a music major, I knew only piano-lessons level theory, and I'd never copied parts before in my life. But somehow Liz believed in me and helped me believe I could do it too. She had the big vision. I just contributed my part. We did it together, and it worked.

• When we climbed and took pictures of ourselves on the Watts Towers, little did we know that the riots that tore apart the community of Watts in the 1960s would repeat themselves as the Rodney King riots in the 1990s, and our USC apartments were inside the first (most dangerous) curfew zone. We were survivors of a major outbreak of violence.

• Working at the youth center taught us not only to love teaching, and to love working with children, but that beautiful sacred space taught us what peace really is, what it feels like when you're standing on holy ground, and what it feels like inside your heart.

• The woman didn't even realize her apartment was on fire—something had combusted inside her kitchen cabinet—until Liz smelled smoke and pounded on her door.  I wonder how many other people smelled smoke and walked on by, but Liz is never afraid to act. She has a skillset I deeply admire—the ability to sense a need, and ACT—calmly and responsibly.

So it shouldn't surprise you that in 1999 Liz heard an NPR story about children in Kosovo, innocent victims in a war-torn country, and felt moved to act. That story tugged at something deep and compassionate inside her with such power that she decided to sell everything she had and buy a plane ticket to Kosovo. She didn't really have a plan in place at the time. She had a music degree and a ton of teaching experience in some rough, inner-city Los Angeles schools. And some loose ties to a service organization there. A Los Angeles friend encouraged her to "do what you do best" and take along some musical instruments, for the heck of it. By the time of her departure she had raised enough funds to arrive in Kosovo with $5000 worth of musical instruments to take to the children there. The Shropshire Music Foundation was born: Teaching Peace Through Music.


Liz has devoted everything she has over the past 16 years to teaching children peace—first in Kosovo, and later opening programs in Uganda and Northern Ireland—with a hope to expand to benefit the Syrian refugees in 2016. She is, without a doubt, one of my biggest heroes.

Last month Liz was in town for a conference. I dropped everything when I heard she was in town. I hadn't seen her in person since she was packing her bags for Kosovo in 1999. I went to listen to her speak, then we took her out to dinner with some friends the following night so our kids could also hear her amazing stories—how little children who used to wake up screaming every night because of the horrors they've witnessed now sleep through the night because of the soothing power of music;—how Ugandan youths who were turned into soldiers at age 5 are now learning music and leadership, and the true meaning of power and peace;—how 95% of their youth volunteers go on to attend college;—how Liz is guided by a Higher Power that continues to open doors and work miracles. It was one of the most motivating and inspiring evenings we've spent in a long time.

I tell parts of Liz's story on our latest Living Room show, "Peace, Be Still." There's a link at the top of the page where you can play it right from this site. Hear about Nelson Mandela's widow, Graça Machel, and how her research backs up Liz's programs—that children heal best through the arts, and teens heal best in a teaching capacity. Liz and her children across the globe are living proof.



In the past month we've seen so much violence and disruption, drawing ever closer to home. It becomes more and more apparent how desperately we all need peace on earth, and peace in our individual homes and hearts.

"Peace at any price" is a saying my mother-in-law uses to encourage us to let go of pride and selfishness in favor of peace within the family. Liz has taken that a step further and has literally given up everything she has—including a place to live—in order to work for peace. To her there is literally no pricetag too high to teach and further the cause of peace.

Our family has chosen the Shropshire Music Foundation as our charity of choice this giving season. I may not be able to do what Liz does, but I can help her teach and spread peace. We are donating a portion of all our online shopping through smile.amazon.com. And we are looking at other ways to contribute financially and in kind. I hope you'll join us.