The Importance of Motherhood in 2026: Is It Truly Worth It?
This post shares six ways to find motivation to continue the good work of motherhood (even when we’re tired!) and encouragement about the importance of motherhood and how it impacts those around us.
Depending who you talk to, and what your past experience has been, you might love New Year’s resolutions or hate them. Personally I love the idea of thinking through a fresh new year, making some plans or goals, imagining all that might happen, and – most importantly – praying for the wisdom to hold it all lightly, because life (especially life with children) is nothing if not unpredictable!
Some years we’ve made homeschool goals for the new year, while other years it hasn’t felt as important. Regardless, there is value in setting aside time for reflection and observation – to think about what is going well in your homeschool, parenting, marriage, budget, and any other life areas – and also consider ways to improve.
Without carving out time for this reflection I find that the busy-ness of life just barrels us forward, and it’s only too easy to be carried along passively without making any active choices or considering what our intentions should be. In this post about signs of successful homeschooling, I wrote about planning a regular homeschool check-in to help evaluate how things are going and whether changes need to be made or not.
However, as much as I love it, not every season is the right time for goal-setting and planning.
Motivation for You: At the New Year, Or Anytime
Maybe resolutions aren’t your jam. Maybe you’re too tired to plan anything beyond the next meal, and you’re just praying for that sweet little babe to get over his colic or start taking REAL naps or learn a few words so he can stop using primal screams as his favored form of communication.
Maybe, what you need most, is simply encouragement and motivation. If so – keep reading!
Motivation is one of our most valuable commodities. With the right motivation, I can clean my house from top to bottom, reorganize my kitchen, plan an entire year’s worth of read alouds and curriculum, go for a run every day, cook up a five-course meal, take each of my kids on a date, or write 10 blog posts. Not all at once, of course. And probably not even all in the same month. But still…
Without motivation, each of those activities begins to sound incredibly overwhelming, and I will simply put them off for another day.
How then can we find this important, invaluable motivation? Where can we look for it when the baby’s been up half the night, the toddler is sick and cranky, the pile of dirty laundry looms taller than Mt. Everest, and we can barely prop our eyelids open?
Honestly, sometimes the best way to find fresh motivation to keep up the hard work of mothering is simply by taking a nap, a shower, or a walk. Yes, it’s easier said than done – but if you can find a way to make it work, simply caring for our physical needs often gives us the second wind we need.
Beyond that, however, the following are five simple ways I find the motivation I need to keep on with the good work of mothering in this New Year – and all year long! Each of these activities reminds me of the importance of motherhood, and I hope they might encourage you also.
6 Ways to Find Motivation For Parenting, Mothering, and Life in General
#1: Read your Bible.
Try reading the Proverbs, noting the verse that talk about wisdom (desperately needed in parenting) and the ones that talk about children. Try reading the Gospels, and noting how Jesus interacts with his disciples (aren’t we discipling our children, too?) and with children. Try the eternal perspective given in 2 Corinthians 4, or Galatians 6 with the encouragement to “not lose heart.”
The point is that God’s word is eternally relevant, even in 2026, and a reminder of the eternal, invisible realities behind the poopy diapers and the irritable tweens gives encouragement and motivation to continue on.
#2: Read books by moms who love their kids and love being a mom.
I love reading books written by moms whose love for God and for their children shines through the pages. When I do, I always close the book with fresh motivation to invest in my home and my family, to the best of my ability – because their example shows me it is worth it, both now and in eternity.
If you need more reading inspiration, pop your email in the box below and I’ll send you the list of all my favorite parenting and homeschooling books – newly updated for this year!
#3: Write up a quick list of your kids’ ages and the years until they graduate.
Be warned: you might be shocked at the results! You can see my list in the image below. It’s nothing fancy, but simply writing this down on paper and realizing, wow, I may only have five more years left with all my children in my home, tends to jar you out of complacency and re-inspire your parenting.
#4: Imagine your life (and your children) five years from now.
Similarly to point #3, this exercise helps to jolt us out of our short-term problems and inspire a long-term vision for our parenting. No matter where you are now in your parenting journey, I can guarantee that five years from now your life will look very different! Five years from now my youngest will be nine and my oldest will be nearing high school graduation (excuse me while I weep into my coffee).
A few unfiltered thoughts that immediately come to mind after considering the next five years: I want to savor these last “little boy” years while I can without rushing him into his “big kid” years; I want to create a home where our growing teens want to hang out and want to bring their friends; I need to be a good steward of my own health so that I have the stamina I need for the coming busy teen years and inevitable late nights (NOT my specialty at the moment).
#5: Create some deadlines and commitments.
This might sound harsh, but for me it’s the truth. When I know company is coming in two hours, I am highly motivated to clean the house. When I sign up for a 5K race in May, I know that I will make time to run in March and April. A commitment could even be as simple as telling your husband or close friend that you are going to be more consistent about checking your kids’ math work, and asking them to ask you about it once in a while. You can laugh these off as “tricks” that you’re playing on your brain, but the fact remains that it works.
#6: Take a break.
This is one reason why I love the Christmas season, summer, and the various family road trips we’ve taken: the break from our normal school routine makes me all that much more excited to get back into the routine. I don’t know why it works, but even a short break somehow gives me the motivation to keep going and to be diligent again! A break from cooking (during sickness, or post-childbirth, or on vacation) makes me excited to cook again. Even a few hours away from my children gives me fresh appreciation for them. Note: I know from experience that it’s not always easy or even possible to catch a break at home, which is why it’s last on the list.
Encouragement for You: The Importance of Motherhood
Okay, we’ve found some motivation – now for the encouragement! By the way, you’ll find plenty of this in the books I recommended; but to add to that, here is a recent personal story.
The combination of the New Year season, our oldest turning 13, and some books I’ve been reading lately has caused me to think often about the investment we make as parents and whether it’s worth the struggle, or if it’s simply (as many would say) a waste of our best years.
In my head I already knew the answer to this question. I know what the Bible says about it (a resounding YES!) and what more seasoned mothers say about it (a resounding YES!) – but sometimes one small interaction can transform our head knowledge into a heart conviction.
It started with a conversation with a non-Christian relative on Christmas Eve. “Your children are so good and so happy,” she told me. “Is this because of the spiritual aspect to your parenting?”
WOW WOW WOW.
First off, lest you be deceived or discouraged, please know that my children are not always good nor always happy. We are ALL still a work in training over here, Mom and Dad included, and tears and squabbles happen on a daily basis.
However, this moment (and the conversation that followed) was so encouraging to me, and I’d love to pass some of that encouragement on to YOU – whether your children happen to be painting with peaceful watercolors in a perfectly clean and stylishly-decorated dining room or (like my youngest at this moment) jumping off the couch into a haphazard pile of pillows and stuffed animals, brandishing foam swords and yelling “I’M A BAD GUY!!”
No matter what our children may be doing, or how we feel about their overall behavior, I was reminded that…
- Even a small child can be used by God in marvelous ways. A few days spent with our very-ordinary children spoke to this relative’s heart in a way that no sermon could ever achieve. As Charlotte Mason said, children are born persons, and I am convinced we underestimate the ministry that their simple presence and joy can be to others.
- Our work as parents is worth the effort. Listen, we’re not working only for these moments of unexpected praise. It will likely be YEARS before I hear something like this again – if ever! And that’s okay. But this little moment showed me that the hours we spend teaching, training, correcting, encouraging, and loving our children do make a difference – not only in their lives, but also in ours and in everyone else that they will encounter. God is able to take our small, faithful, imperfect efforts – our meager lunch of fish and bread, if you will – and multiply it in ways we could never foresee.
- No activity has a higher return on your investment than raising the next generation. When you look to the future and imagine your little children growing up, influencing their own communities and children for good, and then their children growing up to do the same… you are suddenly presented with a vision of hundreds, possibly thousands of other people impacted by the life of this one small child in front of you. A terrifying prospect, if not for the grace of God that goes before and alongside us. With great power comes great responsibility.
Conclusion
Friends, parenting is hard work. It requires many sacrifices from us, as well as literal blood, sweat, and tears! I’ve had many times when I’ve been so very tired, seen no signs of progress in any child, and have wondered if anything we’re doing is actually worth it.
Perhaps you can relate?
In fact, it’s more than a little like gardening. We plant the seeds, we dig and weed and water and watch… and wait. And wait some more.
And then God, in his great goodness, sprinkles in little bits of encouragement just when we need it most. We get a glimpse of growth, a peek into the man they will someday become, and a vision of how this work will someday bear great fruit.
And yes, it is worth it.
“We imagine that to do great things in the world, we need to accomplish ‘important work.’ However, kingdom work is about not just moving to the most impoverished country or preaching to thousands, but also laying down our lives right where we are in the hidden moments of life, loving the one right in front of us.“
~ Sally Clarkson, quoted in You Bet Your Stretch Marks by Abbie Halberstadt
