Chapter One

A few weeks back I wrote about a motherhood seminar that I went to. The speaker was Catherine Hickem. I've been reading her book titled "Raising Your Children With No Regrets" and underlining a lot. The first Chapter is titled "Why Well-Meaning Moms Raise Insecure Kids" Principle 1: Be Intentional about Understanding Your Purpose.

Here is some of what I underlined (all of it is straight from the book)

You are the single most important female your child will ever know. Regardless of how you feel about your importance, you must begin to immediately recognize your value in the eyes of your child.

We mothers have bought into our culture's diminished view of our role because we underestimate our importance to our children.

A mother's purpose is to give all of herself to uniquely impart values, faith, beliefs, and love into the children with whom she's been entrusted.

Mothering with purpose is to recognize that your very existence defines love, gives life, protects innocence, believes in the impossible, and views life's struggles as opportunities to enrich your children's lives.

A mother knows she is the emotional floor her children will build their lives on until they can transfer that foundation onto God.

When a mother knows her purpose, her children will know theirs.

Trust your instincts as God's way of whispering in your ear His wisdom for your child.

Great moms recognize that there's a connection between their self-perception and their children's.

Secure children know in their head as well as their heart that their mothers love them in spite of the way they behave.

A secure mother who focuses on communicating a sense of gratitude and confidence about being her child's mom uses words that acknowledge her appreciation.

Their (your child's) precious acceptance of us is a gift- one we should cherish and take as seriously as if it were coming from the most important adult in our lives.

Raising children who are confident in whom God created them to be comes from mother's who are intentional about living a healthy identity first.

One of the blessings of being a mother is that God uses children to make us grow.

They (an intentional mother) recognize that a child who is internally confident, peaceful, and secure springs from a mother who sees herself from God's perspective.

When a mother gives her children something she didn't receive as a child herself, God heals her heart in the process.

Intentional mothers know who they want their children to be as people, and therefore they set out on a course to make it happen.

On your journey, don't take things for granted or assume you'll have plenty of time to tackle it later. Recognize that it will take an entire childhood and adolescence to instill the things that really matter. This process is called parenting. More specifically-motherhood.