Time management of an Orthodox mother. Smart mother

Maria Alimova, 28 years old, a history teacher by training, mother of four children. The eldest son Pasha is now six full years Anton is five, daughter Tanya is almost three, and the youngest Misha is one year and one month old. Maria spoke about her three-year pregnancy experience and “incessant maternity leave” with enviable enthusiasm.

– How did you determine who would be a boy or a girl?

I did an ultrasound, but actually, I myself know who will be born when. I gotta Feeling. For example, I knew for sure that Pavel would be born and then immediately Anton. Then I assumed - that is, I had hope - that a girl would be born, and that after the girl a fourth child would be born, and it would be a boy. In general, if I start to think intensely about something, or desire something, then this desire, as a rule, comes true. For example, my friend is now expecting her third child. And I try my best not to think that I would like this too, otherwise I’ll immediately get pregnant myself.

Let's give birth!

– Were you worried that a fourth child would appear in the family when the other children had not yet fully grown up?

– I was very worried. That is, she was not worried about Misha, but about her elders. After all, it is a very big responsibility to give birth to four children. What will happen to them? How can I manage everything?.. How can I pay enough attention to everyone? How will they perceive their new brother? But when Misha was born, we immediately realized that this child was like a gift from fate. He immediately began to smile at everyone and everything, and he had such wonderful dimples on his cheeks, and he was so calm and at the same time cheerful. Besides, all my children were small - very pretty, but small - and I wanted something big. And then Misha was born, so large, plump, cheeky - a complete pleasure, just like I dreamed of.

– How did your husband perceive the latest news of pregnancy?

- Stoically. He has no romantic feelings about this at all. That is, usually people’s reaction is: “Oh, what happiness! I’m going to become a dad!” And Ivan said: “Well, let’s give birth!” And he was always very seriously involved in setting up a maternity hospital and other organizational matters. He’ll take me to the maternity hospital – and only then will he be calm.

– They say that the relationship between spouses changes after the birth of a child, that problems appear, for example, jealousy of the child on the part of the father. What problems have you encountered?

“Ivan and I had nothing like this.” I heard that supposedly there is a cooling in the relationship between spouses, and that even entire books are devoted to solving such problems. But it seems to me that this is more frightening than it actually is. Ivan, for example, babysat his first child, Pasha, even more than I did. And there could be no question of any jealousy. I can say the same for other children.

– What place do children give to their father now?

– Ivan is a hero and example for children in all respects. When he returns from work, the children are simply delighted. This doesn't happen when I come back. Although, it would seem, everything should be the other way around - after all, I sit with them all day long, study, play... But that’s not the case. Sometimes I'm even a little jealous.

About "flies in the ointment"

– Maria, you spent a total of three years pregnant, and from your words it is clear that this time was not without pleasant moments for you. However, in your opinion, does pregnancy have negative sides?

– First of all, this is due to physical inconvenience. Personally, for example, I have to follow a diet - not to eat salty foods (and food without salt, you know, is far from a gift) and limit myself in drinking. Therefore, the first thing I do after giving birth is to run to the kitchen and drink tea, in a very large quantities(in the postpartum department there is a samovar and a teapot with tea leaves especially for this purpose). What else do you love about the first postpartum days and are waiting for it all to end - that you can finally sleep on your stomach. By the way, many pregnant women dream about this, not just me. Then, due to pregnancy, my sense of smell is greatly heightened, and since three times I started pregnancy in the spring, when all the smells are especially noticeable, I still don’t have the most pleasant associations with this time of year. Otherwise everything is fine, no major problems. I am enduring pregnancy quite easily - I move constantly, even run, carry children - in general, as usual, I lead household.

– Some women react to the news of pregnancy as if a terrible disaster had befallen them, and it is unclear how to continue to live with it. Do you know the feeling of fear associated with pregnancy and childbirth?

– In my opinion, we need to separate the concepts of fear and responsibility for children. In general, I have already said about responsibility. As for the fear of this “dreaded word pregnancy”, it’s just stupid. It’s like in that fairy tale about Elsa, who, even before her wedding, sat down by the well and began to think about how she would give birth to her husband’s son, and the boy would fall into this dark water.

– But the excitement immediately before childbirth is a completely different, completely objective feeling. Hasn't this happened to you?

– As for fear in relation to childbirth specifically, I have it, and always have it. I have already learned from bitter experience - during my first birth I had many different pathologies. Therefore, I immediately assume the worst that can happen and prepare myself for everything. And when everything ends well in the end, I am happy and satisfied. But I know that there are other situations; the maternity hospital is full of such examples. Someone hoped that everything would go well: the doctor, they say, is an acquaintance, the conditions are good... And if pathologies and difficulties arise during childbirth, then the mother begins to worry doubly, or even becomes depressed. All this greatly affects the child, because he and his mother have a very close connection at this time.

– Do you do any special preparation for childbirth?

– I’m setting myself up morally. In general, due to possible complications, I have a planned birth, that is, they give me birth two weeks ahead of schedule. It looks like this. The doctor comes and says: “Well, are you going to give birth today? Or tomorrow? Or in two days?” I say: "I will." And I give birth. So there are no problems. The only thing I still do is read the penitential canon. This really helps to get in the mood, because the situation in the maternity hospital ward can be very tense. The emotional intensity takes its toll - pregnant women are already all nervous, and then there’s the hospital, strangers, and relatives are not allowed in... Everyone has tears at the ready, everyone sobs periodically, and if someone told someone, for example, to open a window, and another - on the contrary, a whole scandal could happen because of this. So I try to isolate myself from this.

– Maybe it’s better to give birth at home, what do you think?

– Personally, I have never given birth at home and now I won’t try - after all, I’m not 23 years old, as I was at the first birth, and you never know what will happen. But I had this thought. First of all, such a desire is associated with the environment at the time of childbirth. I want everything in the hospital to be like home. And maternity hospitals are all so different... So I completely understand those who want to give birth at home, surrounded by loved ones.

– You gave birth in different maternity hospitals. How do you feel overall about the level of care?

– The sensations are very different, because the maternity hospitals themselves are different. I can say that it is better to give birth in a new maternity hospital, where there is good equipment. Moreover, it is not at all necessary that this maternity hospital be paid. From my own experience (and I had to give birth in both paid and free maternity hospitals), I can say that, of course, a financial obligation leaves an imprint: you will not be left without attention, and all services will be provided on time, and you will be given a choice - for example, to give pain relief or not to do. But it should still be noted that free service can be very, very good. In general, everything depends on the team of doctors. If this is a friendly, close-knit team, where doctors are attentive, encourage each other, and work harmoniously, then in such a maternity hospital the atmosphere is completely special, and the service is excellent. I know from myself how pleasant it is to give birth in such conditions, and how important it is that these subtleties of dealing with each other and with patients are certainly taken into account, that they say a kind word to you, stroke your hand...

– What, in your opinion, is the main shortcoming of our medical care?

– Personally, I really don’t like that doctors never explain anything, they won’t say too much, or they will say something that’s not true. In general, it is very important for me to know what they are doing to me and why - it makes me feel safer. For example, I was given an IV. So tell me, what kind of medicine is this? What effect does it have? Maybe it’s a stimulant, but my labor is already fast, why do I need it?.. You remain in complete ignorance, and it seems that you, I apologize for the comparison, are a cow being led to slaughter. Or another example. I know that there are certain mechanical techniques, such as massage, that ease the pain of labor, and doctors know them. So why don't they come and tell us about it?

From personal experience

– Do you think pain relief is necessary during childbirth?

– I am of the opinion that a woman has the right to pain relief. There are situations when you simply cannot do without it. But even if it is possible, I still think a woman should have the opportunity to choose. In paid maternity hospitals this is not even discussed - pain relief is already included in the cost of care, but if a woman wants, she can refuse it. Another question is that, again, the doctor should first explain how to behave if a painkiller is administered, and what the consequences may be. The products that we use are, as a rule, highly hypnotic, and this may affect labor activity– if a woman falls asleep between contractions, then the contractions may stop. You need to know all this, but no one talks about it.

– In your opinion, can a caesarean section as a method of painless childbirth be acceptable?

– It seems to me that if I had to resort to a caesarean section for some reason objective reasons, then there is nothing wrong with that. They say that such children have reduced immunity, but I don’t think that in every specific case this could be a very big problem. Another question is if a caesarean section was done on purpose, when it could have been avoided. That is, either at the request of the mother herself - and I heard that in America this is 25 percent of births, or doctors themselves invent reasons, indications for which this can be done, so that they themselves risk less. For example, I noticed that women over 27 years old, if they give birth for the first time, may have an entanglement of the umbilical cord or a large fetus written in the chart, while the child is born less than 3.5 kilograms. And this may be an indication for a caesarean section. At the same time, no one will then go to find out whether this entanglement was there or not. It happens that even with entanglement, women give birth themselves, and everything goes fine. I also wrote this during my ultrasound with my last child. They probably looked at his age - 28 years. When I went to the maternity hospital, and the chart said that this was not the first birth, for some reason there was no entanglement.

– Has your husband ever been present at a birth?

- No, although we wanted to. We just couldn’t dock with him at the last moment. But I still wouldn’t expect any special help from my husband, because I already know what’s happening to me, where I am and why, and what I need to do about it. And I will do this in any case, whether my husband is nearby or not. I am lucky in that I react normally to all sorts of comments. Even if they yell at me, I will not be upset or offended, and this will not affect my birth in any way. But I would feel better if I was nearby dear person: Home support is always reassuring. Yes and physical assistance would also not be superfluous. For example, when you are told to climb from a bed to a chair, but in this state you can’t really crawl, then your husband’s help would be very helpful. - In the maternity hospital, you had to communicate with those who, perhaps, even had abortions several times. With what feelings does a mother of four children look at such people?

– To be honest, the sensations are very strange. For example, you can communicate with a person for some time, empathize, think about what an impressionable woman she must be: she tells how she was worried that her father-in-law hit her daughter in the hand when she was playing with the phone... And then suddenly you find out that this woman has already had more than four abortions. Where was her impressionability when she doomed the same child to much greater suffering than a blow to the hand? Does she even imagine the pain with which this baby died?..

On the other hand, I personally have no right to condemn a woman for her actions, and I do not condemn her. Who knows what her reasons were for this? Or maybe she didn’t think of abortion as murder at all, maybe she’s seventeen years old, and her parents’ anger hangs over her like the sword of Damocles... This, of course, doesn’t justify her. But I wasn’t always a believer, and now I thank God for taking away from me even the slightest possibility of finding myself in such a situation. Who knows what would come into my head? I would not be able to vouch for myself in such a situation now.

The whole family is together...

– Do you think, compared to other families, did you have any special prerequisites or conditions to become a mother of many children?

– No, we did not have and do not have a multi-room apartment, a bank account, or prospects of receiving some kind of inheritance. But I believe that as many as the Lord sends children, there should be as many of them, and that means I can do as many. Excuses, of course, can always be found, even some seemingly objective reasons. For example, I might have been denied a job because of my child, or I might have been bothered by housing issues - they say, there’s not enough space... But then somehow everything was resolved by itself.

– But your family still interfered with your career growth. Do you regret it?

- Of course, I'm very sorry. I know for sure that at my age with two children I could already work, and it would be very interesting for me. But I also know very well that if by this time I did not have at least one of my children, and at the same time I was working, then I would feel much worse. And that would be a much greater tragedy for me than a failed career. Besides, I know that if I want, I can get a job after a while. But the opportunity to have children is lost over time.

– In your opinion, what does a mother of many children lose and gain?

– Of course, he loses the ability to freely manage his time. I have to stay at home all the time, and this is very difficult. There is a lack of communication. Therefore, I especially try to maintain relationships with all our friends, I call them myself, because otherwise these connections will simply break. People will think that they can disturb you with their call, that it is better not to disturb you now, and so on. Therefore, I take the initiative, otherwise it is impossible. But at the same time, by sacrificing this freedom, you gain such peace of mind, such calmness that it is impossible to convey. And, in my opinion, large families are generally very happy. After all, there can be many children only where there is love and warmth in parental relationships.

– Do you think your children will want to become parents of many children?

- This is the most for me main question. If my children have at least two children, then for me this will already be an achievement. If there are three, then this is generally happiness. I try to plan this in advance, but time will tell how I succeed.

– How do your children treat each other? Didn't they want to be the only ones in the family?

– I once asked Anton about this. I understand that this was probably very incorrect, but I was very interested to know. In addition, she and Pavlik had all sorts of clashes for quite a long time, until Tanya appeared. But when I asked if he wanted it to be just dad, mom and him, he didn’t even understand what I was talking about: “What about Pasha, and Tanya, and Mishanya?” And although he is most attached to me than anyone, and if there is such an opportunity, he will not take a single step away from me, he still cannot imagine how this is so. And when Misha was baptized, and the older children returned home a little earlier, when he had not yet been brought, they were so scared! They began to cry, shouting: “Where is Misha?” In general, Pavlik really loves to babysit our little ones - he will always put a pacifier in his mouth, and will constantly spin around the crib...

– Parents with many children often become objects of gossip and gossip: they say they gave birth to children, but didn’t think about how to raise them. At the same time, they are blamed mainly for their insufficient level of education and culture. Have you ever experienced such reproaches yourself?

“Thank God, they didn’t say anything like that to my face.” Maybe Ivan and I make a rather favorable impression. In addition, many of our friends are themselves parents of many children, so they understand us and fully support us. They only ask if it’s hard. But you can’t bear your own burden! In the end, no one forced us to do this, this is only our, completely conscious decision. As for culture... I have only four children. But there are women who have one living child and many unborn due to abortions. What is this, cultural?

– Maria, you have been living in Orthodoxy for a long time, you have an Orthodox family. How have your children influenced your understanding of faith?

– In my opinion, any personal experience of a person, if he lives in faith, develops him in his own feeling of love. For some, this experience is work, for others, perhaps, a strong shock. And my experience is connected with my children. Ivan said very well about this that children are like angels, so extraordinary... And of course, communication with them leaves a certain imprint on the parents. Becoming more receptive

To the world around you. And your entire life experience accumulates through communication with children.

– Have you had a rethink? Orthodox holidays, associated with birth - Christmas, Annunciation?

– About the Annunciation... Quite recently, an interesting thought came to my mind. In essence, in the Annunciation we are given a model of how a woman should perceive her pregnancy: “Let it be done to me according to Your word.” Such amazing humility, which is the only correct behavior in this situation. As for Christmas, I personally don’t relate this holiday to myself as a mother. The only thing that has changed is, perhaps, an understanding of the harsh reality of what was happening then. For a long time Christmas was a donkey ride, Starlight Night, barn, bull, sheep - I perceived it as some kind of fairy tale. If you imagine all this in reality...

– It seems to me that you, too, have to be very exhausted, despite the fact that necessary conditions You are more or less provided for.

– You know, when they say that children take a lot of energy, this is, of course, true. It happened to me and Misha. You look inside yourself and think: where will the strength come from, how can you withstand all this?.. But then you realize that it cannot be that you don’t have the strength. So there are, there must be somewhere. And as a result, it comes to you on its own - in the very child who was born. Because he is so good, wonderful, so loved that he himself gives all these strengths. But you can only feel this when you become a mother.

– And besides, children probably give confidence in the future?

- Well, I don’t know... Recently, when Ivan and I were watching TV, the children went into the kitchen - and there was such a large dish of cheese - they ate all the cheese and left only two tiny pieces. I come and ask: “What is this?” And Pavlik shows me the pieces and explains: “This is cheese. This is for dad, and this is for mom.” So in our old age we are provided with two pieces of cheese, that’s for sure. So they take care of us.

Parents who overprotect their children deserve a separate chapter. Often a woman devotes her entire life to raising children. From the moment they are born, all her love and care switches exclusively to them. In this case, the husband becomes like an appendage, a source of material well-being. Sometimes they even look after him - like a cow that gives milk and, accordingly, income.

Such women treat their husband’s infidelity calmly, not seeing any tragedy in it, unless the family is destroyed and there is no material damage. As a rule, they do not hate their husband; they treat him like a naughty child. In general, their husband is somewhere “on the side”. Even when their husbands leave them, they resign themselves quite quickly; they usually do not remarry, devoting themselves to their children and then their grandchildren. And they are promoted in their careers most often for the sake of their children - to give them more.

Already from the first days of a child’s life, the “caring mother” takes up his upbringing, and with special zeal. Care and development according to special systems may be necessary for the mother, but not for the child. She usually does not take into account the child’s desires, needs, abilities and inclinations. Education is carried out through coercion, in conditions of increasing the moral responsibility of the child. Subsequently, the victims of such upbringing are constantly torn apart by contradictions between “should” and “want”...

At first everything looks quite good. The child attends clubs and studios chosen by the mother. But small man humbles himself and obediently carries out the will of his mother, although at the same time, over time, he unconsciously strives to leave her care. The child, as a pure and trusting creature, idealizes his mother, not fully understanding his contradictory feelings. On the one hand, mom loves, on the other, it’s very stuffy in the arms of her love. Such upbringing can lead a mature son or daughter to nervous breakdowns, depression, dissatisfaction with your life.

The destructiveness of such upbringing manifests itself with all its force when the child, beginning to recognize himself as an independent person, learns to insist on his own. Since the “caring mother” does not give the child will, he cannot develop harmoniously and satisfy his spiritual needs, for example, the need for independence. Then baby gets sick. Both pediatricians and psychotherapists are unanimous in the opinion that almost all diseases arise due to unmet mental needs.

At the level of consciousness, the “caring mother” worries when she sees that the child is sick, but unconsciously she triumphant. Here it is, a lofty goal - to cure a child! So, while the treatment does not produce an effect, the mother’s actions seem completely justified. This is a search for doctors, medicines, psychics, blessed elders or just priests (the options for “rescuers” can be very different).

But if she accidentally brings her child to the priest, to whom, perhaps, the heart of his son (or daughter), who will subsequently become the child’s spiritual father, will help him find support in life, teach him to communicate correctly, then she will do everything to (sometimes to the maximum gently, so that the beloved child would not even guess!) terminate their relationship. After all, if a child finds support in someone else, he will either leave her or stop psychologically depending on her. Deprived of this dependence, she begins to feel worse.

People who have freed themselves from such care, who have broken psychological dependence, begin to feel more natural, freer, and cease to need maternal support, and “caring mothers” are indignant and promise “come and deal with this priest”.

Such a mother will stop at nothing, for her slogan is: “I will do everything for your happiness, provided that you remain unhappy. I will do everything for your recovery, provided that you remain sick.". In the first stages, recovering children develop hostility, even hatred, towards their parents. Then everything goes away, the relationship normalizes... but this requires patience and time.

“Caring mothers” block the spiritual, mental, moral, and physical development of their children. Feeling abandoned, many modern women try to find solace in a child, especially if it is a boy. He becomes the mother’s only support, interlocutor, friend, psychologically taking the place of the husband who has moved away or abandoned her. But a child cannot be assigned to the role of an adult man, he cannot do it! An overloaded psyche can become strained, and, having strained itself, become distorted.

Men who were in a “psychological marriage” with their mother in childhood often never enter into a real marriage, therefore, they may not have anyone born to them at all. Blinded and suppressed by their mother, they do not find a worthy match. If the mother decides to marry her son, she will certainly select the bride herself, who will later be assigned the role of a maid. The mother will never give up her place as the mistress in such a family.

Today, unfortunately, quite a significant part of our youth is in such captivity. Many mothers raise their sons alone. And, as a result, a manifestation of the mother’s strong emotional attachment to her son. And if a son was once saved from death by his mother in childhood, she becomes so attached to him, so envelops her son in her care that in the future he may not marry.

“In nature there is such a type of mothers - and woe to their sons! A witty and subtle poet, and in life a courageous and brave man, Count Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy (one of the creators of Kozma Prutkov), suffered until his death, not daring to marry the girl he loved, because his beloved maman did not want him to marry.

Truly, love is evil. In this case, not according to the proverb “you will love a goat,” but evil literally, primitively. Sincerely believing that she loves her son, such a mother in reality loves exclusively herself - and sacrifices his fate, his own happiness, his life as a sacrifice to this love.

I knew one elderly - already gray - university teacher who lived his whole life with his mother. Long years she did not get out of bed, and he provided all her care. You don't need to have much imagination to imagine what it was like - provided that he worked and was not at home all day. When his mother died, he was left with only students. They replaced his children, grandchildren, family. He went on camping trips with them. You should have seen how he perked up in their surroundings. In turn, they adored him. But then retirement came. And sudden complete loneliness.

The currents of this maternal self-love are so strong that the son completely loses his will, resigns himself and exists with the conviction that he cannot do otherwise. Meanwhile, everything is always possible. There is always something different".

If the son of a “caring mother” gets married, then he cannot understand why, having barely gotten married, he returns to his mother after a month or two. But even upon returning, not every young man finds peace with his mother. A soul striving for freedom begins to look for an independent path in life. Some young men remain completely at the mercy of their mothers, showing infantilism, while the other part still breaks out. Some people leave to study or work in another city, others live in a dormitory or rent an apartment.

It happens that the son seems to have broken away from his mother, but the mysterious connection with her continues and the same youthful infantilism is present in him, but only internal: he behaves like a person completely unprepared for life. Internally His mother never let him go into an independent life. Because of this, he remains attached to her, although he is not aware of this connection. This is manifested in the fact that he absolutely cannot prove himself as a man in anything. He is completely irresponsible, he has no manifestations of will, mentally he still feels himself “under her,” under his mother...

A “caring mother” can have the same relationship with her daughter. When a growing daughter begins to break free from her mother’s emotional embrace (outwardly this manifests itself in the fact that she will contradict her), the mother enters into a very strong, multi-day quarrel with her daughter. Through these quarrels, she only strengthens in her inner desire to keep her daughter with her. And the more the daughter gets out of these bonds, the more stronger mother controls her. Such a mother does not want her daughter to marry one, another, or a third.

But at some point, being subject to the general rule, the girl is still going to get married. At the same time, the mother certainly wants the young to live with her. Or, if they live in the same city, it is necessary that the daughter visits her mother once a week.

Why does she need all this? It turns out that in this way she little by little, imperceptibly, begins to psychologically separate her daughter from her husband. They begin to find out why the husband is bad, why the son-in-law is bad, why he doesn’t do repairs in the house, why he earns so little. Ultimately, such a mother achieves her goal over a period of time. As a result, the young people get divorced, the mother gets her daughter back and... she is happy again. True, they live in very big quarrels, irreconcilability, sometimes it all ends with the daughter even leaving home. But, nevertheless, the mother is still calm, since she continues to control her daughter and feel like a caring mother. In this communication, her strong-willed nature, her pride, her inner passion, which once appropriated her daughter for herself, turns out to be satisfied.

“The relationship with my mother became a problem for me, and a serious one,” writes a 17-year-old girl. “She constantly interferes in my personal life, trying to protect me from mistakes that she herself once made. I understand that my mother is a person who not only can, but also must advise me, based on her experience and on her knowledge and understanding of me. But in Lately This advice began to take the form of instructions on the principle of “this way and only this way!”

This painfully unbalanced state of the human soul is illustrated by the dream of one young woman. Special case her relationship with her mother serves as a metaphor for internal contradictions, reflects the archetypal struggle of heterogeneous principles of the psyche...

The background of the dream is as follows, as far as I can convey it from Tatyana’s words: she, her young husband and newborn child lived with Tatyana’s parents. Her mother sought to implement her ideas about the family way of life, firmly believing in their lack of alternative. The daughter perceived her mother’s activity as a gross intrusion into her privacy, into the life of her own – small, newborn, like a child, family.

Tatyana’s attempts to defend her independence were ridiculed, and she had to listen to a lot of offensive things. Finally, Tatyana - with her husband, daughter in a stroller and a cat in a bag - left home, fortunately there was somewhere to go.

The mother was killed - by the collapse of the ideal of a large family in which she is the mistress, by a terribly empty house, by her daughter’s sudden hostility towards her and by the indifference of her son-in-law, by the disappearance of a long-awaited toy - her granddaughter.

The young couple began to live independently, sharing responsibility for the child and providing for the family. The creative act of liberation (read: growing up and realizing much of what was previously hidden by the veil of infantile attachment to parents) took place...

That's when Tatyana had a dream. They wear it sea ​​waves about a hundred meters from the shore. She sees everything as if she were not immersed in water, but standing on the surface, only Tatyana does not feel her body at all.

The shore is a sheer cliff on which a huge black female silhouette is depicted. “Mother,” Tatyana knows and feels that, although the woman is drawn, she is alive. Flat image animated even somehow more than a human measure of animation. And there is no portrait resemblance to her own mother; her face cannot be seen at all. This is simply Mother.

A voice sounds in Tatiana's head. A confident baritone says: “You can’t be offended by your mother.” And immediately Tatyana understands that since the voice said it, it means it’s true. She doesn’t think about who the voice belongs to, but the indisputability of the truth is as if it had been proclaimed by God.

However, the spoken truth still has to be accepted - not on faith, but in one’s heart, that is, to agree with it, to be imbued with it. And Tatyana knows that this is her last task and goal in life. That she will continue to rush here on the waves until she manages to accomplish this.

And so, as Tatiana conscientiously tries to “feel” more and more into the meaning of the phrase, the wave carrying her on the crest accelerates more and more, rushing the girl onto the rock in order (Tatiana knows) to break her at the feet of the black Mother, as soon as the insight comes . Tatyana is not afraid, on the contrary, she understands: this is the last thing she is destined to do in life.

But at some point in the final truth, despite all Tatyana’s diligence, another thought appears in my head, objecting in a spoken voice: “But I couldn’t do otherwise!” (This refers to the break with her real mother).

The wave immediately rolls back into the sea, and everything - more than once - repeats itself from the beginning. The dream ends.

Whether the formula of cultural prohibition was uttered by the voice of God or conscience is immaterial. What is important is that sincere acceptance of the penitential role “ prodigal son"(the prodigal daughter) in this case leads to death, contrary to traditional ideas. To the death of what? Individuals, of course, individuals".

The mother, who once felt like the savior of her child’s life, grows close to him and, regardless of the distance, retains an invisible umbilical cord. It is not surprising that such a mother senses the condition of her child thousands of kilometers away. Something happened there, and she was already worried. Her heart feels. This spiritual connection mysteriously connects them to each other. It can be extremely difficult to escape from this grip. In most cases, girls and boys, having matured, unsuccessfully try throughout their lives to escape from these maternal embraces.

A person brought up in an atmosphere of such attachment feels his lack of freedom and subsequently involuntarily tries to free himself from the people around him: husband, wife, friends, girlfriends, co-workers. It seems to him that his relationship with them is too dependent and unfree, and that he needs to get rid of them too.

Such people, tightly connected to their mother, simply cannot become deeply close to other people. No matter how their relationships with others develop, in the end, everything breaks down. As a last resort, the relationship remains distant...

Examples similar phenomenon can be found on the pages of classical literature. Here is the conversation between the mother, merchant Kabanikha, and her son in the drama by A.N. Ostrovsky "The Thunderstorm":

And here is a letter about modern Kabanikha I received from a slave God's Love. It became another argument in favor of the relevance of the book conceived five years ago, which you are holding in your hands today. I will quote the letter preserving the style of the original.

“Divine Providence turned out to be such that I encountered pathological maternal love in my life to the point of bleeding. I don’t know how to describe how much I suffered because of this. This question is very, very important. Because of this, destinies, souls, lives are broken. It needs to be illuminated urgently, it needs to be shouted outright. I consult about everything with my spiritual mentor, Fr. Alexander. But I hope to receive a more detailed answer from you. I would like this issue to be reflected in the books of your publishing house.

I'll start with my friend. She fell in love with her son (he is 9 years old, she is 44 years old). Late, sickly (heart defect), born without a father. She is a cripple with asthma. But she is very merciful, she works as a nurse, she walked towards God slowly, but when she came to faith, she saw the whole nightmare of her upbringing. She is very cowardly, she poured all her love on her son (she never had a husband). Kissed him. I slept with him until I was 9 years old. The boy, seeing such love, turned into a fiend of hell ( best words you can't imagine). But this can still be fixed. I struggled with this for a long time and consulted with my father. Father said that now we need to correct it, like the crown of a tree when it grows. You just need to break your character with rods. But this is clear. Thank God that my mother understood everything.

And recently I came across an adult “mama’s boy” (he is 47 years old) and his loving mother. I tried to create a Christian family with him. It was some kind of nightmare. The end is mine broken life. I have never read about this anywhere in Orthodoxy. I found the answer to this question in the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. The article is called “Mama's Boy is a Diagnosis.”

It is written: “...He will separate himself from his mother and from his father, and will cleave to his wife...”. What if it doesn’t come off? Some women have such maternal love that they cannot even imagine their son getting married; they only need him to love his mother. They, like priestesses, devour the will of their sons; any woman with whom a son wants to start a family is not like that. About my case, the priest said briefly: “Maternal jealousy.” The mother intervened all around, called the church, asked: “Well, did they leave together or is he alone? Did you stand together in church?” She gradually, slyly, insidiously broke us apart. And she achieved her goal.

He is 47 years old and has not been married. The parishioners immediately warned me that my mother would not let us live. I couldn’t even imagine that this could happen. How blind she is! After all, true motherly love is sacrificial, she sacrifices everything for the happiness of her son. I also have a son, he is now married, I always really wanted him to start a family and have children.

And at the end of this article it is written: “If you notice this, then leave immediately, because the mother will win anyway - instinct will win over reason.” And so it happened. I thought I would win, but this is such an avalanche (double-mindedness, deceit) that I simply cannot win. I had to break up.

What about son? What did he do in this whole story? He imitated his mother in everything; he could not live without her and without her advice. She suppressed his will, it was as if he was not a man.

I still can’t understand and am tormented by the question: “Why and why are men similar in character to women?” After all, he had and does not have any debt or responsibility to his family. He did not participate in the family budget. My mother didn’t allow him to bring me food, she said that we had to live together. “You are a ten, she is a ten,” - that’s how she taught. I supported my family and fed him by working several jobs. After work, I dragged heavy bags across the city, trying to arrive home on time so that there would be no complaints from him. One day I had to go to an appointment with a general practitioner, and when he listened to me, he noticed blue marks-stripes on my shoulders from my bags. The doctor looked at me questioningly, but didn’t ask anything. I was embarrassed. When she came home, she told her husband about this incident, thinking that she would regret it, her conscience would break through, and she would help. And do you know what he answered me? “Yeah, that’s not the point, I need to buy you a trolley bag...”

Sometimes my husband and I went to visit his mother. Ridiculously interesting stories happened there too. They left me in the living room to watch TV, while the two of them retired to the kitchen to have lunch or drink tea. And this was considered quite normal, natural. I didn't exist for them. And when his mother came to visit us, she always brought her mayonnaise and half-liter jars of food for her son. This is what a caring mother my former life partner is... Maybe, reading my letter, someone will not believe all this. But it was, it was...

Once on Easter, my husband and I went to an early service, prayed at the Liturgy, and returned home very happy and inspired. But what coldness and darkness wafted from the face of his mother, who was waiting for us at home, who, with resentment and reproach, immediately began to reprimand him for leaving for work at a time when she was rushing to him. You should have seen this guilty face of my husband, his abrupt phrases of apology. In front of his mother stood not a forty-seven-year-old man, but a fifth-grader who was being reprimanded for getting a bad grade. “It’s all her, she, you exchanged me for her, she takes you to churches...” the mother said irritably to her son, without even bothering to look at me.

And at the same time, his mother is a believer, kind to other people, sympathetic...

But how many such mothers are there in our city alone! How many are there in the whole country?!

With respect to you, Lyubov Nikolaevna".

We hope that not only you, dear Lyubov Nikolaevna, but also many others will find this book useful, written with a feeling of deep compassion for the problem you raised.

Any adult who has authority with the child, be it a teacher, coach, priest, friend, bride (groom) - anyone, can become a hindrance for a “caring mother”, the object of her jealousy and hatred. The most cruel, most insane attacks and actions towards a “rival” in the eyes of others can be justified by “maternal love and care for a son who has fallen under bad influence.” In fact, we are dealing with a special case of mental attachment.

“We often think that we love a person, but to him our love seems like captivity,” writes Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, - How often would he like to say: love me less, but let me breathe! Or learn to love me differently, so that your love will be freedom for me, so that I will not be a captive of another person who knows better than me how I should live, what my happiness is, what my spiritual or everyday path is. Each of us can do this; each of us can ask ourselves the question of what constitutes the love that he talks about, that he experiences.

I have already said this many times, but I will repeat it again. So often, when a person says: “I love you,” the entire emphasis is on the word “I,” “you” are the object of my love, and “love” is the chain with which I have entangled you and hold you captive. How often it happens that the love of one person for another turns him into a captive or a slave. Then “I love” is not a creative, life-giving principle; the word “love” is like a link, a fishing rod with which another person is caught. And if we discover that such is our love for people or for one, especially loved one, we must first of all realize the horror of the fact that I consider myself the center, that everything comes down to me: both events and people - everything is viewed from from the point of view of my benefit, my joy, my life, and no one and nothing exists except in some relation to me.

If we realize this, if we are overcome with shame and horror, then we can begin, turning away from ourselves, look towards the other person and try to discern his features, understand him, realize his existence as a person separate from us, other than a person who connected with God mysteriously and outside of us; and behave accordingly towards him.”

Perhaps the mother will try to soberly analyze her actions in order to understand what their motivation is and what is happening to her. To do this, she should temporarily “move away” from the child so that the lost true maternal feeling and understanding of the need to respect the freedom of the child’s personality will supplant the unhealthy psychological attachment...

How do young men who find themselves in such “sweet” maternal captivity behave? The weaker, melancholic ones enter into the game imposed by the mother, are completely suppressed by the mother’s personality, are immersed in the world of women’s experiences and concerns, and, as a rule, grow up to be candidates for homosexuality. Their consciousness, psyche, healthy sexuality necessary for life changes under the influence of overprotective maternal upbringing.

As the problem of homosexuality increasingly manifests itself in modern life, and a modern pastor has to accept repentance or answer questions related to this problem, let’s consider it in the context of the main theme of our book.

There is no single reason that can comprehensively explain the formation of homosexuality. But researchers from different psychological schools see one common pattern: a power-hungry mother and a passive, loser father are the main figures against which homosexuality is formed.

Let's take for example a situation where only the mother controls everything in the house. Like a pilot, she leads her home in the stormy sea of ​​life, towing small boats (her husband and children). She has a commanding voice, she commands the family, she is determined and ambitious about the future of her children. When disputes arise, she usually insists that she is right. Other family members try to express their own opinions, but no one can resist her confident pressure.

In other situations, her lust for power may not be so obvious. She can act more subtly, although no less tyrannically. Fragile and graceful, she at the same time rules the house thanks to her iron will, her moral leadership (how skillfully she can sometimes put a person in his place with a well-thought-out phrase!) or even cunning (for example, referring to a headache at the right moment).

However, in order not to be too hasty in attributing to her the role of the main culprit of her son's homosexuality, we must note that the mother is only one of the characters. Without the support of the entire cast of performers, she would hardly have been able to successfully cope with leading role in this painful drama. Her husband indulges her with his non-interference. He knows only two ways to react to her actions: either feign anger, or go underground: TV, reading newspapers, dominoes, alcohol. Often the husband spends most of his free time outside the home.

Children in this situation may behave differently. But the image of the “mentor mother” on which they base their behavior is inherently unhealthy. They have nowhere to take an example of normal relations between parents. Is it possible to hope that, having started their own family life, they will behave correctly in their own family?

Of the many options for family relationships, one is especially important. If a mother chooses her son (or one of her sons) as her special confidant, she can lay the foundations for his future homosexual behavior. However, to do this, he must conform to the pattern of behavior that his mother expects from him.

In this case, the son becomes (not physically or sexually), but in an emotional and psychological sense, her husband. The mother subtly instills qualities that are not sufficiently expressed in her real husband in her son. Without realizing what is happening, the son learns to dance to his mother’s tune and adapt to her moods.

From time to time, his ability to satisfy his mother's emotional needs is rewarded and encouraged. But because the son can never give his mother what she truly (but unconsciously) seeks, his affection for her ultimately disappoints them both. The son will never be able to become her real man. He learns passive behavior instead of active behavior. His desire to please his mother's wishes will never allow him to become free and independent. His sexual desires are under strict maternal control. On the one hand, he learns to confidently show his masculine perseverance to protect his mother, and on the other hand, to throw this perseverance aside if it contradicts his mother’s interests. He is constantly tied to his mother's skirt, and because of this, both remain losers.

If the young man had had a strong father who supported him and served as an example for him, everything could have been different. But the father, as we remember, is hiding underground; he has taken a secondary role, being an example of surrender to a strong and powerful woman.

More strong-willed young men when trying this kind those who manipulate understand that it is not motherly love that is being manifested here, but a tough dictatorship. Intuitively sensing the substitution, they turn over the rich table of excessive care and affection, lined with maternal worries, withdraw into themselves and, over time, make an independent choice of life path. This is the most correct and healthy reaction on the part of the child! Further guardianship and courtship will only worsen his irritability, which often develops into open hatred.

In both cases, responsibility for the crippled psyche of the child rests solely with the adult, that is, with the mother. A woman who strives for emotional intimacy with her child at any cost can go so far as to severely humiliate him, even to the point of forced placement in a psychiatric hospital. Such mothers have an extremely developed ability to persuade, built on passion and strength of character. They easily find allies and associates among the most different people in his “struggle” for the child.

A woman came to see a psychologist. Complains of insomnia. During the session, it became clear that she had a very difficult family situation. The son is disabled. Moreover, as she says, everything turned out to be her fault.

About five or six years ago, without her knowledge, her son went to a monastery, where he found a priest who answered the questions that worried him. I really wanted to become a monk. Before that, I was in my last year at a prestigious university and had a brilliant career ahead of me. Mother ran the family business in Food Industry and saw her son as her successor.

After repeated attempts to “influence this priest” through the diocesan administration, the mother decided to take a desperate step. She asked her son to pick up winter clothes, which she allegedly gave to him through the train conductor. After the son entered the compartment, two strong guys tied him up and escorted him home. An ambulance was waiting for the prisoner at the railway station. At the insistence of his mother, the guy is forcibly placed in a psychiatric hospital.

Having been discharged, he never returned to the monastery; he was engaged in the automobile business, never fully submitting to his mother’s will. In the process of resolving a conflict between criminal groups that control the transfer of cars, an explosion occurs and as a result the guy receives a severe traumatic brain injury, but miraculously survives. He loses his eye for a long time is being treated in the most prestigious clinics. The young man underwent many complex operations, but the wound turned out to be so severe that he remains disabled for life.

The mother perceives what happened as God’s punishment and experiences a deep sense of guilt. She's critical arterial pressure, insomnia, heart pain. She has also been treated in hospitals for a very long time, but the treatment provides only temporary relief.

The mother thinks that all this suffering is returning to her like a boomerang and does not know what to do. She is afraid to go to church because she thinks that God will not forgive her for what she did to her son.

The son never reproached her, because he is very attached to his mother. However, what happened did not improve their relationship; on the contrary, alienation appeared. Entering a monastery was the first independent choice for him in his life.

And now, my mother is seeing a psychologist.

The sessions lasted for two months, as a result of which the woman’s psychological state improved. The psychologist advised her to forgive herself first, forgive and bless all those people who participated in this story. And since the woman felt guilty before God for what had happened, he suggested going to the temple and talking to the priest. Indeed, in such a situation one cannot do without experienced spiritual guidance.

A child, so attached to his mother, does not even suspect how deep his dependence on “maternal warmth” is, completely paralyzing the will to live independently. Only the irretrievably gone time of youth spent under the “reliable” protection of a “caring mother”, most often a failed personal family life, will eventually force a sober assessment of such anomalous relationships and open their eyes to them.

Usually, children who grew up in an atmosphere of maternal affection, having matured, after the death of their mother, experience an unexpected novelty of feelings. The death of their mother seems to free them from something. And although such a death is experienced very strongly and dramatically, subsequently the person becomes free inside. It is the maternal ties that are broken; with the death of the mother, her power dies.

Not every woman has the courage to soberly assess the cause of what is happening. In a confidential conversation, the shepherd can try to explain to the mother (if she is able to hear anything other than her experiences) that true love seeks only the good of the beloved in the form in which he imagines this good, desires good, not possession, does not smother in his arms. And the Apostle Paul says even better: genuine “love does not seek its own” (Rom. 13), i.e. your own good, your own happiness through the subjugation and suppression of your loved one, no matter who he is. True love prepares a child as separate, as independent, which means living in his own way, having his own path in life, personality. The true, innermost feeling of love in a mother or father knows that she was born not my property, and a separate God-created personality, which, by its personal nature, is not “I” and cannot be my property . It is important for a mother to realize that her child is a separate person, and not component parent. Sometimes it is especially difficult for a woman to come to terms with this, and if she has an authoritarian character, then it is doubly difficult, because “My child, I do what I want, and it doesn’t matter how old he is - twelve, twenty-three or thirty-seven.”

In order for the process of developing a person’s psychological autonomy to be completed successfully, it is necessary that his parents are sufficiently literate, and each of them is aware of the need to help the child in his separation from his parents at a certain stage of his development. In order for a child to successfully undergo a “second birth”, psychological separation from his parents, they need:

Perceive the child as he is, and not as they would like him to be;

Respect the child’s desire to independently explore the world around him, allow him to do this;

Encourage the expression of independent thoughts, feelings and actions (age-appropriate);

Be able to express understanding and support when the child needs it;

Be an example psychologically mature man, openly express your own feelings to the child;

Clearly define what you forbid your child to do and say directly why, rather than resort to forceful methods.

Do not forbid him to openly express his feelings, recognize and understand these feelings and the need for their disclosure;

Help and encourage the child’s actions aimed at healthy research the surrounding world, using the word “yes” twice as often as the word “no”;

Do not fall into despair or depression if the child refuses to use your help;

Don't try to live your life for your child;

Recognize him as an independent person with his own views, desires and aspirations.

To conclude this chapter, I will give one more quote from K.S. Lewis: “Who hasn’t seen how a woman wastes her youth, maturity and even old age on an insatiable mother, listens to her, pleases her, and she, like a true vampire, considers her unkind and obstinate. Perhaps her sacrifice is beautiful (although I’m not sure of this), but no matter how you look for it, you won’t find beauty in your mother.”

13. K. Mikhailov “Patient care with elements of psychotherapy”, Rostov-on-Don, “Phoenix”, 2000, pp. 147-160.

14. S.N. Lyutova. Mother. Negative aspect of the archetype. Excerpt from a book " Social Psychology personality (theory and practice): A course of lectures.” M., 2002.

15. A.N. Ostrovsky. Plays. M., 1979, p. 167.

16. By the way, now such mothers justify their behavior with their “Orthodoxy”: they say, in Rus', young people always lived with their parents, who taught them the wisdom family life, and that this is sanctified by tradition, everything that is not so is a sin. Among my friends, things got to the point where the husband took his wife abroad for some time to bring the family back to normal. So, before leaving, he told his wife: “You will come with me.” The wife’s mother told her daughter: “if you go, you are a bad daughter, you don’t love me and are leaving me.” Result: just before the trip, the young woman developed strange disease, the doctors found nothing, but she could not get out of bed. Mom ran around to all the doctors, made a terrible noise, but her husband saved the situation: he still took his “sick” wife with him (note from one of the first readers of the manuscript).

17. Metropolitan Sourozhsky Anthony. Man before God, M., 1998. The Law of Life. Attitude towards others.

18. K.S. Lewis. Love, suffering, hope. M., publishing house "Respublika", 1992, p. 224.

A city family with several children cannot do without helpers. Even if the mother does not work and is ready to sacrifice everything for the family.

“A good nanny can be 70 years old or 15. The main thing is that she, like us, believes: the more children, the better” - Konstantin, father of five children

Why help mom?

But what should a good nanny be like? Young and cheerful or old, with life experience? And what do parents expect from a nanny - simple supervision, housework, diligence in education, teaching? good manners, workshop in English?

Maria, mother of seven children (left her job after the birth of her fifth child):“We used the services of nannies before, but quickly came to the conclusion that the quality of the services provided did not correspond to the money that nannies were asking for. In the summer we invite an Orthodox nanny to our dacha. We can go to the city and leave all the children with her. Upon return, both the children and the entire household are normal. She helps with the children and with business. It’s a pity that you can only resort to her help in the summer. In winter she teaches at an Orthodox gymnasium. And the lack of a person who would help with the children every day or at least once a week is felt.”

Valentina, mother of six sons: “Sometimes you just give up. My fidgets require attention. And I'm torn between the desire to clean up the room and spend an hour with them. I need a nanny who would take the children for a walk a couple of times a week. That works out to four hours a week. It’s difficult to find such a person, because we pay little for these four hours. As a result, we have a woman whom we attract twice a week, when I need to be away on business.”

Konstantin, father of five children:“When my wife and I were still in college, we needed a nanny. The financial part of the issue was resolved this way: the nannies lived with us. One of them was from Ukraine (Odessa). They looked after the children in the morning while we were in class. Then, when my wife and I started working, a nanny was hired full-time. She read books to them, taught them handicrafts, and picked them up from kindergarten. Now my wife does not work, we need a nanny only when we are away on business. In such cases, we ask our previous nanny to babysit. This usually happens two to three times a month.”

Ekaterina, working mother of two children:“I need a nanny twice a week for ten hours a day. I don't need a nanny-teacher or a nanny-doctor. You just need to look after the children so that they don’t scald themselves, jump out of the window, or who knows what else. Just so as not to leave them alone. The ideal nanny seems to me like this: cheerful, young, not intrusive, dutiful, Orthodox.”

Anastasia, working mother of three children:“Older children cannot look after the younger ones to the required extent: they, in addition to general subjects, also choreography, flora, sculpting. Plus a music school and a swimming pool. A nanny appeared in our house a year after I gave birth to my first child. Grandmothers help with the children, but a nanny is still needed. Take the older ones to school, pick them up after school. In the meantime, the older ones are at school, you need to stay at home with the baby: take a walk, read a book, feed him. I hire a nanny three days a week for five to six hours. I used to think that the nanny should be young. But for young people, children are not even in the background: their heads are filled with either family problems or starting a family. My current nanny is seventy years old, and I’m not going to change her.”

Interestingly, none of the mothers surveyed expressed a desire for the nanny to be involved in raising the child. Orthodox parents reserve this responsible role for themselves, considering the nanny precisely as an assistant, an executor of the rules by which the family lives, and not as an “introducer” of new pedagogical methods.

We asked the person responsible for assistance large families in the Church Commission social activities at the Moscow Diocesan Council Priest Igor Fomin, do Orthodox mothers contact the commission with a request to find them a nanny. As it turned out, most often a nanny is needed in families with no more than three children. And only in the morning or evening. According to Fr. Igor, in Moscow there are 80 families with ten or more children, and not one of them turned to him: in such families, older children look after the younger ones.

The position “she gave birth herself” is an exclusively modern phenomenon. We have already lost the habit of large families, and before the revolution, no one could be surprised by five children. According to Tatyana Listova, a senior researcher at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a specialist in the pre-revolutionary culture of motherhood, household help for large families has always been the norm. In the villages, even very poor people took girls eight to ten years old as nannies. The girls worked for “food or new clothes.” Grandmothers could stay with the children, and the older ones looked after the younger ones. In the city, nannies cost money. The poor took teenagers into their homes, who looked after the children for the sake of learning some craft.

It is interesting that today the idea of ​​attracting young people and students to help large families has again become relevant. As reported by Fr. Igor Fomin, “in the subcommittee on work with large families, negotiations are underway with the leadership of one of pedagogical universities about students undergoing official internship in large families. This would be equivalent to practice in school. Students will help children prepare homework and play with the kids. At this time, the mother will be able to leave for household chores (if the grandmother does not help, a mother of many children often does not have the opportunity to even go and register Required documents, pay for the apartment, etc.). Now we are working on a project for “alternative” student practice.”

“In some families, rich and successful, the nanny is treated like a thing. Having to work in such a family is my nightmare,” - Tatiana, Orthodox nanny

Where can I find a nanny?

Searches for Orthodox nannies in parishes turn out to be quite effective. In contrast to searches through agencies specializing in the selection of baby sitters, where, moreover, the prices are much higher. The very first agency promised to find an Orthodox nanny with alarming ease: “They are all Orthodox.” And after clarification: “this must be a person who regularly attends church,” they became confused. You often hear complaints from parents who have used the services of one company or another. For example, agencies may hide important information regarding the mental adequacy, characteristics or simply pedagogical incompetence of a potential nanny.

Many mothers recommend looking for nannies online. This is a cheap, fast and effective way. Anna, mother of three children:“I always look for nannies on the Internet and am very pleased with the result. This is very convenient for busy people. You schedule an interview with the nanny and at the same time continue to work, call someone, solve your problems.”

Nanny exam

Catherine:“All of our nannies were Orthodox, but this was not the main selection criterion for me. They just turned out to be people who suited our personality.” Maxim, father of five children:“I think it’s even more convenient if the nanny is non-Orthodox. After all, she can work church holidays. For Easter, for example.” Konstantin:“Sometimes a nanny comes and it’s clear that she judges us for having so many children. Therefore, it is important that the nanny and I have the same approach to education. It’s good, of course, if she is also Orthodox.”

However, some nannies in their job advertisements emphasize the fact that they are Orthodox. And they are not necessarily trying so hard to attract believing employers. Nanny Tatyana:“I feel calmer this way - I know that everyone has been warned. I can take time off from work for the twelve holidays. It’s even better for non-church parents if I work during public holidays, and they can go somewhere to relax. And then, many people are annoyed when the nanny crosses herself before eating. And if you tell a child about Christ, they will become absolutely furious. Why put a person into temptation in vain?”

Unfortunately, none of the search methods (neither through friends, nor on the Internet, nor even through parishes) guarantees that you will find an honest nanny who will treat your child well. People who are clearly “weird” can be identified from the very first conversation. But other shortcomings of the nanny are much more difficult to identify. Based on the experience of our interlocutors, we can advise you to take a photocopy of the candidate’s nanny’s passport, address, phone number (home and mobile), and e-mail. Inquire about your health and family well-being, call those who gave letters of recommendation. You can ask for a letter from your confessor. Much attention should be paid to whether the nanny arrived on time for the interview. Be wary if the nanny starts scolding her previous employers right away. Most likely, you will also find yourself in the shoes of these poor people.

Maksim advises setting up the first meeting at the nanny's home. And do it in such a way that she does not have time to specially prepare for your visit: you will immediately notice the unsettled situation in the family. Nina, a victim of a kleptomaniac nanny, who took jewelry and small coins from the house, suggests placing banknotes in a visible place before the nanny arrives for an interview.

Katya Solovyova, suspecting something was wrong in the nanny’s behavior, she disguised the video camera among the toys on the baby’s closet. The camera recorded how the nanny hit Katya’s five-year-old son in the face. Now, when assigning a week-long trial period to another nanny, Katya not only disguises the camera, but also sets up a tape recorder to record: “To some, this may seem like reinsurance. Before I saw my son being beaten, I thought that Orthodox Christians should believe each other. Don't be afraid to check in with your nanny. A normal person will treat any checks with understanding: after all, they trust him with the most valuable things.”

According to many parents, a good nanny is a real gift from God that can be prayed for and taken care of. Because in the work of a nanny, the most important thing is love - for children, family, people. Love is quiet and modest, “not seeking its own.”

Anastasia, mother of three children:“When two of my children fell ill, and I myself along with them, our nanny took in healthy child so that he doesn't get infected. For five days she fed him, read books, and took him to the museum. And at the end of the month, receiving a salary (two dollars per hour), she refused to take money for these five days - her action was dictated by her love for the kids and was not calculated in money.”

– Does the problem of fathers and children sound different today than before?

– I think these are problems that are natural for all people. The severity and context may change depending on the time, the specific family, but the essence still remains the same.

Separation and misunderstanding between people began a long time ago, from the time of the Fall. People began to lose touch with each other. The story of the Babylonian Pandemonium is a prime example of this. They suddenly begin to speak different languages, and this is a very characteristic expression, which since then has probably been preserved in a figurative meaning. We, speakers of the same language, can speak “different languages” even within the family.

Disunity and misunderstanding, unfortunately, is characteristic feature damage to human nature, what can you do? The Church contrasts this with another unity - in Christ and the feast of Holy Pentecost itself, which shows the opposite perspective: suddenly people who speak different languages ​​begin to understand each other perfectly. Because the Holy Spirit brings everyone together. And we have no other way to unity than only in Christ, only through Christ, through the Gospel, through our own development of hearing, through the development of our heart, painful and unpleasant, because as soon as a person begins to open up in our world, he immediately receives under the breath.

– You have said more than once that people replace life with its imitation, including in the family. How to understand where is the real thing and where is the fake.

– Usually this is understood when everything starts to collapse. When people who tend to live in ideas about something or someone, create ideas for themselves, are deprived of these ideas. That’s when the fall of the house happens great, and from that moment someone becomes able to see the light.

We are faced with situations where a family lives, and instead of love there are ideas about love. When people perceive life for themselves according to certain pre-formed patterns. These patterns can be formed in the previous family in which they grew up and they repeat the image of the parental family in relation to their own.

It happens that this is a pious desire to live according to the rules. For example, the image of an “Orthodox family”, which is read from very pious literature.

But the most pious literature and the best examples can be false helpers here. Let's say, books by Nikolai Evgrafovich Pestov. He himself is a wonderful teacher, created a wonderful family, raised children. But his advice, his experience and experiences may be perceived by someone as a general scheme, needed for everyone and transferred onto his own family thoughtlessly, like a stencil. Or, for example, people read how they raised St. Sergius Radonezh, his pious parents and again - attach a stencil. A certain artificial idea begins of what a real Christian family should be like. At the same time, parents may not see the children themselves, their own, with their characteristics. Who are they, their children? What conditions do they live in? How old are they? What are their interests?

Children begin to be trained according to a given pattern. At the same time, parents have pious and very correct desires to make their children real Christians. Although latently, most likely, there is also a desire to show others what our wonderful Orthodox family is like and how we must live up to this image of an Orthodox family. Because the parents themselves never lived up to this, and so they are trying to create these ideas artificially.

Children are left without real attention, without real love, without understanding, without hearing, without seeing by their parents, and all the time they begin to try - to fit in, fit in, fit in. Because children want to please their parents, they want to receive praise from them, they want their parents to notice them, love them, pat them on the head, praise them, and give them gifts. But it turns out that in this situation everything has to be earned and the means of earning money is piety. This works for a certain period, but then it inevitably breaks down, leading to conflict, to terrible misunderstanding.

Often there is alienation of parents towards their children, parental dislike, because suddenly the children stopped conforming, destroyed the parental dream, destroyed this ideal made-up world, which, according to the parents, was supposed to bring the children to the level of holiness, and, in the end, a little maybe until canonization? But the children, even in their teens, destroyed all these dreams.

And then it is very often difficult, even impossible, to break this alienation that has appeared.

Children suddenly begin to behave extremely ungodly, moreover, they move away from the Church, begin to fall into sins, to live completely incorrectly, ugly: the spring is unclenched in the other direction, and their parents hate them for it. They become alienated, close themselves off, and believe that their children are lost to them. They may say to themselves internally: “I don’t need such a child.” And at this moment they cease to be parents, at this moment the child is left completely alone. He must cope with the attack of temptation, for which he is completely unprepared, on his own, without parental help. And he falls under this attack, cannot cope, becomes a toy in the elements of this world and there is no one to help him...

– Even if the grown-up child later returns to the Church, will he still be internally cut off from his parents?

– It often happens that no understanding or connection arises between children and parents later.

I'm not even talking about those cases when parents will never become parents to their child, when they do not perceive their child as a child. “I have a problem with my daughter”, “I have a problem with my son” - what kind of expressions are these! It’s not my child who has problems, but me with him, “I” comes first here.

The relationship develops in such a way that the child is perceived as a problem for the parents, which must somehow be leveled out. Make the child’s presence in the parents’ lives convenient and comfortable. Often these children are separated from their parents very far and for a long time. Moreover, if funds allow, they can do everything financially for their children - hire a nanny, enroll them in a good school, and so on. But parents will have their own lives, and children will have their own. What kind of parents are these? Why should you love them? To honor is necessary, but to love is impossible. Because where there was no love, there will be no love.

We are given the commandment “Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12). But it doesn't talk about love. Because, unfortunately, not every parent can be loved by children. And not every parent truly loves. If a parent is not ready to give his life for his child, then something is wrong in this family.

– Often grown children are tormented by the contradiction that they cannot truly love their parents.

– Because, on the one hand, it is initially so natural for a person to love his parents. But when parents don’t give enough love, don’t connect themselves with their child with true love, the child’s thirst for love still remains. The potential of love is not exhausted and therefore a person finds himself in a strange state when he cannot connect his own life with the life of the one whom he wants to love and is obliged to love. But there is no meeting, no one to love, no parent. Although physically he seems to be nearby...

“But we need to love our enemies, and people can’t even love their own parents.”

“We have no orders to love our enemies.” We have a commandment. The commandment is very high condition, to which a person must be able to approach, and learn to love his enemies. Not every Christian succeeds. From which it does not follow that since it fails, then it will be good and right not to love. We just have to understand that the commandment to love our enemies is a superhuman commandment. It puts man on a par with God. This is a very high calling, you can strive for this, you need to know about it, you need to go towards it.

No child can say, “I don’t have to love my parents.” Must. But if there are no parents, then who to love? Yes, there are some people who are called parents (thank God, not everyone has this situation), but how to love them? How are the parents? Or as enemies? Or how in general as some kind of stranger?

I recently happened to give communion to a teenage girl who died of cancer a day later. The girl is from an orphanage, her blood parents abandoned her, and then her adoptive mother took her in. According to the girl’s recollections, her father died, although it later turned out that it was not her father who died, but some person with whom her mother lived at that time.

Some time after the girl came to her adoptive mother, it turned out that she had fast-growing cancer.

Mom managed to find out that the blood father of her adopted daughter had been found, he was alive, he was just in prison. And then this woman came to him, thinking that it would be important for the girl to know: her blood father was alive.

And he thought that now they would demand alimony from him and said: “Prove that she is my daughter.” There were also her blood brothers and sisters who also did not want to meet this girl.

After I gave Holy Communion to Polya, I talked for a long time with her mother, she told me all this and was very worried that she had not told her adopted daughter anything about the existence of relatives, after all, “native blood.” I said that she did the right thing, there was no need to tell the girl anything, because these people are not father, brother or sister. In this situation, inventing a relationship means once again hitting the unfortunate child. The relationship between parents and children cannot be imagined; they either exist or they don’t.

Yes, this situation may be special, although, unfortunately, it is not uncommon. And here the question of honoring parents can arise, but only as a strong, strong feat for a person who, realizing that there is some uncle or aunt who once threw him in the trash, will be able to pray for them as parents.

One of my parishioners approached me - a young woman whose children are schoolchildren. She grew up without a father: her mother said that he was a pilot and died. Suddenly it turned out that he had not died at all, he just didn’t want to know anything about his daughter for almost forty years, and then suddenly he showed up (and he has another family, other children) and wants to communicate. "But I do not want! What should I do, how should I treat him?” she said. I answered: “If this person is in trouble, in need, in some difficult circumstances, then you will have to help him. But if everything is fine with him, he lives surrounded by grandchildren, some of his other children, I don’t see the point in any communication. There was not a note of repentance on the part of this man. It’s just like, “Hey, baby. I'm your dad. Don't you want to be friends with me? Do you have borthers and sisters. Let's play the story that we are all friends, family. Let’s imagine such a prosperous, cloudless world.” No, you can’t, that’s a lie.”

– But if parents, without internal closeness, nevertheless raised a child, invested something in him when he was sick - treated him, clothed him, and so on, he should be responsible for this?

- Yes, I am obliged to something. I have to read it. It’s crazy when a person doesn’t help his parents who raised him. But it is impossible to love if you have not been loved. If you were raised but not loved. If you were dressed, but not loved. If you were treated with medications, but were not loved at that moment.

Imagine, here you are a sick child, you have a mother, you are sick, and she gives you medicine, but what you need from your mother at this moment is not medicine, but for her to sit with you and pat you on the head. As a result, she did not give the most important medicine.

Yes, of course, parents can count on children who were raised this way to respond to them with medicine, food or some kind of financial means. But there is nowhere to get the love that they now lack so much, if it did not exist before. The love between parents and children is special. You won’t get it “later.”

You can cultivate love for the people you meet on the street, thereby struggling with your shortcomings. Forcing yourself to new feats, forgiving insults, and so on. To love people who are not close to you or complete strangers.

But love between children and parents comes from too far away, from the womb, from early childhood. The consequences of early childhood deprivation and lack of love are the sources of all future conflicts in life, the collapse of destinies, misunderstanding of oneself, mental illness...

Let’s say the mother left the child at the age of three for some time, for six months with grandmothers or a nanny, and took care of herself - that’s all, this is a trauma for the child, and maybe he will never recover from it.

Or a terrible situation took place when before our eyes small child The family broke up, the parents divorced. This trauma cannot but manifest itself later in the fate of this person. Many things missed by parents kill a child’s soul and leave an unhealed mark for life…. We need to talk about this, understand that the lack of love is the most important, terrifying problem of humanity. After her everything goes to hell.

– Still, how to overcome these childhood wounds?

– An adult must be able to understand what is happening to him, where and where his problems are coming from, and how to deal with it. It's not an easy matter. For this there is the science of psychology, and I think that in many cases the help of a good specialist is needed. I’m not talking about the Church: participation in church life is a matter of course...

So it was with me. Having become a mother, I was still trying to do everything and live in the same rhythm as before the birth of my daughter. I wanted to be ideal wife, and a caring mother, and an excellent housewife - a real keeper of the home, and also a responsible employee. And most importantly, as an Orthodox wife, I tried to be an example for my family, because by looking at their parents, their relationships and family structure, children form an attitude towards marriage and motherhood.

Unfortunately, like many women, I did not know how to allocate my time and resources, or set priorities correctly. As a result, I painted myself into a corner and realized that it was time to change something. “If you can’t change the situation, change your attitude towards it.”

I believed that every woman, being a wife and mother, taking care of the house and even working, could remain cheerful and full of strength, find time for spiritual growth and development, learning and joyful communication with her loved ones. A woman is the soul and heart of the family, and if the heart is not in order, then the whole “organism” suffers: relationships with the spouse deteriorate, children feel their mother’s dissatisfaction, the house becomes a place of “hard labor.” As a result, the woman strives to quickly transfer the child to kindergarten, grandmothers, nannies and quickly go to work in order to “grow and develop.”

Nowadays the concept of “time management” or, in other words, the ability to properly organize your time, is becoming increasingly popular. If earlier this concept was more often used in relation to employees of various organizations, now it is increasingly gaining popularity among women and, in particular, mothers. Naturally, even with a common basis, time management for moms is significantly different from personal and work time management. We can say that time management for women with children is an “extended” version, that is, not just planning and organizing your day, but building relationships with loved ones, correct prioritization, competent distribution of household chores, the ability to “intertwine” your life , the life of your family and daily worries.

Naturally, only God knows what awaits us, and we cannot control or plan our lives, but we can learn to appreciate and use the time we have for good.

Basics of time management

It is very important to realize in what order such priorities as God (faith), family, home (household), work, hobbies, etc. are located in your life. Then you should ask yourself this question: are you devoting your time to these priorities in that order? For clarity, you can make two such lists: the first listing your “true” values, and the second with those by which you actually live, and compare them. And then start living according to your true priorities, and not according to those imposed on you by society.

Naturally, we cannot forget about pressing matters. There are a lot of things to do, but the right approach to them can make your life much easier and help you find extra time.

Let's honestly admit to ourselves: a mother with a baby in her arms, and especially more than one, cannot always remember everything. Even such basic things as the need to comb your hair and brush your teeth can slip out of your head, let alone remembering to congratulate your friend on Angel’s Day.

Learn to plan: at the end or very beginning of the month, write everything down important dates, holidays, events tied to specific dates of the month (events or even bill payment dates). At the beginning of the week - the main tasks for the week (based on the monthly plan). And most importantly, learn to write down things for the coming day in the evening. You should not, and cannot, blindly and precisely follow your plan. But if you have a specific to-do list, no matter how difficult the night with your baby is or how difficult the day is, you should just look at that list and move forward, rather than wasting valuable time wondering what to do first.

Try to do the main things - cooking (or “preparing” for dinner), cleaning, washing - in the morning. Firstly, in the morning you have more strength and you will do everything faster than in the evening. Secondly, the child, as a rule, is calmer in the morning and it will be easier for you to do all the things even with a non-sleeping baby in your arms. Don't stretch things out over the whole day - try to do them right away.

Make a list of “routines”, that is, those things that are repeated every day, and distribute them into three blocks: morning, afternoon and evening. The list will help you correctly distribute these tasks throughout the day, you will deal with them faster, they will not constantly “spinning” in your head, and gradually you will begin to do them automatically, saving time and effort.

Try to do all the “routines” and household chores together with your child - yes, it is much more difficult and your affairs will move much slower, but this approach has a number of advantages:

1. Slowly but surely you will complete the housework, and time nap leave the child for other things - we will talk about this later.

2. You will give the child good example and raise an assistant, and do not teach him that at home everything is always magically done while he sleeps. If the child is very small, a sling or a rug with toys next to you will help.

Don't worry if you don't succeed the first time - over time you will learn to cope with everyday issues easier and faster, saving your time and effort.

Mom is the soul and heart of the family

If a mother only talks to her children about faith, kindness and humility, but at the same time she is irritated, loud and does not grow spiritually herself, they will adopt her way of life. We must grow and develop ourselves, “fill” ourselves in order to then share this with our loved ones and lead them with us. For example, during your child’s nap, don’t run to the kitchen to cook and clean! Take time for spiritual reading, sleep, study. St. Augustine wrote: “First fill yourself, then you can give to others.”

This way, you will gain strength to continue your busy day, and when your child wakes up, you will greet him with a smile on his face, and not tired and exhausted. Don't neglect exercise, movement, and self-care. Healthy mom in good mood- the pride of the family.

Where else can you find time:

1. Learn to go to bed and wake up earlier before the child– take this time to “prepare” yourself for the difficult, but happy day with the baby! Read morning prayers, do exercises, get yourself in order, read a book. True, if you infant and you get up to him several times a night, then this option is unlikely to suit you. We'll have to wait a little!

2. Fight time wasters. A TV, even if it works only for the “background” while you are doing other things, brings little benefit. Replace it with recordings of audio conversations, lectures with spiritual or educational content, audio books (fiction, education, etc.) or, for example, church hymns. Reading at night (for several hours) instead of sleeping, wandering and “hanging out” on social networks, unnecessary phone conversations, thinking about things rather than doing them according to the list, improperly organized household chores (again, planning will help you avoid this) - you Believe it or not, these things eat up not minutes, but hours every day!

Live not by problems, but by opportunities - do not allow yourself to lose heart and become despondent! In difficult times, remember what you are grateful to God for. You have a baby? Thank God, because many cannot have children. Do you have a roof over your head and what to eat? Many are deprived of this too. Much depends on our attitude to the situation.

And also, be sure to find time to communicate with loved ones. Having organized and completed most of the tasks in the morning, in the evening you will be able to devote quality time to your family: chat, take a walk, read spiritual literature together. We often throw all our energy into cleaning, cooking, “wasters” of time, forgetting in the evening to even just smile at our husband and ask how his day went. Learn to live according to your priorities.

If every woman learns to live today and now, to be happy at home as a wife and mother, she will no longer strive to “run away” to work, because she will be able to fully realize herself at home, in contrast to the stereotypes that exist today, but according to Christian ideas about the family and his role in it. With God's help you will succeed!

Oksana ROMANOVA