Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.
Titus 2:3-5

If I fail to obey the Titus mandate from a “younger” woman’s standpoint, I do not want it to be because I failed to ask for wisdom. Today I am posting part 1 of my interview with Carmon Friedrich. I hope you enjoy her perspective as much as I do. Stay tuned for more.

  • First the run-down on your family. How many, how old, any distinguishing features, etc.

Carmon: I have ten children. My oldest son Hans is 21, married and lives with his wife Aubree in Oregon. He works as a web programmer there. My second-oldest son, Pieter, is 19. He was born on my birthday, which may have something to do with why he and I are so much alike. He is interested in politics and journalism, and is attending community college, hoping to transfer next fall, possibly to Grove City College. He and I became interested in the Constitution Party at the same time as we discussed the implications of the war in Iraq and Republican policies that were concerning us from a biblical and constitutional viewpoint. Prior to that, our family had been heavily involved in Republican as well as prolife activities. Pieter and I started Backwater Report (with Steve’s help and encouragement) [Amy: Steve is your husband, just so everyone knows...] as a way to encourage Christians to support the Constitution Party and to help them think biblically about current events and politics. Benjamin will be 17 on Friday. He is very self-disciplined and my only child so far who has any physical coordination. He has designed his own weight-training/fitness regimen and likes to impress his siblings with his muscles. He is waiting to hear if he has been chosen for a scholarship for flying lessons, but if not, he plans to continue earning money to pay for them himself.

The girls deserve their own paragraph (but I don’t put the names of my younger children on the internet). I have three daughters in the midst of all the boys, ages 15, 13 and 11. They were born at just the right time because I was due for some female companionship, and their ability to help with the home and the little ones is a great blessing to me. The older boys also helped with those things, but as I often point out, boys and girls are different, and the girls have a knack for both nurturing and homekeeping which the boys just don’t have. Also, we have released the older boys from many daily home responsibilities as they have gotten older so that they can pursue interests which might lead to their vocations. The girls and I like to have tea parties and do crafts together, like knitting and needlework. All three girls play the piano and fill our home with music. They also express their creativity through cooking, art, writing and various crafts.

The four little boys fill our home with silliness. They are ages 9, 7, 5 and 2. Our little boys love to play outside, and our 34 acres gives them lots of places to explore. It’s amazing that even though they look so much alike, and they are each just two years apart, they have such different personalities: the 9-year-old is very serious and always thinks deeply about things; the 7-year-old is our most “wired” child and we often give him a cup of coffee before church to help calm him down; the 5-year-old is very affectionate and sensitive; and Baby Braveheart is a happy guy who thinks all toy swords and guns belong to him. All of them can play for hours with the wooden train set, Legos or Playmobil. They love to listen to me read to them, too.

  • What’s something you wish someone would have told you when you had your first child?

Carmon: Maybe it would be better to ask what I wish I had listened to when I had my first child. [Amy: Roger that.] Everyone always says that you should enjoy your children when they are small, but in the midst of sleep-deprivation, stomach flu, potty training and the tyranny of the urgent, it’s hard to believe that those little ones will suddenly turn into adults (well, teenagers first, which is even harder to believe). I am still in the midst of all those daily trials, and I still forget to cherish the daily blessings, but I’m more aware than ever of the need to do so and I try to kick myself more often when I dwell on the drudgery and remind myself of how fast the time flies.

  • This week’s discussion began when a struggling mother of a toddler wrote me. Please talk to the moms with all little ones underfoot. When does it get easier? When does a “shift” occur?

Carmon: I’m not sure “it” gets any easier; the challenges are different. What does happen, though, is that through the daily trials, God sanctifies you and your perspective begins to change. [Amy: Oooo, I hear ya on that one...] You learn when all your children are little, life as a mother is more physically demanding. You are the only one who can cook meals, change diapers, clean bathrooms, fold laundry, etc. Hopefully, from a young age, mothers begin to teach their children to help with and eventually take over many of these chores. [Amy: Yes, a light bulb went on for me when a woman said, "If they can take out a toy, they can put it back." That was a good day for me.]

But with a large family with many different ages, it becomes a challenge to deal with so many ages and temperaments. When your children are young the prayers are more for strength; as they get older, the prayers are more for wisdom. Steve once explained the mathematical concept of factorials to me. It is a formula for determining relationships. For example, if you have three people, you use the formula 1×2x3 to determine how many possible combinations there are for those three people to relate to one other: the answer, of course, is six. For our home (not counting the two dogs, two cats and seven chickens) the formula is 1×2x3×4x5×6x7×8x9×10x11. The grand total of possible relationships within our household is 39,916,800. I’m not sure if I’m glad Steve explained this to me or not, but it does help to understand why some days I feel like I need a vacation. It also reminds me that I am totally dependent on God for each moment of my day.

I do remember a time after my sixth child was born 11 years ago, when I started to feel like I wasn’t in control any more. Up to that time I had been pretty confident in my abilities as a wife and mother. The wheels of progress ran smoothly in my home. Then God began to humble me through circumstances where I wasn’t able to depend on my own resources or parenting philosophies any more. I needed to just pray for wisdom and strength and wait patiently for God to answer. He has always been faithful to do that. Though I have strong opinions about controversial subjects related to family, I have learned to be compassionate toward those who are in the midst of trials or who have not arrived at the same conclusions as I have on those topics.