What Are You Doing, Mommy?

My almost-two-year-old followed me out into yard and asked, for the hundred and fiftieth time that morning, “What are you doing now, Mommy?”

“I’m watering the lawn and the garden,” I answered. And, then I realized that I was also baking a casserole and setting a molded salad for dinner; washing one batch of laundry and drying another; supervising two babies; and, in between everything else, vacuuming the living room.

Fifty years ago those tasks would have taken a woman two days of work. I expected to be through by ten o’clock that morning.

Not only that: those activities required so little of my thought (push this button, add water to that mix) that I had already planned half the MIA Maid lesson for that evening’s class.

In the distant past, men’s and women’s labor was directly tied to their survival: working all day was barely enough to earn a bare subsistence wage; tending the house took from early in the morning to late at night just to keep up. Dull routine? Perhaps—but it could not be let up for a moment. Now I had machines doing half my work for me, instant mixes saving me hours and hours—far more than my ancestors, I had time.

And yet, because my work is not all directly needed for survival, it would often seem meaningless—if it were not for a purpose beyond the task itself. My one free Saturday afternoon would not be used cutting out piles of construction paper into flowers if the only purpose for that work were to provide decorations at a dance where all the lights would be dimmed.

Why would I work to produce casseroles for a ward dinner, knowing I would end up buying them back myself, if the only purpose were the casseroles?

There is another, more important, aspect to these activities, however, that makes them worthwhile.

Remember learning penmanship in grade school? We spent hours covering papers with chains of circles. Those circles said nothing; they spoiled the paper for further use; they were worthless. Yet after hours spent making those circles, we developed control over the fine muscles in our hands, and the skill we acquired became useful in another task—writing.

Behind and beyond our mundane tasks, we are learning the skills we will need in eternity.

Watering the garden? What great eternal principle could possibly be discovered watering the garden? Or making a casserole? Or changing a diaper, knowing it will need changing again in a half hour?

We learn many things from every task: the principles of rhythm and balance upon which the entire universe operates; the law that unwatered corn will not grow, that unnurtured children will not thrive spiritually; the great lesson that good things happen a little at a time, with a little more later on, not in great dramatic changes.

The huge Church organization does not hold thousands of meetings for their own sake. We do not clean floors, mow lawns, and commute to work for the sake of doing those things. Both the home and the Church exist for more noble purposes. We will not take mopped floors and washed cars and clean diapers into eternity with us, any more than the visual aids we prepared for Primary will be taken to heaven: but we will be able to take the dedication that kept us at such thankless tasks; we will take the love that kept us caring for our children; we will take the blessing of knowing we have changed lives for the better; we will take the habit of willing service.

“What are you doing, Mommy?”

“Watering the garden,” I said. But I could have answered, “Watering, nurturing, caring for my soul.”