Tone-Setting is a Maternal Role

It's amazing. And it sucks. Sometimes at the same time.

Photo by name_ gravity on Unsplash

We’ve all heard the saying, “if mama ain’t happy, nobody is”. I don’t want this to be true, but I know in my heart that it is.

My mood as mother directly raises or lowers the mood of the rest of my family.

A few months ago, I listened to an episode of Healthy Catholic Moms titled, “YOU Set the Tone for Your Household”. It was a great conversation, and although it was primarily focused on habits and attitudes around food, exercise, body image, and human dignity, there were a lot of principles that can be applied more broadly to home and family life in general. One of the points I really loved in Brittany’s episode was that as women, our attitudes, mood, dispositions, and habits really set the tone for how our family operates. On both a micro and a macro level, our husbands and children take their cues from us. The thought has been percolating in my mind since then, but the last few weeks in my home have really driven me to put my thoughts into words… and into action.

I think there are two extreme responses that we often see, particularly in online discourse, when we encounter this reality. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll call them the radical feminist response and the radical traditionalist response. I’m going to reference the far extremes of each position, but we all know that there are varying degrees and nuances when these beliefs manifest in the lives of real individuals.

The radical feminist response would be to deny that a mother’s mood sets the tone for her family, and/or to demand that the responsibility for tone-setting be equitably distributed between both spouses. “Tone-setting is not an inherently feminine ‘job,’ and it’s sexist to make that claim. It’s unfair and unjust to put the burden solely on Mom. All you’re doing is perpetuating the idea that mothers should do more than their share of emotional labor in the household. After all, don’t you agree that fathers should also step up to help regulate their children?”

The radical traditionalist response would be to praise this reality as an unequivocal good and a command to women. “Yes, my job as a mother is to maintain a cheerful mood in my home, even when I am not myself feeling cheerful. My husband and children should not be affected by my whims and moods, and I will not ask or allow my husband to take any of this responsibility on himself. He has enough on his plate already. Any disruptive emotions I experience should be expressed in private at a time that is not inconvenient to my family.”

As is so often the case, the virtue is in the mean. We can acknowledge that, in most cases, a mother’s mood is more likely to raise and lower the family’s mood than the father’s mood is. We can also acknowledge that, for many women, this reality is a heavy cross, one that demands constant attention and growth in virtue. Setting the tone for our family doesn’t mean becoming robotic, suppressing all emotion so we can remain chipper and subservient at all times. But it does mean taking ownership of our hearts and our lives: making difficult choices so as to set a good example for our children; refusing to wallow in a bad mood when doing so leads to tension and fights; being open and honest about the ways in which we deal with frustration, sadness, or desolation.

Setting the tone of our family is a question of human formation: who do we want our children to be when they enter adulthood?

Because, of course, the reality is that we want to raise healthy, holy, well-adjusted children. And a huge part of that is working to become healthy, holy, and well-adjusted ourselves. If we want our children to develop a daily habit of prayer, we must hold ourselves to the same standard (if not a higher one). If we want our children to experience their emotions without becoming unmoored by them, then we need to model that behavior for them.

As mothers, we might not want the responsibility of being the tone-setter for our family. We might not like it. We might not think it’s fair. But, in the majority of cases, we can’t shirk it. Trying (consciously or subconsciously) to pass the responsibility for setting the family’s tone off to our husband, at least in my experience, leads to mutual resentment, in addition to being just plain ineffective. And asking or allowing our children to set the family tone—again, in my experience—leads to more whining, misbehaving, and and power struggling as the children buck under the weight of a burden they are nowhere near mature enough to carry.

So what’s to be done, then? Are we just supposed to grin and bear it? To allow ourselves to feel captive to and victimized by our family?

Surely not, right?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I can set myself up for success in stepping into this role of tone-setter for my family. If lived experiences shows that I cannot avoid it, then at least I can claim ownership of it. It’s a microcosm of the Christian way—we do not choose our crosses, but we can and ought to choose to carry them well.

And, as is so often the case, the answer has come in the place I least expected.

My three-year-old recently started attending a weekly Atrium session with Catechesis of the Good Shepherd at our parish. For those who are unfamiliar, CGS is a Catholic, Montessori-inspired program designed to help children learn to pray and understand the teachings of the Church in an age-appropriate and hands-on way. Because CGS draws heavily on the work of Maria Montessori, there is a lot of focus on the environment. From the first time they enter the Atrium, the children are taught that the Atrium is something different. There are certain ways that we walk, speak, and move in the Atrium. We don’t interrupt a friend or a catechist while they are working. We don’t run. We move slowly and deliberately.

By our third weekly session, my daughter’s class of seven children ages 3-6 were engaged in their work for two full hours.

This is a level of focus, concentration, and attention that I could not fathom, based on my daughter’s behavior at home. But I’ve come to realize that so much of this is simply in the way that her catechists set expectations and interact with the children from a fundamental posture of respect.

So I began to wonder. Much of my interior life in this season revolves around the ever-dawning realization that we are all toddlers before the Lord. What would happen if I applied this principle to my own frazzled home and heart?

Our Atrium makes intentional choices about the environment that facilitates wonder and reverence. Everything is sized for the child, not the adult (tables, chairs, tools, etc.) so that the child can interact with it more easily. There is a focus on beauty as a means of evangelization. What would it look like to intentionally prepare the environment of my home to facilitate an external and internal atmosphere of calm?

Our Atrium begins each session with a reminder that our hands are for working, and that our work is for God. This is just as true when a child is moving pom poms from one bowl to another as it is when they are washing one another’s hands or meditating silently at the prayer table. What would it look like to treat my own hands and my own work with such respect?

Our Atrium acknowledges and respects the natural abilities and limits of the children in attendance. Children can choose the material they want to work with, as long as they have been taught how to use it respectfully. When the catechists notice that the group is getting restless, the Atrium session is ended, regardless of whether it’s been an hour or an hour and a half or two full hours. What would it look like to live out this remarkable detachment from my own plans and expectations?

To sum up: our Atrium holds the balance between boundaries and freedom in a way that conveys genuine respect for each member of the group.

Now, it’s worth stating that obviously the Atrium is a highly-controlled and time-limited environment, and it makes no sense to hold ourselves and our children to literal “Atrium standards” twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Instead, I want to look for ways we can apply these principles in other situations.

Remember, we’re trying to set ourselves up for success in how we step into our role as the tone-setter for our family. So we’re not trying to add burden onto burden here; rather, we’re looking for simple and restful boundaries for ourselves, within which we can find freedom to embrace this maternal reality.

Preparing the Environment

Recently, music has been a big help for me as a mother. On days when I feel myself getting frazzled and starting to lose my cool, I’ve been turning on the Poor Clare Sisters Arundel seasonal albums. I don’t mess around with headphones while the girls are awake (for obvious reasons, lol) so I just pop those jams on the bluetooth speaker loud enough that it can be heard throughout the house. Many times, even just this small change is enough to completely change the way I interact with my home and my children. It’s as if my body slows down to match the tempo of the music.

We’ve also recently purchased a second dish-drying rack to use for dirty dishes. This allows us to keep the sink itself mostly empty, which facilitates doing dishes more easily and keeping a tidier appearance in the kitchen.¹

Sometimes, preparing the environment means sending the kids outside to play for a little while while I work inside. Other times, it means putting a fussy baby in the carrier so that she can calm down and stop crying.

If we are attentive to the ways in which our environment is helping or hindering our efforts to set a healthy tone for our family, then we can make small (or big!) changes as needed to set ourselves up for success.

Hands are for Work and Work is for God

St. Paul’s exhortation to “pray always” has often left me feeling tremendously inadequate, as someone who doesn’t spend all day reciting the rosary or the Jesus prayer as I go about my tasks. But what if my work itself can be a prayer? Not just the work I enjoy or the work I’m paid for, but even the dull little maintenance tasks that are necessary to a functioning home?

It’s not difficult for me to accept the idea that washing hands or looking at a map of the Holy Land can be a prayerful activity for my daughter. So why does it feel like such a stretch to say that washing dishes, tidying under the couch, or folding laundry can be a prayer it itself, rather than merely an opportunity for more traditional vocal prayer?

When my daughter was presented with the flower arranging work at Atrium, her catechists told her that we use our hands to do the flower work “to make the Atrium beautiful”. So much of my own work around the house feels less oriented toward beauty and more oriented toward function, but I’m beginning to see that the two are not completely unrelated. Especially when, as we alluded to above, a more functional and beautiful home contributes to a more peaceful attitude.

To that end, I’ve started using the language of “my work” or “my hands are working” when describing to my daughter what I’m doing, but also when talking to myself about what I’m doing. It’s a little clunky at first, but I think it’s bearing fruit, both in how I see my tasks and how my daughter sees them. Shockingly, the awareness that my work can be inherently prayerful and dignified helps me to remain attentive, diligent, and cheerful, even in the midst of chaotic toddlers.

Respecting Abilities and Limits

This is a big one in our family, as I’m sure it is in many toddler families. A huge portion of owning our role as the tone-setters of our family is being attentive to the ways in which we are stretching ourselves or our families too far. Many times, when I am struggling with a foul mood, it’s because I’ve neglected a core need for myself, my husband, or one of my children. When I stay up too late, I’m a grouch the next day. When I let myself skip lunch, the ‘witching hour’ dinner rush becomes a three-way meltdown. In other words, remaining cognizant of my limits allows me to more easily embrace my role as the tone-setter of the family. When I expect my children to entertain themselves peacefully for longer than a few minutes, I get irritated by their age-appropriate “needy” behaviors.

But this goes the other way, too. Respecting my own and my girls’ abilities means that I allow each of us to take ownership of tasks that I know we’re capable of. As mothers, for example, we can remain attuned to our energy levels throughout our cycle, leaning into higher energy at certain times of the month and giving ourselves time to rest at other times. By remaining attentive to ourselves and the other members of our family, we can learn to recognize when to push a little harder and when to give some slack.

This principle is where we can really begin to train ourselves in that humble detachment. What I think the day should look like might end up being overly ambitious (or ambitious in the wrong direction, or even, sometimes, underly ambitious), and the more tightly I grasp at my own plan instead of being guided by the abilities and limitations of my family, the more likely I am to wallow in self-pity and snap at those around me.

Boundaries and Freedoms

To bring it all back around, setting the tone is a “work” we do as mothers that often cannot be delegated. It is an important work, and one that helps to beautify our homes and bring glory to God. It is also a difficult work, and one that requires our ongoing attention. When we use the eyes of our soul to see our homes as little “atriums”—places of formation, which they absolutely are—then we can apply the same principles of preparation, attentiveness, and respect.

One of my favorite prayers is the Act of Consecration to the Sacred Heart by St. Claude de la Colombiere, which contains the following line:

I embrace the beloved Cross of my vocation, even unto death.

We do not get to choose our own crosses, but we do get to choose how we carry them. Stepping into our role as the tone-setters of our family, instead of fighting against it or trying to put it on someone else’s shoulders, is one way that we can choose—daily—to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Christ.

1. Long-time readers may remember Mt. Clean Laundry… this is a very similar life hack.