Do you ever feel like women can't win? In some circles, if you're older and not a mum, people look at you a bit funny. In others, if you give up paid work to focus on raising kids, you're wasting your potential. And if you're both working and parenting, you can feel like you're not doing either of them well.

This week at Crowd Church, Sharon Edmundson explored what the Bible actually says about motherhood. And it turns out it's actually quite different from the cultural tug-of-war we're caught in. Whether you're a mother yourself, reflecting on your own mum, or wondering where you fit in all this, Sharon showed us that biblical motherhood is about something far bigger than cultural expectations.

When Culture Sends Mixed Messages

Sharon started by naming the exhausting reality: "We are seen as either being too focused on motherhood or not focused enough, and it can be exhausting."

She shared stories from her own life - friends with complicated relationships with their mothers, including one whose mum loved her but tended to be critical because of her own hurt. Friends who've lost mothers too soon. Friends who are desperate for children but unable to have them. Others who've adopted or fostered.

Sharon also mentioned her childhood friend Jane (not her real name), who was adopted and spent years wondering about her birth mother. Jane would snoop through her parents' bedroom looking for answers about who her birth mother was and why she'd been given up for adoption.

"Whatever your motherhood story looks like," Sharon said, "whether you're honouring the mum who raised you, grieving the one that you wish you had, or figuring out how to be the mum your kids need, God's grace is big enough for you too."

Four Biblical Principles About Motherhood

Sharon walked us through four foundational truths from Scripture:

Motherhood is God's Good Idea

Sharon pointed out something we might miss: "God could have designed humans to just appear, fully formed. No nappies, no sleepless nights, no teenage years. But he didn't. He chose the messy, relational way. Why? Because He's relational."

Right from Genesis, God created male and female and told them to "be fruitful and increase in number." Motherhood wasn't an afterthought - it was central to God's plan from the beginning.

Sharon explained: "God's plan for the world was that each new person coming into it would come from a loving covenant relationship of a father and a mother, each with their own role in the process of creating and bringing up a child."

Even more remarkably, when God wanted to bring salvation to the world, he chose to do it through a mother. "God came to earth as a human through a mother, Mary," Sharon said. "So motherhood isn't just part of his plan, it's central to it, which I find amazing."

Children Are a Blessing, Not a Burden

Sharon referenced Psalm 127: "Children are a heritage of the Lord, offspring a reward from him. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are children born in one's youth."

She acknowledged this can be challenging "when you're hearing it in the midst of poverty or exhaustion or just the sheer relentlessness of parenting. Some days, kids can definitely feel like a burden."

But she explained the deeper meaning: "The word for heritage implies something precious being passed down through generations, while the word for reward suggests wages earned. Children ought to be valued."

The imagery of arrows was particularly striking: "Warriors don't just keep their arrows permanently in their hand. They aim them, they release them, and they trust them to hit their target. Maybe that's saying something about how we're meant to raise kids - not to keep them close forever, but to prepare them and to send them out."

God is Involved and Gives Children Value

Sharon read from Psalm 139: "For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made."

These verses show that it's not only the mother and father involved in creating a new person, but God himself. "There's something sacred about a new life forming inside its mother," Sharon said.

She noted how counter-cultural this was in Roman times, when children were placed near the bottom of the pecking order. "But Christian teaching advocates for the dignity of children, and it was counter-cultural."

Then Sharon made a crucial point: "There's a God-given dignity in motherhood. But it is not the underlying basis of our value or our worth, nor is having an amazing career meant to be the basis of our value. Our value is in that we are knit together by God in our mother's womb, and that we are made in his image. So a woman without children is as valuable as a woman with children."

Motherhood is Important, But Not the Most Important Thing

Sharon tackled a challenging passage where Jesus says that anyone who doesn't "hate" their own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters cannot be his disciple.

"Wait, what?" Sharon acknowledged. "Jesus is telling me to hate people? Even my own children? I thought he was all about love."

She explained: "This passage doesn't mean to literally hate our families. He's using hyperbole to make a point. And that point is that although motherhood is good, it shouldn't be the most important thing in our lives. God is the only one worthy of that highest place."

She added: "If we make children the most important thing in our lives, we're putting them in God's place, and they aren't designed to handle that kind of pressure."

Three Biblical Roles for Mothers

After laying this foundation, Sharon looked at three specific roles mothers play:

A Mother Has Authority Over Her Children

Sharon gave fair warning: "This first one might make you uncomfortable."

She referenced Ephesians 6: "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honour your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise."

Sharon was direct: "If you're a parent of small children or teens and you're trying to be their friend, you might be missing part of your purpose as a parent. They don't need you to be their friend. They need you to take your God-given role of authority over them for their good."

But she quickly added that God's way of authority is different: "God's way of doing things is that authority is about serving." She pointed to Jesus, who demonstrated this by washing his disciples' feet and ultimately giving his life for them. "But he wasn't a pushover. You knew who was in charge."

Sharon shared a recent observation: "Not long ago, one of our kids was at the home of another family and was shocked by how the kids talked to their mum. No one seemed to bat an eyelid about it. He reflected that she wasn't being respected, and I think that made him feel a little bit sad."

A Mother Loves With Purpose

Sharon turned to Titus 2, which talks about older women training younger women "to love their husbands and children."

She explained that the Greek word used here is all about fondness and delight. It's got this warmth and tenderness about it. It's a love that nurtures and protects from a place of affection rather than just a self-sacrificing duty.

"As I was in church earlier,” Sharon recalled, “a picture came up on my husband's phone of one of our kids wearing a little giraffe costume when they were younger, not recently. And it just made me - you know, those flashbacks of like, oh, that was just so cute and lovely. And just that warm affection thinking about it."

This type of love mirrors how God loves us. Sharon referenced Psalm 147: "The Lord delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love." She marvelled: "How amazing to think that God delights in us like a mother delights in her children."

She also noted how different this is from previous generations: "Back then, showing affection for your kids was not the done thing. You showed love by providing for them and training them from this place of duty. And that is part of love, it's a good thing, but it kind of misses that warmth that God intended."

A Mother Teaches and Trains Her Children

Sharon asked a pointed question: "Who would you rather learn from? Someone who's not bothered about you or even dislikes you, or someone who loves you unconditionally and delights in you and wants you to do well? The love we just talked about is the foundation for teaching and training."

She read from Deuteronomy 6: "These commandments I give to you today are to be in your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up."

Sharon emphasised that both parents are to be involved in the upbringing, not just mothers. And faith "isn't just for Sundays. It's woven into everyday stuff. Breakfast conversations, car journeys, bedtime chats, and so on."

She shared her own experience: "When our kids were little, we used to have Bible reading and prayer at breakfast. That worked for a time, and then it didn't work. But we gave it a go. But as the verse shows, learning can take place anywhere, just in daily life."

Sharon gave another personal example: "I carried on picking up our youngest from school long after she could have made her own way, because when she - that was when she was most willing to talk. It was when she'd tell me the stuff that had wound her up during the day, usually the teachers. That was a time when we had our most meaningful conversations."

She made an important distinction about protective love: "A mother's job is to teach her children the ways of God in every aspect of life, and that includes how to handle difficult situations and uncomfortable emotions. The protective love that I mentioned before is to protect from actual harm, not difficult emotions."

Sharon shared a concerning trend: "I was talking to a friend who works with kids and their parents in a health setting recently, and she told me she's seeing more and more parents trying to shield their kids from anything uncomfortable, which then leads to kids being unable to handle uncomfortable situations and difficult emotions."

Instead, she suggested, "Difficult situations and difficult emotions are teaching opportunities. If a kid's upset by the loss of a pet, it's an opportunity to teach about how to grieve. If a kid's anxious, it's an opportunity to teach them how to go to God with that anxiety and to ask for help. Our job isn't to remove all discomfort. It's to teach them how to handle it."

When Motherhood Gets Complicated

During Conversation Street, Anna and Jan joined Sharon to tackle some of the trickier questions about motherhood.

Can I Be Both Career-Focused and Faithful as a Mum?

Sharon was honest: "I've purposefully not said you should do it this way or should do it that way, just trying to stick to the principles."

She referenced the woman in Proverbs 31, who has a job and kids, but also has help. "I'm not sure I totally have the answer," Sharon admitted. "I think the key thing is to know what God is asking you to do? Are you doing all the things you're doing because you are giving in to pressure from other people or because of some sort of insecurity? Or are you confident that that's what God's calling you to do?"

Jan shared her experience: "I reduced my hours at various points in my career as the children's ages changed. There was flexibility from my work to organise my family life as well. However, I couldn't have done my job if I hadn't known that God was in it."

Anna added, "I think some of these things are really seasonal, aren't they? Motherhood isn't one season; it's lots of little ones. Life looks very different when you've got toddlers in the home than when your kids are a bit older. It's about knowing the exact season you're in and how much you can manage in that season, and being realistic."

What Do I Do With Mum Guilt?

Sharon got vulnerable here, sharing a story that clearly still affected her emotionally:

"When one of our kids was little, they didn't sleep that well either during the day or at night, and there was a lot of crying. We tried the sleep training methods we'd used with the boys, and it worked really well with two of our kids. But with our daughter, it just didn't work."

She continued: "There was a lot going on. I was so stressed - probably on the point of a bit of a breakdown, to be honest. I really couldn't cope, so I ended up leaving her to cry a lot. For years, I looked back at that going, I don't think I got that right. Have I damaged her? Is she going to be scarred for life? And it would just really bother me."

Then Sharon shared what changed: "I was in church one day and I just felt God say, 'Apologise to her.' I was like, Oh yeah, I could do that. So I went and apologised to her. I think it was only last year. She was like, 'Oh yeah, it's fine.' And I've been able to let it go since then, whereas before that it was just gnawing away."

Her conclusion: "I think we do get stuff wrong, and I think we just need to own up, apologise, and receive that grace."

Anna reinforced this: "Nobody gives you a manual when you leave the hospital. You just learn as you go. So there has to be this kind of grace we have with ourselves - asking God for wisdom, but also just having grace when it goes wrong. Grace for ourselves, grace for your children, grace, accepting that grace from God. There's another day, clean start."

Sharon added another key point: "Teach your children how to forgive, because then any mistakes that you make, they know what to do with it."

How Can Childless Women Live Out Spiritual Motherhood?

Jan spoke directly to this: "First of all, obviously, some people are childless because it's a choice. If it's not by choice, my heart goes out to you. There's, I imagine, a coming to terms with some of that and wrestling with God and coming to a peace about it."

She continued: "It's clear in the Bible that to be a mother is not just to be a biological mother. I think we can be mothers in our eighties to younger women in the church. A 20-year-old can be mothering a teenage girl. It's about giving advice, getting alongside other women, and being a mother in that way - caring, giving time, investing in. That's what being a mother is. It doesn't have to be your biological or your adopted child. It could be a neighbour, it could be a friend."

Anna added: "There are a lot of ways to mother in the world - in the workplace, in the home, in friendship, in the church."

She then recommended Ruth Corden (James Corden's sister), who has a podcast and speaks openly as a Christian about being childless not by choice. "She talks about how she mothers and how she believes God's given her a mother's heart, but she's not got children in her home. She's a social worker and deals with a lot of vulnerable children. That's part of what she believes God's called her to do."

Jan mentioned Mother Teresa as another example: "She wasn't a natural mother, but she was a mother to millions."

How Do I Trust God When Motherhood Feels Hard or Lonely?

Jan shared her own coping mechanism from when her kids were babies: "It used to help me when I was up in the night. My brother was in New Zealand at the time, and I just used to remember that where my brother was, it was lunchtime or something, and people were doing normal things and all that. So I just used to imagine the rest of the world doing things. But that's just me, and that helped me at the time."

She added, "God is always close, even when we don't feel it. It can be very lonely. It's a time when you think over lots and lots of stuff, and at the same time you're very tired and exhausted."

Anna was refreshingly honest: "A lot of motherhood is just a steady slog, isn't it? A lot of mothering is just Groundhog Day. It's just the ordinary, boring, everyday tasks. Clean the hamster, make the dinner, make sure everyone's done their homework, and make sure everyone's ready for school on time. A lot of nagging, a lot of cajoling, a lot of saying the same things like a broken record. It's a bit of a slog, and it can be tedious."

Sharon shared her approach: "I can't remember specifically motherhood, but like our kitchen floor being one of those jobs that just came up again and again. I think being able to be honest before God and just go, 'I'm really not enjoying this right now.' He knows it anyway, so we may as well just be honest about it. But then to get that out and kind of be able to get back to that place of choosing to be thankful even when we don't feel it. So be like, 'Thank you, God, that I have a kitchen floor to clean.' Sometimes that was through gritted teeth."

She added: "Training our thinking back - when the feelings aren't there, we can still have the faith. We can choose the faith to go, 'Okay, this child may not feel like a blessing right now, but God, I believe that this child is a blessing.' And I think knowing that there are seasons, and the season will pass. The season you're in now is not going to be like that forever."

Anna brought it back to the bigger picture: "It's remembering, keeping your eye on the big picture. Sometimes you can be so in the moment that it's just overwhelming or a bit tedious. But actually seeing the bigger picture - what is God doing in my child, but also what is God doing in me through this motherhood journey? A lot of those lessons, they're not fun, but they're really important. You build a lot of character. It shapes your character, it stretches you, and you grow. Motherhood is one of those areas that you really grow in if you are open to God doing that."

How Do I Honour a Dishonourable Parent?

Jan acknowledged: "There can be stress in our relationships with our parents. But I think the fundamental thing is that we are respectful, that we honour them. When you become an adult yourself, you see your parent as just another adult, and you can relate to them a bit more, understand what they've gone through. I think as we mature as their children, it's coming to terms with that's who they are, and they're never going to be that different."

She added practically: "Sometimes it might mean keeping your visits short, having boundaries, protecting yourself. If we allow people to walk all over us or to hurt us, there are ways to stop that from happening."

Sharon pointed to David and King Saul as a biblical example: "Saul was king, but God was like, 'No, you're not going to be king anymore. I'm going to bring in David.' But David wasn't king yet. Saul still was. It's this in-between time, and Saul was just really jealous and angry and trying to kill David."

She explained: "David drew the line. He was like, 'No, you are not killing me. This is not on. There's a line you're not going to cross.' But at the same time, when he had the chance to harm Saul, he was like, 'No, I'm not going to harm this guy because God's put him in this position of authority and he's still in that position.' He wouldn't let other people do that either. So he talked well of Saul, even though Saul was being really awful. But he put the boundaries in. It was this far and no further."

Her advice: "I think that needs wisdom and Prayer. Thank God, okay, what do you want me to do in this situation? How can I both be honouring but also put those boundaries in and go this far but no further?"

The Bigger Picture

During Conversation Street, Anna noted something that resonated deeply: "The thing that really struck me as you were talking, Sharon, was just that whole idea of motherhood being part of God's character as well. We often think of the Father heart of God, and we talk about that a lot because God is thought of as quite masculine, isn't he, in Christianity? But actually, we don't talk about the mothering side of God very often."

Sharon closed with an image from Deuteronomy 32: "Like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, God spreads his wings to catch you and carries you on his pinions."

She reflected: "Just that lovely imagery - when we see motherhood done well, whether that's in ourselves or in other people, just to reflect and go, 'Oh, that's how God is with us. That loving, nurturing, that teaching, encouraging.'"

Anna made a final, crucial point about identity: "Our identity ultimately is in God, regardless of our motherhood status. Our identity is in God - that's our first and our most important identity as his child. I think that's such an important point to make when we're talking about roles like motherhood."

Your Next Steps This Week

Based on what Sharon shared and the discussions that followed, here are some practical steps:

If you're a mother: Ask God what he's specifically calling you to do in this season. Are you doing things out of pressure or insecurity, or because it's genuinely what he's asking?

If you struggle with mum guilt: Be honest with God about where you feel you've got it wrong. Consider whether there's someone you need to apologise to. And then receive God's grace - today is a clean start.

If you can't have children: Ask God to show you opportunities for spiritual motherhood - mentoring, teaching, investing in younger people who need someone to believe in them.

If your relationship with your own mother is difficult: Seek wisdom about boundaries. How can you be respectful while also protecting yourself? What does "this far and no further" look like in your situation?

If motherhood feels like a slog: Be honest with God about the tedious bits. Choose thankfulness even when you don't feel it. Remember that this season will pass, and God is using it to shape both you and your children.

A Question Worth Asking

Sharon's friend Jane eventually found her birth mother years later. It wasn't a neat, tidy story, but as Sharon said, "God's grace was big enough to hold all of it - the pain, the questions, the complicated bits."

Sharon's closing words are worth sitting with: "Whatever your motherhood story looks like - whether you're honouring the mum who raised you, grieving the one that you wish you had, or figuring out how to be the mum your kids need - God's grace is big enough for you too."

What does that grace look like for you today?