Unpasteurized
On motherhood, the Holy Spirit, and why your life was never meant to look like everyone else's
The Treadmill We Never Signed Up For
Being a woman and a mother today is more complicated than it has ever been. For decades, society handed us a script to be ambitious, be a girlboss, build a career, optimize your life. Women have run that race faithfully, and many are only now hitting the wall.
And as tends to happen with pendulums, the cultural correction swung hard in the opposite direction. Enter the tradwife, a woman who wholly embraces homemaking and traditional family structure. A recent poll by EduBirdie found that 23% of Gen Z women prefer the tradwife path, while only 23% prefer the girlboss route.
But here is the thing. As Christian women, we ought to be cautious about adopting either label, because a God-fearing woman is, by nature, countercultural. She defies the limitations set by any social category. And Christian motherhood, more specifically, was never meant to conform to the world’s standards at all.
The Girlboss Crept In Through the Back Door
Here is where it gets tricky. Many self-proclaimed Christian mothers have unknowingly allowed the girlboss mentality to take up residence in their homes. Perpetual busyness. Weekly schedules packed to the edges with extracurricular activities. Long to-do lists. The constant striving for a perfectly curated home, an Instagrammable life, overworked parents and overstimulated children.
Moms are ticking off an impressive number of boxes, but the relentless optimization has produced what I can only call the homogenization of the American family. Plain, pasteurized motherhood. Devoid of individuality and, most critically, devoid of the Holy Spirit as a life force.
What if being a Christian mother actually means being spirit-led? It is remarkable how foreign that idea sounds to many of us. We have the devotional books, the Bible verses memorized, the podcasts queued. And yet the very notion of genuinely living by the Holy Spirit, rather than by the world’s metric of productivity, feels somehow radical. Perhaps even a little strange.
Jesus, in John 14:16-17, tells us that He would send us the Holy Spirit, a Helper who would be with us forever, the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive. He did not send us the Holy Spirit so that our lives would look perfectly manicured or so that we would collect accolades. That is the world’s economy. It is not the economy of the Kingdom.
Fruitful, Not Productive
Living for the Kingdom will look messy. It will not be linear. There will be spiritual wrestling, dark valleys, and yes, breathtaking peaks. It will not be cookie-cutter. And yet mothers today are struggling under the crushing weight of trying to keep every ball in the air, perpetually burned out and genuinely wondering why. The answer is uncomfortable — we have brought the corporate structure of the girlboss directly into our homes, and it is completely unnatural. It is especially unnatural to the Christian life.
A real family life, one that is organic and shaped by the unique economy of your household, your spiritual giftings, and the particular children God gave you, is going to look like anything but productivity-worthy. It is, in fact, the total antithesis. The girlboss mentality is built on ambition, output, and the visible proof of success. But Jesus, in John 15, does not tell us to be productive. He tells us to be fruitful. And the path to fruitfulness is not a tighter schedule. It is abiding.
To abide in Jesus is to be led by the Holy Spirit. It means your days will be filled with nuance, interruption, and unexpected grace, because following God’s guidance means you are not leaning on your own understanding. You are following His. And that is a very different way to run a home.
Your Family Is Not a Blueprint
The moment we recognize that our homes and our motherhood are going to look fundamentally different from the way society defines them, something begins to loosen. More importantly, our family life is going to look different from every other family’s, and that is not a problem to solve. It is a gift to receive.
Each family consists of one mother who is entirely unique, one father who is entirely unique, and children who arrive into the world carrying their own unrepeatable souls. The structure for your family should not look anything like the next person’s. Some of the most fruitful families I know defy every social mold. From the outside their lives might even appear imperfect, because we have been conditioned to expect everything to be squared and symmetrical. But that is simply not Christian living.
Look at nature. Nothing grows in a straight line. Everything has organic curves, swerves, and wild, beautiful edges. Our motherhood should reflect that same living truth.
Some Things Worth Pondering
Before I offer any practical thoughts, let me say this clearly: I am in the trenches right alongside you. I have not arrived. Please take what follows and run it through prayer, because the Holy Spirit is a far better editor than I am.
My hope is simply that something here offers you a fresh perspective, a reminder that you do not need to do so much, because His yoke is easy and His burden is light. If you are struggling, it may be because you are working for the wrong boss.
Honor your monthly rhythm. You were not designed to live against your natural energy. Some weeks you will be full and overflowing (follicular phase and ovulation); others you will need to rest (luteal and menstrual phases). Honoring that is not laziness. Ignoring it is how dis-ease enters.
Release the martyrdom of the wrong things. Insisting on the perfectly homemade loaf while your hair goes unstyled and your skin goes untended is not virtue. It is misplaced priority. Give yourself permission to buy things already made. From a woman who spent a decade making everything from scratch: when homemaking serves you and your family, it is a beautiful discipline. When you have become enslaved to it, it is an idol.
Make your home a sanctuary of beauty. When your home is a nucleus of curated, personal beauty tailored to your family’s particular soul, the frantic pull to be everywhere begins to quiet. Romanticize your life at home. Play music while you cook. Burn candles. Put wildflowers or beautiful branches in a vase. These are acts of resistance against a world that profits from your dissatisfaction.
Choose your counsel wisely. Seek wisdom from wise, older women who bear fruit, not from women who simply strive well. Judge a tree by what it produces, not by how impressively it performs. And then pass every piece of advice, including this one, through the filter of the Holy Spirit.
Leila Marie Lawler’s Substack is my favorite for motherhood advice.
Guard your peace ferociously. The noise will not stop on its own. You will have to choose quiet. Lay your plans before God daily, several times a day, and leave room for Him to reroute you entirely.
The Kingdom’s Economy
Christian motherhood is not a lesser version of ambition. It is a higher one. It asks us to lay down our need to be seen producing and to take up the quieter, harder, more glorious work of abiding. That is where the fruit comes from.
His yoke is easy. His burden is light. And you were never meant to carry the world’s.
Alla Prossima
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I am a mother of three, a New Yorker who somehow ended up in the hills of Tuscany, and a woman who is nothing extraordinary on her own. But I serve a God who is. And everything I pour into these articles, every late night and early morning, is my humble offering toward a renaissance of all that is good, true, and beautiful in a world that is aching for it.
Until next time, friends.
Yours in Christ,
Nichole
A hearty “amen” from my corner! My parents never lived according to the world’s mold, and they set an incredible example for their children. My mother never followed trends but had her own beautiful, eclectic style. She could find a bargain at a flea market and refinish the wood or reupholster the seat. She sewed, gardened, quilted, canned vegetables, baked bread, read constantly, and loved hosting people on a moment’s notice for a cup of tea on the porch or a full meal. My father loved classical music and great film scores and always made sure the house was filled with music (he worked from a home office as a writer and editor). Growing up that way set the tone for my whole life. My own children love to contribute to the beauty of the home with bouquets from the garden, impromptu concerts on the living room piano, watercolor and pastel drawings, and so much more. The entire family makes the house hum with warmth, laughter, and joy (and, yes, there are arguments, too—we are real people!). A huge contributor to happiness at home is NO TV. Sure, we have computers and watch the occasional movie together, but my husband and I deliberately chose not to have a television from the start of our marriage and not to consume endless “entertainment.” It’s a time suck and also really pulls down the culture of the home. I’m always shocked when I am in a room with a TV blaring, because what’s on it is so ugly—and I don’t just mean the news. It’s also disheartening that folks have a hard time having a conversation that isn’t centered around what’s on TV or what’s trending online. When we find other families that love books, board games, making music, and gathering around a good meal, it’s like we’ve struck gold. More of this, please!
LOVED this! Powerful reminders. I loved the part about romanticizing our home life. Music on while we cook, fresh flowers in vases. This speaks to a simple and quiet and beautiful life.