SALT LAKE CITY — For you moms out there, have you ever had an experience where you put the needs of your children above the needs of yourself? Haha, you say. Is that question supposed to be joke? How about every day, right?

So why do we do this? What makes us naturally put our kids first without sometimes even consciously recognizing we are?

For instance, one Sunday a couple of months ago after a typically busy morning we arrived to church a little frazzled. After making it through about 15 minutes of sacrament meeting our 1-year-old became restless and made a run for it down the nearby aisle. After chasing her down and causing a small scene, I swooped her up and hurriedly exited to the foyer, with our 3-year-old son following close behind.

For those of you that attempt attending any congregated function while also trying to keep your little ones quiet, you realize this type of a scenario is a very usual occurrence. But there is more to the story.

We began wandering the halls of the building, which from my experience is usually a good way to pass church time with restless children. But this particular day there was a display set up in the foyer and my youngest found trying to tear it apart a bit too tempting. So we made our way to the other side of the building, passing a few members of the congregation in the halls along the way and saying hello.

Soon after making it to the other side of the building I noticed a group of people gathered and talking in the opposite foyer. After a minute or two I had that feeling: the feeling that eyes were on me. I glanced toward the group and noticed that one individual in the group was, indeed, sort of staring at me — and with a semi-concerned look, I must add. I quickly looked away so as to avoid making eye contact, and began running the reasons of why he would be looking at me through my head. Was he sympathetic to my handful of kids? Was there something in my teeth? Could he have noticed my cute new skirt? (Likely not.)

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But the way he was looking almost seemed as though he wanted to approach me and tell me something. I was feeling a little uncomfortable with the situation, so I directed my children away from where we were standing and down the nearest hallway. When we reached the end of the hall I bent over to straighten my daughter’s skirt and as I leaned down I noticed, to my horror, that my blouse had come unbuttoned a few too many buttons down, exposing more than I am comfortable with, especially in church!

I froze in a moment of panic. There was a group of men standing just feet away from me. Even if they had already seen, I felt the harrowing need to preserve any ounce of dignity I had left. So I scooped up my daughter, plastered her across the front of me (despite her kicking in protest), grabbed my son’s hand and sped down the hallway to the nearest ladies room to fix my indiscretion.

Not knowing how long my shirt had been this way, my mind raced back to the man staring at me, then to the people I said hello to in the hall, and even to those who were sitting around us in the congregation. I suddenly realized there was a good chance all those people had seen my accidental church indiscretion!

I was mortified, and even more embarrassed at the thought that people might have assumed I meant to wear my shirt that way. I guess I’ll never know. And as for my husband, well, he obviously wasn’t the most observant that day. I’m still “thanking” him for that one!

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from experiences like this, it’s to not dwell on or over-think them. So I buttoned up my shirt and chalked up the incident to another “interesting” moment in my life as a mom.

The ironic thing about this experience is, I’m sure I straightened my kids’ shirts and wiped their faces 20 times that day to make sure they were presentable for church, but didn’t take a moment glance at myself long enough to notice my own faux pas.

The truth is, as moms, in all the business of taking care of our little ones we sometimes forget ourselves. We end up putting our children’s needs before our own in every aspect. Just as, without question, we’d hand our child the last piece of bread in a crisis of famine we also check to make sure their shirts are properly buttoned before checking our own.

Call it lack of observation or an airheaded moment due to a rushed morning, which I’m sure played a part in it, but I tend to think this incident also largely falls back to a very basic instinct. The instinct that, as mothers, we have an inherent desire to fill our children’s needs above all else. It's quite a unique and miraculous quality, when you actually stop to think about it. But it's also very simple: We put our kids' needs above our own without asking for much in return. They teach us to be selfless in the very sense of the word.

So it’s back to the age-old question: Why do we do all that we do for our children? I think my answer would have to be something like this: pure, unconditional love.

Lindsay Ferguson is a wife and a mother of two young children. She writes from home and keeps up a blog at www.lifeasamomuncut.blogspot.com.

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