I made applesauce today. You make it out of apples, cut up, blend, cook in bottles that seal and then you have applesauce ready when you want it. It’s not even hard but does take a little time.
Why would you care about applesauce? Because for me it is a symbol of a stay at home wife and mother. A symbol that says I take care of my own by giving of myself, my love, and my knowledge to add value to my family and our experience together. I don’t even like applesauce. But I love my family. They like applesauce. I make applesauce and I get to see them smile.It’s worth it.
I am currently enrolled in BYUI Pathways Worldwide. I am in my second semester, fourth week. I am taking The Eternal Family for my institute class and Professional Skills. I am having a hard time understanding how they go together. We are learning about the doctrine of the family and studying The Family, A Proclamation to the World where we read about marriage, gender, divine roles and responsibilities. These are things I have believed wholeheartedly and have given my life to living and teaching these simple principles. I have experienced the joy of sacrificing for my family and I have been greatly blessed when I prioritize my role as wife and mother. I have felt the support of my husband as he sacrifices by providing for our family and supporting the efforts we both make to create opportunities and experiences to help our children, as well as each other, to grow and develop. We have acted in faith that as we each fulfill our individual roles to our best ability, things will work out. And they always do.
Now I am taking a class on Professional skills where I feel like my time and sacrifice for my family have been a waste of time. Thirty five years of being a homemaker and raising up a righteous family do not count.
We had a sister speak at stake conference who had just finished the Pathways program. She loved it, learned so much, could help her son do his math. She talked about how it saved her because after all those years of raising children, her brain had gone to mush. Now she was learning and doing things. It turned me off right from the start. I joined Pathways despite the feelings I had after hearing her, not because of them. I felt inspired to trust this program and continue to learn. The difference being that I never felt like I had stopped learning. This was to be another path to more knowledge and understanding.
I appreciate the experience. I am learning new things and things I knew before. My frustration comes in the little pricks that tell me I am not enough. I don’t have experience. I don’t have marketable skills, I don’t have things to put on a resume. When I plug in the numbers for their charts to see the benefits of getting a degree, I get a negative answer because I have not worked, do not earn money and want to retire in 5 years when my youngest graduates from high school. And for me retiring means I just won’t have children at home. I might be free to go on missions with my husband but I imagine there is still much to do running a household and family.
I am tired of so much of the focus being on improving income. Yes we need to provide for our families but getting an education is so much more than just that to me. It is a sense of wonder, accomplishment, understanding, discovering connections and conclusions. It is a depth of meaning to this great world and the people in it. It is how to improve communication, relationships, add value to the world and improve my life experiences and hopefully those around me too.
I don’t believe that in our modern world we do not need women in the home. Being at home is not a forever vacation. I take it very seriously. I get up and dress for the day. I have regular responsibilities and projects. I create an atmosphere of love order, routine, fun, belonging, and safety where all are welcome and we all progress together. I volunteer with my church, community, at the temple, as a ministering sister, as a mother, grandmother. I feed my family real food made with real ingredients that nourishes and strengthens not only the body but also the mind and the soul. We live on a budget. We learn to have fun at home. We don’t require expensive vacations.We learn to work for the things we want and for each other. I am an example of active living, hard working, nature appreciating, continual learning and discovery. We need women who know how to be a homemaker, to love being a homemaker and to continue to appreciate the amazing things that can happen when women give their best to this sacred and divine calling of wife and mother.
If the goal in earning a degree is so that we can get a job, who is going to do the full time job I have been doing for 35 years? Who is going to take care of my family? My home? Who will have time to help the neighbor? Greet the grandkids after school? Work in the temple? Take a meal to the mom who just experienced a miscarriage and the dear friend who just lost her mother? Who is going to be the virtuous woman? A degree can help us do those things better but not if its purpose is to take us away from home.
I am concerned about the example we are setting for these next generations. So many feel the need to have two incomes. They feel the need to limit the size of their family so they can get on to more important things that “make a difference in the world” (career). I wish we had more women who love being feminine, claiming the power that comes from our strengths, our life view, our ability to love and serve. I wish we had more men and women who honor and cherish the roles of men and women as complementary and good. In fact, God given.
Let’s remember who and whose we are. Let’s remember why we are here and what is really important in the eternal plan of our loving Heavenly Father. Let’s take the time to ask him what is needful, what he would have us do.
Who is going to raise the children in a family? Do we want or need the government or large companies to take over feeding our children, providing daycare, after school programs? Who will have time to coach the soccer teams? Who will be available to supervise when the neighborhood kids want to get together or even help them learn to make friends and play fair. Who can young moms, moms of teenagers, moms planning and preparing for sending missionaries or planning weddings, or dealing with disappointments turn to to discuss, feel heard and maybe get insights about life’s challenges?
I wish there were some way to calculate the value of a woman at home. Child care, meal prep, laundry, housekeeping, decoration, nursing, tutoring, repairs, health instruction, sex education, financial planning, work ethiic, gospel education, taxiing, interest surveys and talent support, sports and physical fitness, healthy homemade meals without preservatives and other unknowns. What is the cost to the children when there is no mom in the home. Even my adult children continue to receive strength, comfort and help because I am at home and available. They are also respectful of my interests and schedule but I have the freedom to be flexible because I am a woman in the home.
I am supported by a husband that values all that I do for our home and family. He sees the fruit of investing in home and family, sacrificing the accolades of the world to bring goodness to our home, family and community. Investing in education that betters who I am without counting the monetary increase that might be realized. I am grateful for our ‘old-fashion’ values that are actually timeless truths that bless family living. After all, educating a woman educates the whole family IF the woman is there to be with the family and it is never a waste of education to devote your best to your family.
No comments:
Post a Comment