Hearth Smart

From Chicken Soup for the Soul: Power Moms

BY: By Janeen Lewis

Women do not have to sacrifice personhood if they are mothers. They do not have to sacrifice motherhood in order to be persons.
~Elaine Heffner

I always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. As a preschooler, I rocked my dolls and dreamed of the day they would be real babies. I grew older, and still the dream did not fade.

When I was thirteen, I was perusing the shelves in my favorite place, the library of my junior high school, when one of my teachers asked, "What would you like to be when you grow up?"

"I want to be a wife and mother," I said without hesitation. "I want to stay at home and take care of my children."

She gasped in unbridled horror.

"You are too smart for that!" she said.

I explained, with all the wisdom a scrawny, bespectacled eighth-grader could muster against such a formidable adult, that education was very important to me and that I did indeed want to get a degree. However, I still wanted to be a homemaker. My explanation didn't change the bewildered look in her eyes, and the drip of her disappointment permeated my sanctuary.

The years went by, and I did, as my eighth grade voice declared, get my degree. I got three of them, actually. I wrote for a small town newspaper after journalism school. Then I got a teaching degree and taught for eight years, during which time I got a master's degree. Ironically, I was often told I was very smart and ambitious, but the real ambition was the dream that never let go of me--the aspiration of caring for a family. I am sure there are many whose sentiments would have matched my junior high teacher's. The fact that someone with so much education would want to be "merely a homemaker" wouldn't be considered smart. I grew up when it was hip to be Murphy Brown or Claire Huxtable. But I wanted to be Caroline Ingalls or Donna Reed. When I was in college, I read about the biblical Proverbs 31 woman, whose primary job was to care for her household, and thought "now there's a woman with a resume."

It felt like the role of stay-at-home-mom, instead of being lauded, was becoming a dinosaur, and a simple-minded one at that. It started my own barrage of nagging, doubtful thoughts. I was stimulated by school and keeping busy. Sometimes I would glimpse myself down the road. Would I end up on the sofa, hundreds of pounds heavier in a bon-bon-and-Doritos-induced stupor while my kids from the future hit and screamed at each other? Obviously, my teacher's remark had stayed with me.

Almost twenty years after that memorable conversation, a delivery room nurse laid the warm bundle of blankets that held my newborn son, Andrew, in my arms. The reality of it was much sweeter than I had imagined, and my instincts were right. I loved everything about motherhood from the beginning: the triangle of soft, warm glances between my husband, son, and I; the way Andrew's hungry cry subsided when he was nursed or cuddled; and the sweet rhythm of his baby snores as I cradled him on my arm. I even looked forward to that dreadful deed of diapering my son. I would smile and he would coo and flail his little arms and legs with excitement. My husband was my hero when he graciously agreed that I would stay at home. I would finally learn the answer to the question that had been posed two decades earlier--would it really be a smart decision to trade in my schoolbag and life with adults for diapers and a small little being that spit up more than he talked? Would it really be wise to stop setting my watch to the workplace clock and start setting it to Big Bird time instead?

It has been two years since my dream of becoming a stay-at-home mom was realized and my "smart" research began. Here is a small sampling of all that I have learned. There is nothing "mere" about being a stay-at-home mom. It involves training a child, with emotional endurance, ten to twelve hours a day, every day. It is full of decision-making and problem-solving. Anyone who has convinced a picky eater to try a new food or trained a toddler to crouch and "go potty" on a miniature toilet knows this. Being a stay-at-home mom requires patience with little hands and feet that are slow and clumsy with tasks, but incredibly light and quick with mischief. It is having childhood rhymes and counting songs swimming around in your brain all day, and modeling manners repetitively. It's going non-stop; forget the bon-bon stupor.

Staying at home is about creativity and cleverness because there is less income for things like decorating, landscaping, and chic ensembles. My seamstress mother and aunts, former stay-at-home moms themselves, can whip up a great Halloween costume or reupholster a couch without batting an eye or spending a fortune. Being a stay-at-home mom is about analyzing finances and arming oneself with a stealth-like thriftiness that allows no bargain to escape. Staying at home requires inventiveness wrapped around flexibility and versatility. It's about being the chef of all things warm and cheesy, the baker of Elmo birthday cakes, the singer of songs, kisser of wounds, finder of all things lost, and soother of ruffled spirits.

Finally (as if the list of required skills isn't already long enough), being a stay-at-home mom is often about supplementing a husband's income. After Andrew was born, I began freelance writing from home, something I had wanted to do since journalism school but had been too afraid of failing to even try. The day I put my son down for a nap and found an e-mail with my first magazine article acceptance, I danced for joy. Being home with Andrew gave me the bravery to expand my creative outlet of writing.

In the adult world I get pats on the back followed by "good for you... you get the best of both worlds," when I tell people I work from home. I do like the choreography in this mambo of writing and meeting my son's needs, but the truth is I write so that I can spend my days with Andrew, and the job titles in his world mean more to me than a glamorous career.

I know my teacher, who was genuinely a kind woman, meant well that day in the library. She just didn't understand then what I have come to know better. Being a stay-at-home mom takes a great deal of savvy, and I am the better for it. Staying at home with Andrew has brought out traits in my personality that I never even knew existed. For me, it was at the hearth that I found my heart. I found a beautiful medley of strength and sacrifice, challenge and love, warmth and ambition, work and home. Being a stay-at-home mom is the smartest thing I have ever done.

http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/Chicken-Soup-For-The-Soul/2009/11/Hearth-Smart.aspx?source=NEWSLETTER