Two nights before her delivery, I was awake at 4 am, sitting on a big blue exercise ball, trying to stay comfortable through contractions. The following journal entry is what poured forth from my pen that night. This was the night I re-connected with my life as a homemaker in a deep way.
December 5, 2012 – 4:30 am
It’s in a moment like this that it becomes crystal clear to me that the life I have chosen for myself is exactly the one I believe is my personal calling.
The countercultural nature of my lifestyle has tempted me to
insecurity many, many times. I defend
myself, I hide myself, or I try to compete with other people by rules that
don’t apply to me, rules set by a very different lifestyle choice.
Tonight I am proud of my decisions and I vow never again to
apologize for them or hide them. I will
celebrate this life.
I was a single woman with no job outside the home. I was provided for financially by my
father. I learned the art of homemaking
from my mother and I learned to care for children. My time was free to pursue any project inside
or outside the home to be productive.
Work was a value and laziness was not excused. Yet this type of work was flexible. I could put down a current project at a
moment’s notice to serve other people, especially other women. At 17 I spent 5 weeks in the home of a woman
who just gave birth and was unusually sick.
Her husband was also sick and she had 6 children to manage. I went to her side to help her for over a
month. This is only one example out of
dozens where I was free to serve when others were tied down by careers.
If society does not create at least a certain percentage of
women, like me, to do this type of work, who will do it? A paid nanny or paid companion? Few can financially afford such a
luxury. And will a nanny or companion,
trained only in a classroom, be as good as a woman who lived and breathed this
lifestyle from girlhood?
I’m married now. I’ve
been married for 12 years without children.
Part of the philosophy behind a life of homemaking and serving during my
single years was to prepare me to be a wife and mother. When I didn’t become a mother soon after
marriage, I often lost perspective and wondered if I should have pursued a
career to “stay busy.” I could have had
any job I wanted. I was a smart
child. I could have gone to college to
be a lawyer or a nurse or a business owner.
I had the brains for any of those options. But that is not the life I chose. At a young age, I saw the value of a
homemaker and I embraced the training my parents and others were willing to give
me. I could blame my parents for
“pushing me into this lifestyle,” but I can’t do that. Plenty of other girls were encouraged by
their parents to live the life of homemaking I was living and many girls chose
not to go this route. The choice was
mine.
I could have pursued a career and I might have enjoyed it
very much. But if I had pursued a
career, I would not have been free to serve the people I have served as a
married woman without children these last 12 years. Tonight, my only regret is that I didn’t
serve more people and make the most of the time. I regret the times I spent feeling lost and
useless and paralyzed.
I am about to have a baby.
I will still be able to live this life of homemaking and serving other
women, but my time will be more limited than before. I am now the woman in need rather than the
woman who is free to go.
Tonight I am lonely.
I'm wishing there was a single woman in my community who would come and
sit by my side as I go through the days and days and night after long night of
childbirth pains that lead up to final labor… or even a married woman to at
least sit with me during the day while our husbands are at work.
Where are these women?
Our society has eliminated most of them.
Let me say that I fully support and applaud women who's heart's desire is to work outside the home with a vibrant career. I'm grateful we live in a day and age when women are respected and free to do so. At this point, the problem isn't that women who want a career can't have one. At this point, our challenge, as a culture, is to make sure women who chose homemaking feel equally productive and respected even though their productivity is measured differently than in the corporate world.
I want to end by saying thank you to Jaime and Amanda; two women who were there for me at the hospital during the most challenging moments of my entire life. Jaime is a homemaker with 4 children. Amanda is currently staying home with a 7 month old baby boy. That night, these women embodied the true spirit of homemaking and women helping women.
