Does anyone feel me when I say I am freaking out a little bit? Okay, a lotta bit? I am pretty certain I am in the middle of a stay-at-home-mom-mid-life-crisis. Let me preface this post in complete #wannabereal honesty; I am seeing a licensed therapist/counselor to help me work through all of this and you should too. Licensed counselors are incredibly helpful for so many reasons.
I'm not even kidding a little in the title. This feeling of crisis is real and it had invades my life daily from the moment I awaken...and has been in my life four years now. Here I sit, a college educated woman in the year 2017 and I spend my days and nights managing a household. I meal plan, do the dishes, wash, fold and dry the laundry on the daily, plan family outings so we can make memories- other than sitting around the house staring at screens, direct homework and run carpool. Then I wake up the next day and do the exact same thing...again and again. I don't have a job out of the house, in the house or on top of my house within which I find self worth. There are no bonuses, no annual reviews, no complimentary trips for a job well done. Because of this I struggle with where to find my "atta-girls". I have been out of corporate America for a decade now...a DECADE! {Crazy talk}. Am I representing the sisterhood well by being a submissive and doting wife, cheerleader to my children and captain of this suburban ship? Or am I supposed to be doing more in the name of equality for the sisterhood, to prove my worth to this world? {Oh, I think I just answered my own question...don't judge me...keep reading.}
For all my girlfriends who work outside the home and think I am just another spoiled and complaining SAHM: my job has its perks and I know it. I wake up in pajama pants, make lunches in pajama pants, drive to school drop-off in my pajama pants. {Don't act like you don't do the same thing}. I shared this tidbit of truth with my mother last week and she gasped...an audible gasp. I laughed out loud. I do eventually change...into my workout pants whether I actually workout or not. Those pants are sheer awesomeness. They compress everything below the waist that reveals I am actually turning 36 this year and have carried three babies, and makes it all look perky, svelte and dare I say defined? I walk in the doors at HEB with swagger, like "Heck yeah, check me out in my compression leggings! Oh snap. Ignore my lack of makeup and hair chock full of dry shampoo for the last four days. My butt looks fab in these pants!" {Off topic Jenna...get yourself back on topic}. I can take a nap on days when all my kids are in some type of school if I choose and I can binge watch my DVR in the middle of the day. I don't do those things as often as you probably imagine I do, but I am sure I do them more often than you. That makes me feel guilty too.
My dream since being a young girl was to become a stay-at-home-mom. I wanted nothing more. I wanted to be there for every moment of everyday and soak it all up like a well worn kitchen towel. My mother is the hardest working woman I have ever met. She worked because she had no other choice, but she never complained about it. She took great pride in the work she did each day as a legal secretary and she was darn good at it. She still works now actually, but not in the legal field. I remember being a kid/teen and wishing my mom could stay at home more often with me. I understood why she could not and I have never ever held that against her, but the desires of my heart as a kid fed into the desire of my heart as an adult to be at home raising my children as my career. {It is a career regardless of what this world wants to call it}. When the time came in my life, I cried and begged God for our first baby AND the choice to stay at home and raise her. He answered my prayer after twelve months of fervent prayer and I've been home raising her and her brothers ever since. It was ten years this last November. I am eternally grateful that I have been at home to see everything, clean everything and pick up everything only to pick it all up again. I am exactly where I want to be and getting a full-time job outside of this calling as a wife and mother is not for me right now. Yet, I feel like I have lost my gusto. The 26 year old version of myself that reveled in folding tiny baby laundry and taking daily walks to the local park with my adorable infant has been buried beneath a mound of tears, dirty diapers, tantrums, inevitable laundry, and school lunches. I stare at myself in the mirror and can't help but feel like I've lost her. She is missing, and now I feel this pressure to do more and be more, as if I am not enough as a wife and mother in my mid-thirties.
My life is filled with messages telling me I am not good enough because I do not have a career and I do not grind daily to bust wide open the glass ceiling above our heads. I about lost my mind the day of the women's march across America and again during International Women's Day. No one was there to represent me. The stories I saw and/or read were all directed toward the women who want to be just like the men. What a message to send to my daughter, that my choice to be a stay-at-home-mom to her and her brothers shows weakness and idleness in a world that demands I seek equality by only trying to be exactly like my husband. God did NOT make me to be exactly like my husband. Don't you feel it, see it, know that women and men are made vastly different? We do not think alike, communicate alike, look alike or rationalize alike. We were made to balance one another, compliment each other and sharpen each other in this life. Speaking of my husband, he is currently getting his EMBA and his entire cohort spent the day praising the women that had the ambition to pursue admission into one of the most prestigious EMBA programs in the country. That is awesome and I am proud of them also, but me not being a party of the program does not make me inferior to the women who are there. They do not deserve any more praise or admiration on International Women's Day than I do. Praise the stay-at-home-moms too. What my husband's EMBA program does illustrate to me is that the men of this country are finally understanding that women are just as intelligent, driven and ambitious as they are; thereby, worthy to be given admittance to the top programs in the country regardless of their gender.
The pressure of him being in such a program weighs on my shoulders often. How do I compete with the resumes of his classmates? As a SAHM I dread one question more than any other in this success-obsessed world... "What do you do?" I actually had a man recently ask me this question and then proceed to tell me that he wishes he could trade places with his wife and stay home because he'd have so much "fun". This career I have chosen is hard work. I don't get into a silent car and commute to work each day. I get in a giant SUV and manage the chaos in the two rows behind me every time I step into my vehicle. I do not listen to the news, talk radio, top 40 or sports...I listen to music that is best for little ears and developing minds. I do not have a company willing to purchase plane tickets and hotel rooms around the world for me to have a chance to experience any type of culture outside of this small town I am blessed to call home. I do not have a resume rich enough to even convince a prestigious EMBA program to read more than my name and contact information, because I chose to sacrifice my career for the selfless title of stay-at-home-mom. {How insane is that? Where is equality in that scenario?} I assure you I can hold my own, speak and write eloquently, and work a room better than most, but none of that matters. I sealed my fate when I decided to raise children for a living.
On International Women's Day I wanted so desperately to send my own message to the world that my calling to stay-at-home and raise up a daughter and two sons does not diminish my value as member of the female sorority or my worth in life. Even with all this pressure and incessant doubt that I am not enough, I stand behind my choice. I do not want to be anywhere else but next to my children drilling long division, driving to martial arts and filling the same lunch box requests every single day. I CHOSE to sacrifice a career in corporate America, because the future of this world is rooted in the HOMES of America. It does not begin in an office, conference room or lecture hall at a prestigious university. The future of this world begins in the HOMES of this world where mothers stand over hot stoves and full sinks teaching children what unconditional love and selfless sacrifice look like each and every day. In homes where mothers lay next to their babies while they suffer all night with a fever and stand next to their child in the shower washing off the vomit from baby fine hair and their bodies when the flu strikes and you need someone to hold you and tell you it will all be okay soon. The future of this world begins in HOMES where mothers bow their heads in prayer for their children to be filled with wisdom and strength to maneuver this lust -driven and sin soaked world with discernment to know the difference between good and bad, right and wrong, and not to live a life governed by "Do what makes you happy", rather live a life governed by "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul mind and love your neighbor as yourself."
It has actually taken me three months to draft this post. I kept coming back to it week after week, editing it, adding to it as thoughts would come to me and never felt like it was ready to post; it wasn't yet time to send out into the infinite unknown so that you could sit here now, reading my words as they pour out like sweat and tears onto this screen. I've realized that I have spent the last four years living in fear instead of in hope and as each year passed I became a little more fearful that I had lost myself and would never be enough for anyone. I spent many days searching and crying out both literally and figuratively. In those moments I knew where to go for truth and encouragement, but in all honesty, just laying in bed feeling pitiful almost sounded like a better option. {It was not.} . The truth always lies in the Word of the One True God. I will write it, sing it, read it, search for images that depict it on my phone to save to my iPhoto app, so I can read them and share them with others. Here are some of my favorites, paraphrased, but referenced so you can read them in full yourself.
When I am weak he makes me strong (2 Corinthians 12:9-11).
He has a plan for my life and it is not to hurt me...HIS plan is full of hope and a future! (Jeremiah 29:11).
My hope is not in anything this world can give me; I am given a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:3).
I have nothing to fear. (John 14:27)
Dwell with God constantly and find rest with him. (Psalm 91:1)
I am in a much better place now. I have my weak moments, but I know that my worth comes from God and I am enough no matter what my career is today, tomorrow or five years from now. I pray each morning and night with my children and I always pray aloud so they can hear me say "Dear God, please teach my children and help me to teach them to find their confidence in you and not in this world. You have made them to do great things every single day." This prayer applies to me and to you. God created every single life to do great things in his name. It is why we live each day...to love one another because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)