How I became "just a mom"

I went to college, like a lot of young women, and didn't give much thought to anything other than working at the job I was training for.

And then I had a baby.

I went on a job interview when I was about 8 weeks pregnant and I cried all the way to my car out of the fear that I might get the job and have to leave my baby for 8 or 9 hours in the care of someone else.  

I didn't get that job, thank goodness.

My husband and I never discussed whether or not I would be a stay-at-home mom, or whether he was willing to make the sacrifices necessary for a one-income family to survive.  Heck, we barely knew each other when we got married.  I held my breath and tip-toed around the issue for a while and to my great relief, he felt exactly the way I felt: I should be the one to raise our children, not day care providers or grandparents.

*DISCLAIMER: Young girls, I do not recommend that you marry a fella you've known less than a year like I did.  I lucked out!  He turned out to be a wonderful, trustworthy man but all I knew of him, really, was that he was handsome and he hadn't missed a day of work in all the time I knew him (except for once, we both played hookie while we were dating to see the airshow but that was partly my fault).  

Here we are now, 10 years later and I have never, not once, regretted that I didn't work full time.  I'm not going to tell you that this is God's best, original plan for how the family should function.  It's the way my family functions best (and it happens to be the way families functioned for a millenia before our generation--who knows everything about everything, amiright?--came along) but I also know that we live in a great big world with all kinds of people living all kinds of lives and there's room for us all.  

If reading about how to make SAHM life work is not your cup of tea, that's all right.  

I don't think that makes you less of a mom than me.  But I also don't think that me choosing homemaking over a professional career makes me less of a woman than anyone else.  The internet has given me this platform so I'm going to sing it from the rooftops (er...well, the front porch of my audience of family and friends):  YOU DON'T HAVE TO WORK.  

I grew up post-women's lib and I've come to believe that the movement to get women out of the kitchen and into the workforce has been incredibly destructive to the fabric of our society.  This is a very complex issue and I'll get into it in future posts and again, we are allowed to disagree, but it has taken me years to be comfortable with myself as "just a mom."  That is a shame.  

Nuthin' wrong with that!

A few of my Goodreads.com book reviews:
     


The Alchemist's Daughter by Katherine McMahon




Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks





Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe





Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand






American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld





Commencement by Courtney J. Sullivan





Durable Goods by Elizabeth Berg




We Are All Welcome Here by Elizabeth Berg







A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly





Because of Mr. Terupt by Rob Buyea






Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold







Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter




   Percy Jackson (my assessment of the entire Camp Half-Blood series)




  At the Sign of the Sugared Plum

"Behold, It Was Leah."

Leah is such a fascinating woman. When we first meet her in Genesis 29 and 30, she is introduced as being the homely older sister of the beautiful and beloved Rachel. Jacob is a passionate guy and devotes himself totally to those he loves. He is so devoted to Rachel that working, essentially for free for 7 years, feels like a day to him. When the wedding day arrives, he has waited so long for that which he craves that he doesn't notice that his bride is not Rachel. “In the morning, behold, it was Leah,” the King James says.

This begs the question, which the bible never answers, of whether or not Leah entered into that loveless marriage bed willingly, or if she was forced into it by Laban. Frankly, it's easier for me to imagine that she didn't want to be there. But what if she did? The question haunted me for months until I finally did something with it by writing Lucy's story.

Lucy came to America as a child with her family on the Mayflower and this story takes place roughly ten years later, which would place it historically around 1632. This excerpt is from my WIP (Work In Progress), which is tentatively titled, A Place of Their Own and is the third in a series that tells the amazing, true story of the Pilgrims.

       She got down on her knees and opened her new trunk and rummaged around for the looking glass.  She sat down at the table with it, wiped it with a clean corner of her apron and, holding it up in the candle light, stared at herself in a mirror for the first time in her life.  She had seen her wobbly, distorted reflection in the water bucket on occasion and knew her dark hair began high on her forehead.  She knew her eyes were dark like her hair, and her nose small, and that there was a pesky strand of hair that stuck out above her left ear no matter how tightly she bound it.  She was forever tucking it behind her ear and seeing herself in the mirror reminded her to do so again.    

       She blinked at herself, disappointed in what she saw, for staring back at her was a dour, frowning face that looked much older than what she was, with hair drawn tight and a smudge of dirt on her cheek.  She touched her skin and pulled it tight around her eyes.  She turned her head slightly to examine her jaw line and nearly dropped the mirror at the sight of a dark hair sprouting near her chin.
     “It’s no wonder,” she muttered to herself, fingering the hair.
      The longer she looked at herself the more she began to regret what she wrote in the letter.  It was so shamelessly feminine with its whining and pathetic, “I just want you to know how it makes me feel,” and “I sincerely hope I haven’t made things worse by telling you this.”  So desperate with its, “I’ve never had anyone tell me I’m pretty.”  She cringed at the thought that she actually wrote it and handed it to him and waited so expectantly while he read it. 

      What she was really saying was “Tell me you want me too!  More than you want her!” And how could she expect him to do that with any sincerity at all now?  What could he possibly say to her?  

      As she looked at her reflection with nothing else to do, nothing to fill her thoughts with except how plain and frumpy she felt compared to her perfect sister, she saw Rosanna in her imagination, petite and lithe and with tinkling laughter and she heard Jacob’s words again: “There will never be another like you,” and the tears stung her eyes and she thought, "Who cares? Curse them all."  There was a fleeting moment of rebellious irrationality when she could actually be glad she wrote what she wrote. 

      She reached behind her head with one hand and took her hair down and watched it tumble around her shoulders. It was an improvement.  Maybe one day Jacob would see her like this and he wouldn't think of Rosanna.  She bent her head over her knees and jostled her shoulders and readjusted her dress until her breasts rested above her bodice, bound only in the light fabric of her dress, full and soft and nearly suffocating her with their proximity to her chin.  But looking in the mirror, she could see that there was something desirable in her too and though she never would have had the courage to present herself to a man this way, she held on to the knowledge that there was something desirable in her.

      She grabbed a chunk of hair in one hand and twisted it up the side of her head.  Still holding the mirror, she gazed at herself with the expression she had seen Mara and Finch exchange when they thought no one was looking.  There was the slight pout of the lips which turned up at the corners in a knowing smile.  There was the look of anticipation on their faces and the uninhibited desire for what was to come when the candles were out and the doors closed.  Sometimes there was a smile and a pressing of the lips together in feigned shock at what the other was implying with those secret provocative expressions that conveyed things known only between two lovers who knew each other to their depths.   

      Lucy had never watched them and been envious of what they shared because despite all the ways she had grown up faster than her years dictated, in matters of love, she remained like a child, having no desire for it until now. 

      Lucy looked at her reflection and pretended Jacob was there.  She saw herself looking at him this way across the table, communicating to him in the way only a wife could with her husband and it filled her with a flutter of excitement and daring and longing such as she had never felt before.

She was so entranced by the vision of herself as a wife who, with her eyes, reveals her pleasure at the loss of her innocence, she startled at the bang of the door.  There Jacob stood, inside the house with his back against the closed door, staring at her. 

      Lucy dropped her hair and slammed the mirror down and tried to swallow her embarrassment.

“Mother sent me after the bible,” he said.

      “Oh?” was the only thing she could think to say.  She slid her hands over her hair and flattened it against her head, sure that Victoria had left the bible behind on purpose, and wishing she would have anticipated it instead of being caught like an unsuspecting burglar in the house.  She heard his footsteps moving across the room but she could not bring herself to look at him. 

      There were so many things she wanted to know.  Did he even want her for a wife?  Could he really see himself married to her?  Did he have it in him to deny Rosanna in her favor?  At the same time, she thought it better not to know the answers to these questions.  Sometimes, in matters that were beyond one’s control, it was better to accept the way things were and not be so concerned with feelings and desires.  How could it be helped if he did not want her?  It would be of no benefit to her to know that.

      If she could only talk to Jacob, have a simple conversation with him that didn’t involve her neediness and insecurities and plaintive requests for him to tickle her ears with insincere compliments. They could discuss their faith or the crop or the coldness of the weather. Anything.  Conversing came easy enough with Ben, surely she could do it with Jacob too.  When she finally collected enough nerve, she called, “Jacob!” but it was too late.  He had slipped out of the house and pulled the door shut behind him.

The Author's Life In the Digital Age: Is This the End or Just the Beginning?

There was once a time when starving artists were literally starving.  There was no money to be made in the arts and there was very little exposure but creators created anyway because there was something beautiful or honest or thoughtful in them that needed to come out.  If the king liked your work, you were lucky enough to perform/paint/write for an audience.  If he didn't, you created in obscurity.

As society progressed, performers began collecting wages and gaining notoriety.  There was even the possibility for a young person to dream of one day being an artist.  One of my favorite stories to read my kids is I Dreamed I Was a Ballerina by Anna Pavlova, a famous Russian ballerina who was born in poverty in St. Petersburg in 1881, who saw her first ballet as a child.

A generation later, Hollywood began making actors famous and it only took one more generation for artists to achieve godlike celebrity and wealth.

The progress was similar for writers.  Many of the great works we study and admire today were written by people who died in poverty but thank God they wrote anyway.  I often wonder how many brilliant minds went untapped and unnoticed because it was virtually impossible be noticed back then.  Writers from the beginning of the 20th century until now have enjoyed unprecedented pay, recognition, fame, and copyright privileges and I'm glad they have.  They deserve every bit of it.  What a wonderful age we live in when art is appreciated and the creators of it are revered and paid for their work!

This article on The Guardian - From Best Seller to Bust: Is This the End of the Author's Life? reveals a serious lack of perspective.  They are scared of the future, of making a living in the digital age.  I can understand that.  Their way of life is in the process of being turned on its head.

But as an aspiring author myself, one who has never made a dime on anything I've written, I really don't care about the fear of the giant publishing houses after the credit crisis of 07.  I don't need the king to approve of my work and offer me a 6-figure deal.  If I can scrounge together a few people who enjoy  my work and anticipate when the next book/blog is coming, I will be thrilled and feel as if all the time, all the self-doubt, all the toil, will be worth it.

After all, as a writer who happens to also be a Christian, I am nothing.  I am a worm that crawls the ground.  All of my words, all of my thoughts, no matter how well I string them together, are filthy rags.  They are my offering to Him, who created that which I can only try (and fail) to accurately describe in my own art.  If someone wants to pay me for them, well I guess that's a bonus but I will not look at the plight of the publishing industry in the digital age with fear.  I will consider it a gift that a lowly, obscure worm like me can put my words out in the great big world even though Penguin, Random House, Tyndale, and all the rest have never heard my name.

When God's Call Requires Change

The Curse of the Comfortable Life

Melanie did not have an easy life.  Her parents were passionate and impulsive, which sometimes meant laughter and excitement, but more it often manifested itself in screaming fights, and moving, and periods of fearful uncertainty.  As a result, she grew into a woman who deliberately contradicted everything about them.  She was gentle and soft, she never raised her voice, and she agonized over the tiniest decisions to the point of making herself sick.

Only one decision came easy to her: marrying Rob.

Rob was not a man in the way that her father was.  If the toilet was clogged, Rob was useless.  It also fell to Melanie to roll up the newspaper and smash the wasps that continually found their way into the apartment through a gap near the dryer vent which, it never occurred to Rob to repair.  But that didn't matter to Melanie because he was a man in the way that it mattered to her.  He would protect her with his life, and nearly did one night when they were visiting friends downtown.  Perhaps the incident wouldn't have come to that but Rob didn't back down.  The next day he asked her to marry him and she said yes before he got the question out.

Rob didn't have much luck finding a job.  He tried working in sales and hated it.  He had moderate success in IT but was laid off.  In a complete departure, he worked in landscaping for a year and didn't mind it but couldn't see supporting a family that way.  Though Melanie had always wanted children (and still did) she asked one night how Rob felt about nursing school.  "If that's what you want to do," he had said with a shrug and she thought, perhaps, he was a little bit relieved.

She took her time, researching, deliberating, weighing each program, predicting how it would fit into her life, deciding which one would make her happiest.  When she finally selected one, she found it to be much harder than anticipated.  But the day came when she sat on a cushioned stool in front of a real live patient for clinicals, the smell of latex in the air, a throbbing purple vein before her, and she reached down and found the magic balance between cold detachment and warm compassion.  She plunged the hollow needle into the vein and watched as the tube filled with dark blood.  Her patient had said, "That wasn't so bad," and she knew she was born to do this.

It didn't freak her out when Rob came to her one day and said he wanted to enlist in the Army.  She knew that it would be a long process, if it actually happened (which she doubted), and that she would have plenty of time to accomplish her goals, so she told him to go ahead and talk to the recruiter.  It couldn't hurt to ask questions.

He burst through the door of their apartment that same afternoon, flush with excitement, a thick packet of papers in his hand, and said, "They want me on a bus to Fort Sill in three weeks."  He spoke rapidly, breathlessly, telling her the unusual circumstances of his immediate ship date but she didn't hear any of it after he said, "We'll be at our first duty station in four months."   He put his hands on her hips and did a little suggestive dance and said, "You'll be playing the little Army wife in no time."

She shoved him away and said, "You expect me to be happy about this?  What about my career?  I've worked so hard for this and I'm supposed to just throw the last eighteen months in the garbage?"

They didn't speak for two days. 

After that, Rob was angry and she was sorry because he had a right to be.  Two years ago, she was as desperate as he was for him to have a good job so that they could have a good life.  She would have followed him with no regrets.  But now she was creating her own good life and she was so close to the finish line.  There was such promise ahead if she stuck to the nursing program, and what could Rob promise?  A tiny house on post with old cabinets and an endless job search for her, an under-qualified woman who would never, ever finish anything she started because she would have to follow him wherever he went?

When so much time had passed that they began to feel that they were wasting what little time they had left, she wiped her eyes and said, "I love you, Rob, but I need to stay here and finish what I've started."

Rob shipped out and Melanie got her nursing degree.  She landed the job she'd always wanted.  She stayed faithful to Rob and he to her despite the distance.  This was not exactly the life she planned but she was making it work and that little part of her that craved stable, predictable life was happy enough.  Rob didn't hold it against her.  He understood.  He always held out hope that she would give up her version of a good life for the one he promised.

This is a story that I've seen played out many times.  Sometimes it ends badly but sometimes, like with Rob and Melanie, the end is not necessarily bad, but you get the feeling that it could have been better, don't you?

I think that's how we are so often when God has called us to something that has the promise of greatness but the risk is just too big and we're just too comfortable where we're at.  There is a story in Numbers in which the Israelites are about to go into the Promised Land.  It's been 40 years since they left Egypt and now all they have to do is muster the courage to cross the Jordan and fight to obtain it.  They've waited their whole lives for this, for the "land of milk and honey," for God to make good on what He promised their parents.  There are good things, finally, to come for them. 

But three tribes, Rueben, Gad, and the half tribe Manasseh beg Moses to let them stay where they are.  They've built up their livestock, and the land they're on now is good enough, and, well, they just don't want to cross the Jordan right now.  Things are going ok for them, so why take the risk?  Moses is initially furious with them and thinks they are being unfaithful but they assure him they are not.  They pledge their young fighting men to go when duty calls but they say, "We simply want to build pens for our livestock." 

If they are willing to accept this portion of land instead of the one that is waiting for them in the Promised Land (Numbers 32:16-19), what is left for Moses (and God) but to say, "Fine.  If this is what you want, I'm not going to drag you kicking and screaming.  The choice of whether or not to enter into God's will is ultimately up to you." 

This is the question we have to ask when we have made our choices and we are satisfied with our lives the way we have ordered them: Am I shrinking from potentially great things because of the risk that stands in the way?  Have I ever led my family to shun comforts in favor of the hard work of obtaining promises seen from a distance?

We are at such a disadvantage as Americans who "create our own destiny" and amass wealth that tricks us into thinking our lives are just fine, thank you very much.  When you're settling in at the end of a comfortable day, looking ahead at another comfortable day tomorrow, and the next day and the next, and hoping that it just goes on this way for 30 years so nothing ever gets uncomfortable, do you ever wonder what you might be missing?  I promise you, God does, for He did not call you to a life of fear and timidity.