joy

A big helping of drudgery with bit of joy on the side.

When I first got married, I was a semester away from graduating college. During our engagement, I left my job at a local literacy center to work for a local software company, a job that yielded more income but significantly less satisfaction.
Though early married life presented its fair share of bliss, life overall was somewhat less than ideal. Since Tim still had two years left to complete his engineering degree, that left me to fulfill the role of “breadwinner”. But, as you might imagine, jobs for “almost graduates” were not particularly lucrative. Or fun, for that matter.
Add to that the fact that I came home from work on a daily basis to discover that my husband’s video game hobby was more like a habit-a fact that had not been adequately revealed to me during our courtship.
Life was somewhat monotonous. Indeed, those first few months of matrimony required adjustment.
In talking with an old friend from my early college years over the phone, I described what most of my life consisted of. She caught my hint of dissatisfaction and said, ” Susie, you have too much talent to waste it cleaning dirty toilets and dish rags.”
I immediately felt defensive. I hadn’t meant to complain. But my reality at the time was a huge helping of drudgery with a little joy on the side. And that somehow came across as dissatisfaction.
In our consumer and entertainment culture, many have grown accustomed to getting as much out of life as they possibly can. We chase lucrative careers, picture perfect families, endless entertainment, and adventures across the globe.
And why shouldn’t we? The world is literally at our fingertips. The American Dream is alive and well and our thriving economy facilitates our insatiable appetites for consumption.
And yet attaining all the world has to offer has not made us much happier. In fact, statistically-speaking, the correlation between happiness and wealth levels off at an annual income of $75K. (If one believes that happiness is measurable, anyway).
The truth is, I think happiness is often bred from drudgery. I don’t mind digging in and shoveling a bit of figurative manure because it makes the harvest that much more satisfying.
Why are we so afraid of things going wrong?
One of my daughters is a toxic perfectionist. She completely shuts down when she falls short of expectations. On everything. It’s exasperating to watch.
I wonder if she is partly the product of a world addicted to Tik Tok and Instagram. She doesn’t have either of those, but one has to wonder at how the culture is being shaped by those platforms.
Why do we think endless entertainment is the key to happiness? It certainly doesn’t build up our resilience to challenges in life.
If there’s anything this pandemic has taught me, it’s that there is joy to be found in literally any circumstance. AND, that one can be miserable and happy at the exact same time.
Except when I drag my kids out for a walk in the dead of winter and they spend the entire time whining about how cold it is and how tired they are.
There is no happiness in that. Whatsoever.

How to discover the joy of being a stay-at-home mom.

I took Jack to story time at the library for the first time in his life this morning.  Poor youngest child – we were faithful attendees from birth to age five with each of the others.  I decided I had to commit to at least one thing per day that we do “just for him”, and although I consistently read to him and play with him on the floor, I determined that we needed to “get out” more so that his world consists of more than the four walls of our home (and the inside of my car – because, as the youngest of five, you can be sure he spends ample time in his car seat between 3 and 7 p.m.)

There’s a new library that just so happens to be on our end of town – 10 minutes closer than the downtown library we have always frequented, so we hit it up this morning.  Story time was all right, but surprisingly, the best part was after the stories had been read and the developmental toys spread throughout the room for the kids to sample.

I met a sweet Vietnamese lady and her 13-month old daughter who were new to the area and anxious to rub shoulders with others.  She talked incessantly, admitting that she felt isolated as a stay-at-home mother and was itching for opportunities to find satisfaction in that particular role.  She remarked that she couldn’t wait until they started to feel settled in their new situation (husband’s job, neighborhood, etc.) so that she could perhaps go back to work.

When she found out I was the mother of five, and that I had stayed home for over fourteen years, she was incredulous, wondering how I could do it.  I didn’t really have an answer for her.

In some ways I feel like the fact that I enjoy this gig so deeply is a result of dumb luck.  For starters, my mother had modeled it for me – and her performance was admirable.

My husband values my role in the home, (and his) so he makes an effort to be an active participant in family life and show consideration for the fact that I bear the brunt of the child-rearing.

I am a naturally structured person, so I craft routines that provide stability for everyone in the home.

I like being social but I can survive without a whole lot, so isolation is not something with which I struggle.

I belong to a church that values motherhood and provides a support system for those who stay at home.

In my early parenting years, we moved into a community where the majority of residents were in the same stage of life as us, so I had ample opportunity to befriend those around me.

I adore babies/toddlers/preschoolers and have no trouble coming up with ways to enjoy parenting “littles” (it’s the older kids I with whom I struggle).

I am pretty frugal and don’t feel that our lives would be greatly improved if I earned a living.

I’m not anywhere near a perfectionist and rarely beat myself up over the inevitable mishaps of parenting.

And last but certainly not least, I have a deep and abiding commitment to motherhood and a considerable drive perform it to the best of my ability.  I know fundamentally that there is no job in the world that is more important and that keeps me going.

Sometimes I feel like motherhood is my calling in life, as though each of my characteristics was carefully crafted so that I would tackle it head on and find immense satisfaction in it.  Does that mean I don’t have days where I have watched the clock for Tim to come home and provide backup?  No.  Have I never locked myself in a bathroom to give myself a few minutes of solitude?  Of course I have.  Has the pure exhaustion and countless demands of my kids never driven me to throw in the towel and lose my temper with them?  We all know the answer to that one.

Despite the fact that the favorable conditions of my life and innate personality traits support staying at home with my children, there are tweaks that almost anyone can make to find joy and satisfaction in it.  Certainly, there are those who would simply rather work outside the home.  That’s okay.  My train of thought comes from my interaction this morning with a person who had decided it best for her to stay home but who was struggling to determine how to make it work for her.

Here are my top tips for how to find the joy in being a stay-at-home mom:

  1.  Convince yourself that there is no better place for you to be.  Because it’s true!  Study literature that supports this premise, try to surround yourself with people who believe similarly and move forward in that belief.  Laundry and cooking and cleaning and child-rearing can be awfully mundane and thankless but they have to be done.  So do them to the best of your ability with the belief that they matter!  If you don’t believe me, try NOT doing those things for a week and see how depressing your life(and everyone else’s) is.
  2. Learn how to live with less.  If you are struggling to make ends meet, you will inevitably feel the pull of a job outside the home.  Shop at thrift stores, cook your meals from scratch, take advantage of all the freebies around town, try camping instead of more expensive vacation options (I guarantee the kids will like it better, anyway).  Stay within a budget and resist the urge to “keep up with the Joneses”.  When you keep life simple, you find that you don’t need a whole lot to be happy…the end result being that you are much happier!  Funny how that works.
  3. Spend time with other people.  Set up playdates with other parents, go places you would expect others with young children to frequent (library, parks, the zoo, etc.) and reach out to others around you.  Build a support system of friends – you will glean important parenting tips from them in addition to social interaction.
  4. Prioritize your spouse.  Make date night happen regularly so you have an excuse to get out of your sweats and feel like a person again.  The conversation will benefit both of you, your connection will grow, and, perhaps most importantly, you’ll get a much-needed break from your kids.
  5. Give yourself a break.  I mean this in two ways – first, cut yourself some slack and don’t imagine a pinterest-worthy existence for your children.  Decide what is most important, do those things and let everything else be a bonus.  And don’t beat yourself up when you screw up.  That’s what therapy is for.  😉  Secondly, carve out some time for self-care.  It could be a daily workout, curling up with a good book on a regular basis, taking a class, learning something new.  Whatever brings you joy.  Make it happen so that you’re not always running on empty.  Wise is the woman who knows that you cannot draw water from an empty well.  Take time for yourself so that you have more to offer those in your care.

I realize that staying at home with your children is not a one-size-fits-all position.  It demands the very best of us physically and emotionally.  I have been incredibly blessed to have a husband who supports me financially (and otherwise) so that I can do it with relative ease, so that the sacrifice does not seem so great.  As I conversed with my new friend this morning, I was renewed with a commitment to it.  I wanted to urge her with all the energy of my heart to stick with it, because it can be, and has been in my case, the most satisfying job in the world.   Look at this face and tell me it isn’t.