On being a stay-at-home wife and mother

Yesterday we learned about the importance of mothers and how to become better mothers in Relief Society, the women's study class in our church.  The teacher turned her attention immediately to how young women can be mothers who either have not yet married or those who cannot have children.  I thought of an article I read some time back that talked about how nurturing does not always come naturally to women and how some men have that ability.

At the time I read the article, I thought that sometimes those things that will bring the most reward are the things we must work the hardest at developing the skill.  The author of that article contended that nurturing and mothering is not a latent gift for all women.

I believe that while nurturing is not always an obvious talent, it is there.  The woman who does not choose to develop it deprives herself of a gift that is useful in every realm of life, whether at home or as an executive of a multi-billion dollar company.  Women who are nurturers make good managers and leaders as well as good mothers, but that is not my topic of the day.

I easily loved my children, I wanted to do the best thing for them, and I was deeply committed to the gospel.  I wanted to do what I felt the Lord wanted me to do, and I took no issue with the idea that He wanted me to raise them--not my neighbor, not a local daycare worker, not my mother (who was working at that point in my life but had not worked until several years AFTER her youngest graduated from college and moved out.  I had recognized my mother's influence in my life by being home for those critical junctions in my life, and I knew it was good to have a mother at home even when I was busily working in my own career.  I missed her being home after she returned to work even though I had not lived at home or near home for several years.  It was good, and I wanted my children to have that solidarity at home.

But I was also highly social.  I missed seeing and working with the people at work.  I had been a socialite (not in the sense that Hollywood uses the term but within my own sphere) while I had been single.  I loved new clothes and new challenges.  Within a very short time, I became marooned on the side of a mountain with two little babies and no one to socialize with.

Just to clarify, we didn't live in a log cabin in the wilderness, but without my car at my disposal, I felt like we were.  My car became our only car.  We had neighbors, most of whom worked away from home during the day, and the other few never came by to visit.  It was lonely.  I struggled with baby blues, depression.  It wasn't easy, but my mother told me during a visit at this time that I was fortunate to have to be without a vehicle because I had to turn my mind to my babies and to enjoying homemaking since there was nothing else for me.  She was a possibilititarian.

I've thought about what she said for YEARS.

And you know what?  She was right!

She didn't mean it maliciously.  In fact, she knew how much I liked to be out and about better than anyone else, and she worried about me.  B U T she knew I would focus on my relationship with my husband and my children.  She knew I would have to learn to cook better.  She knew I would focus on making my house a home that I wanted to be in.  She was trying to help me focus on the possibilities of my situation.  And I did.  I was forced to do so.  How blessed I became because I did.

Today I have totally changed from that young woman.  I love my family fiercely as well as my home. I have developed hobbies that I can pursue inside my home.  I have a car that will take me elsewhere, and I've had one for years now.  That brief time without my own car stunk--there is no other word for it--but it was a useful time.  I loved watching my twin babies play together, and I became exhausted when I had to carry two car carriers anywhere.  I learned to take cooking as my newest challenge instead of finding the best restaurants and bakeries, and I remember how thrilled I was when I finally made wonderful sweet rolls.  FYI--anyone can make sweet rolls, but making really good ones like the best bakeries:  That is a talent by itself!  If I had to be without a car, that was definitely the best time.  Today I do not take that privilege for granted.  I have a very strong marriage with the man I chose who has become my best friend.  I credit the TIME I had to spend and the necessity of developing a deep, nurturing relationship with my husband during that time to his later business success.  I became the homemaker that I desired to be but had not become by age 32 when my boys were born.

So is every woman born a nurturer?  Check your baby development books about girls.  No, I don't think so.  We were born with the capacity to develop our talents, but what we do with those God-given talents is decided by our daily decisions.  One talent I believe all women share is the potential to develop is that of nurturing.  (Many men develop it too, but this isn't about them!)

Growing up, I was told I had tremendous musical talent on the piano, but today I can barely read the bottom staff of music.  Was it because I didn't have the talent for it?  Emphatically no.  It was because I chose to stop playing the piano when I was 14 years old.  Do I regret it?  Every day, to the point that I think I'm going to attempt to reignite that talent almost 40 years later.  I was also told I had a gift for languages--another gift I stopped developing long before I became a mother; I want to see if that gift can be rebooted too.

When I was in my 20s, a roommate complimented me that I had created a home where she wanted to be.  I always thought it was too bad that her presence drove me from that home on a daily basis.  Was my ability to create a homelike atmosphere enough?  No.  I still had other parts of the talents of mothering, nurturing, and homemaking to develop.  Was she lacking in that talent?  No, but she had not developed it at all.  Is it easy to develop?  Can I tell you how many tears of loneliness I cried?  How much I wished for others to come over?  I still think that is one of the saddest results of so many women returning to work: they aren't there for each other.  My mother once mentioned how much more difficult it was for me because I couldn't just visit with other women over the back fence while hanging laundry outside as she and previous generations had done.

Lately I have been considering the possibility of getting a job or "reentering the work force."  I've been praying about the decision, focusing on the possibilities that could be ours with two incomes even if I focused on opportunities that would allow me to be home when my high schooler gets home.  Yesterday, however, I had the overwhelming desire come upon me again to still be home and the opportunities that still remain there.  I last remember that intense desire when I was clinging to my two babies and weeping as I tried to find a day care that would accept both babies. I remember that gratitude that I could be home as I gazed at my newly born daughter with awe.  I planned to return to work for two weeks after my sons were born while I gave my notice that I was quitting.  Only two weeks, but that seemed an eternity.  The miracle came shortly after when a letter in the mail opened to reveal that I had been let go from my job.  I was thrilled.  The Lord was good to me because I did not have to put my precious sons in a daycare for even two weeks.

Is nurturing one of the greatest gifts born to women?  YES!  Is it an easy gift?  No.

But it is worth it.

Do you make New Year's resolutions for books?

A new year and new resolutions?  Do you make New Year's Resolutions?  Maybe the proverbial diet and exercise plan that fitness centers love?

I try very hard not to make new year's resolutions, but I find that Christmastime is a time I naturally seem to assess the past year and point a new focus.  When I homeschooled my kids, sometimes we changed gears entirely or found new impetus to continue.

Bookreads let me know I had missed my book goal for 2014.  Not by a lot, but a bit, and it wanted me to set a new challenge for 2015.  So I set a goal to read 50 books this year.  According to Goodreads, that's an average number.  For some people like my husband, that's not very many.  He read more than that last summer!  For me, it was about 10 more than I read last year.  I don't think I recorded every book, but it was probably close.

As vacation progressed and I looked over my Bookreads' Currently Reading list, I realized that I was a great starter last year but terrible finisher.  I probably won't finish some of those books, but I want to finish most of them so I made my stack of books to read NOW.  As I began reading some of them, I felt a need to become better versed doctrinally, and I had already decided that I wanted 50 seriously enriching books--not quick novels.  It's perfectly fine if I read those too, but I need to improve myself and make sure I'm setting a good example for my kids.

So here's my current, currently-reading stack:

Jesus the Christ, by James E. Talmage
Choose Higher Ground, by Henry B. Eyring
New Testament (which I'm reading with my kids)
Teaching of Presidents of the Church: Ezra Taft Benson 
The Power of Everyday Missionaries, by Clayton M. Christensen

I chose several of those titles because they relate to what we are studying at church.   The book, Jesus the Christ, has always taunted me from its place on the bookshelf because I've never finished it.  I read about 3/4 of it and laid it aside and never picked it back up.  It's a scholarly work and I've always tried to plow straight through it.  I'm tackling it a chapter at a time now, and that seems to be working better.  I also have more time to devote to my own studies now.

Other books I need to finish:

Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
Inkspell, by Cornelia Funk

Natural follow-ons will include Words of Radiance and Inkdeath.

So are you setting a book goal for this year?  I recommend using Goodreads and then reviewing the books.  I use the review feature to help me remember each story.  They tend to get jumbled in my mind or I forget which titles I've read.  That's very frustrating if it was a book I really like and would like to reference again.  Plus, it's nice to have the attagirl to see that I've made progress!

Follow me on Goodreads and help keep me on track!

Need vitality?

I've been thinking more about the theme of yesterday's post.  About how we need to reach out.  That's not just about young men and women; that's about all of us.  We all need someone to reach out and sweep us into a group of friends.  When the groups are ever expanding, they are no longer cliques. They exude vitality.

And they're fun.

Moving in the same circle day in and day out is, well, boring.  Who wants to be stale?  I toss bread and cake when they get stale.  Cookies, however, are a different matter altogether.  They are never boring.

I digress but maybe that's the point.  We all need cookies in our lives.  Some chocolate chip mixed with peanut and some oatmeal and white chocolate too.  Not all in the same person, at least not in very many people.  Each person brings their own flavor to a group, and it needs to be changed up often.

Kind of like dating.  Why date one fellow when there is a world of flavors of boys?  After dating the oatmeal, and the chocolate chip, and the peanut butter/oatmeal/chocolate chip type, then you can decide that Nilla Wafers really are your favorite kind because they set off your personality in the best way possible.

But that goes further than just dating.  It spices up book groups, congregations, classes.  How many of you slept through general ed classes and maybe some upper division courses because it was just so . . .  vanilla.

I felt that way today.  I lacked energy and was too hot (lots of people in the meeting room and no fans).  Sat with my daughter and didn't greet anyone, didn't get up to welcome anyone.  A very bland day.  Guess who feels bored tonight?  Three guesses and the first two don't count.

i don't feel energized and vitalized.  I learned, however, that vitality must be given to grow.  Same with energy.  If I had put myself out a little, I would have benefitted.  I did a little bit, and my energy jumped a bit.

Just think of what would have happened if I'd done more of it.

What would happen if more of us did it.

When I want to revitalize my family, I bring them together for dinner, for a game, for scripture study, for anything I can think of.

Same should work for anything else.

Maybe it's time to invite my neighbors over and see if we can create some neighborhood vitality.

What I wish I understood when I was single

How many young ladies worry about their image?  With whether they're dating or who they're dating, or if they have friends to hang with?  Personally, I think that would be all of them.  At least, I've never met one who wasn't concerned at all.  Maybe a few who are more concerned with others and have enough confidence in themselves not to be ruled by those fears, but definitely not enough.  And those numbers didn't include me.

The other day I watched a group of fellows clustered in a circle around a single young lady who was "holding court" with them.  What was notable was that one fellow was standing just behind the other young men wearing a smile and being intent on the conversation he was witnessing but totally left out of.

My heart hurt.

My head made sense of it about a week later.

The young lady in question does not matter.  She could be one of a thousand young ladies who obsess over themselves and their quest for more admirers (and usually one particular one.)  What matters is that she missed an opportunity to include a young person who needed to be be accepted and made to feel part of the group.  In this particular setting, I knew the individuals involved and understood that the young woman does not want to date the young man left out.  To the point of rudeness.

She isn't alone.  Many young ladies misunderstand attention as translating into dates.  I wonder how many of those 12 fellows will actually ask this particular girl on a date.  Maybe one if the odds hold true; less if not.

What the young man wanted was much more simple.  He wanted to feel included, to be important in in a simple way.  And it would have been so easy to have brought him into the circle.  The fellows would have willingly opened the circle and a greater camaraderie would have been established.  But the opportunity was lost.  Because she was too cool for him in her opinion.  Because she didn't want to have to deal with him obsessing over her.  (Don't worry.  I think the young man's parents would have quenched that idea.  They are not happy with the thought of their son dating her.  In this case, I know the parents.) Interestingly, she left the activity alone instead of with anybody at all.  So much for holding court.

For an opposite action, several years ago when we lived elsewhere, I watched young ladies take my sons into their groups and befriend them.  They made them feel important.  They were loved and watched over by both the fellows and girls.  Were my sons inclined to date the girls?  No but they gained a great deal of confidence by interacting with each of them.  As the mother of the boys, I felt an immediate gratitude to each one of those girls.  Each of them holds a special place in my heart because of their care and concern for my sons, and my prayers are not complete without a spirit of thanksgiving for their influence at an important time in their lives.

So . . . what's my point?

It's simple.  Young women need to befriend others, male and female, dateable and not so much.  And if they get a date request, they are free to (kindly) turn them down. Or accept if they wish. And if they get a marriage offer, they can say thank you, no, if that opportunity actually happens.  (Doubtful.)  And if several years down the line the fellow seems much more dateable, they haven't kissed that opportunity goodbye when they were rude little imps.

Because . . . that can happen.  It did to me.  Some fellows just take longer to mature and gain the coolness factor.  Then again, what is "cool" in high school frequently becomes a liability for the rest of their lives.  The cool guys I knew in high school?  I have NO idea where they are and didn't care past graduation; it didn't matter because most weren't so hot in college and beyond.  What I DO remember was a young man that I snubbed in college returning the compliment some years later when he had put his act together.  I have no idea where he is now, but I would not bet against the very distinct probability that he has done very well for himself and his family both personally and professionally.

Now that is cool!

New book a little disappointing? and wish list of new curriculum releases

I restarted the book, Washington, A Life, and am hoping its worth it.  I just read a review that talks about how Ron Chernow books tend to drag through some of his narrative.  I've noticed that already, and I'm only a few chapters into it.  Another challenge is having to have my iPad open as I read the book (paper) so I can bring up portraits as he refers to them.  Given that the portraits seem to drive the narrative, I think pictures should have been included.  The prose is written for an advanced reader with an excellent vocabulary, it is not the kind of book that would appeal to visual learners like mine.

On curriculums: yes, I'm addicted to looking at curriculums.  It's a byproduct of homeschooling for so long!

A math approach I recently learned about and would love to buy to investigate more fully.  See Sharon's story:  http://www.12345math.com/sharons-story/
http://homeschoolmathematics.com/pmf/

And this is a language arts approach I just might buy.  It sounds intriguingly promising and appeals to my English teacher side.  Too bad it wasn't around several years back!
http://youtu.be/DOkHcwvBHOc http://youtu.be/DOkHcwvBHOc

Lastly, a fun aid to save money for a specific purpose:  http://www.goodshomedesign.com/52-week-money-saving-challenge/

Oh, and one last one for sewers or tailors out there:  sewmamasew.com.  Lots of things to try to make.  I actually got turned onto this one through Craftsy.com, which I love!

They call this education?

Today my daughter came home from school with horrifying information especially to me, an English/Secondary Education graduate, ex-high school teacher, and homeschool mom.

On a lighter scale, her Honors Freshman English, her teacher confessed that she was not a very good speller.

Umm, there is no problem with having spelling challenges, but to be an English teacher and NOT work on improving her spelling?  That is lazy and makes me question what kind of education my daughter will receive.

That wasn't the worst of it, however.  In class, the teacher afflicted the students with the TV show Friends, an enormously popular, morally bankrupt show with actors playing relatively flat characters.  She had enough class to recognize that it could be abhorrent to my daughter, since she had revealed in her initial paper that she was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, commonly called Mormon.  Unfortunately, my daughter has had very little exposure to today's television programs since we have rarely had cable television and have restricted TV viewing so she trusted that the show would be fine if it was being shown in her English class.  She hates having attention drawn to her so she chose to stay.  Ugh.  Nasty lesson for her.

Excuse me, but that show has so-called "adult" content.  So adult that I'm not old enough to subject myself to it.  Why would I want to?  There is nothing good or praiseworthy in it.  It teaches that drama is the order of the day, and that immorality is the norm and should be encouraged.  In this era where teen pregnancies are topping the list of societal ills that are costing this country millions in welfare measures, having a show like that shown and therefore implicitly condoned in a public high school simply does not make sense. That just starts the list of negative facets of that show.  Yes, I know it was popular.  Yes, I know that I may lose friends for expressing my opinion of such a popular show.  So I'm not Facebooking it.  However, I have the expectation that education is essentially worthless unless it uplifts the individual and the society.  Depravity is easily found and requires no skill or education.  Classics require more discernment.

My next objection to this choice of examples for which the students were to describe characterization is simple.  The characters are flat.  Stereotypical.

Last, the students were required to read one of two novels over the summer.  Why weren't those books used as source material for the assignment?  I did not read the one selection because a few reviewers on Amazon revealed parts of the plot that were distasteful to both my daughter and I.  The other, Mrs. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, was rife with wonderful characterizations.

Which takes me to my next problem with this "Honors" Freshman English class.  From what I can tell, there is no difference between the Honors Freshman English and English 1 right down to the summer reading assignments.  I expected it to be run at a higher level, requiring higher order thinking and reading.  I expected full-scale analysis, not 5 sentences.

In another class, my daughter was dealt a different kind of blow.  She was told, along with the other students, that she would have to turn in their science books at the end of the week because there aren't enough texts for everyone.  She was so excited to read that text!  Now she won't be able to devour it as she wanted.  I was astonished.

A national book?

One of the pivotal ideas I learned long ago is contained in this book.  I am going to quote this, maybe because I'm lazy and maybe because I thought it good enough to write in longhand in my Commonsense Book.

1.  Societies are successful when people choose to be good.

2.  People choose to be good when they are taught and believe in good.

3.  The thing which determines how well they are taught is their national books.  Good national books like the Bible or Shakespeare will lead to a good nation.  Bad national books like The Communist Manifestor or Mein Kampf will lead to bad nations until they reject such books.

Now, what of a nation with no national book, with no central text which almost everyone agrees upon as the measuring rod of right and wrong?  Such a nation is simply without culture, or at best it is in the process of losing it.

I think this is profound.  If a nation, or even a town, has to have a law governing every situation, they are doomed.  That is impossible.  Besides, how do you determine how something should be handled if the people cannot agree on the fundamentals?  If everything is situational.  Situational ethics is a moving target.  Something as basic as the golden rule, stating the idea to "Do unto others as you would have others do to you," would become a cumbersome mess.  Maybe that's why we can't build enough prisons anymore.  Maybe that's why our court system is so inundated.

Some examples for a national book in history?  The Bible, Torah, Koran, even Shakespeare have each been used.  The national book, however, arises from the homes of a nation.  When a book is used as the guiding principle giver in enough families, it becomes the national book.  As DeMille put it, if we will defend our book as our teenagers will their music, then we have a national book (for at least our own family) in place.