Jennifer Lambert

A Sacred Balance

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Childcare Crisis

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My parents never engaged a babysitter for me.

I remember going to after school daycare for a few months after my mother returned to work when I was about ten to eleven years old. I begged to be a latchkey kid and they finally relented.

I remember babysitting for neighbors when I was probably about twelve years old. The couple left for a very long time and there were at least four kids under age nine. There was no food in that house. This was in 1988. There was no cable TV, no internet.

The eldest child told me I could get more money if I cleaned up. I swept their kitchen. There wasn’t much to clean. There wasn’t much to do. I felt responsible for keeping those kids safe and occupied. I remember spinning them on the floor in a papasan. The little one started crying because she was hungry. I traipsed all of them next door to my house and I asked my parents for a banana or something to feed that child. They soon moved away and I worry about them still.

I babysat for neighbors all throughout my teens, mostly good experiences that paid well for very little effort. Often, I would arrive as the babies or children were getting ready for bedtime. As I became more experienced, I would feed and ready kids for bed, then read or watch TV. I never felt comfortable eating the snacks or drinking the soda or whatever the parents left for me. Often the dads would drive me home, even though I was perfectly capable of walking.

I paid maybe $350/month for full-time daycare and preschool for my daughter when I was a teacher in Georgia in the early 2000s. Shoutout to Ms. Divina and Mrs. Kristie!

We had a lovely babysitter, Erin, when we lived in Hawaii and we paid her well and our kids loved her and she loved my kids. I trusted her. It was only a few times in the evenings so my husband and I could go out.

Since we homeschool, we never needed to worry about regular child care. I can’t imagine having to pay for regular childcare for my four kids. Thankfully, they’re all teens and young adults now.

When my eldest daughter became a teen, I was worried about having her babysit. She wanted to make her own money and there aren’t many ways for tweens and teens to do that, and certainly not in another country. We lived in Germany at the time, so the only families she babysat for were other American military families who lived on the nearby bases. We signed up for a babysitter training day with the Red Cross. They certify kids over age twelve in CPR and basic child care.

Unfortunately, I ended that little job when a mother required my fifteen-year-old daughter to babysit her special needs medically fragile epileptic toddler – with no instructions, no access to a phone or communications, no medical expertise, and no emergency information – for $5/hour. I imagined horror stories if something happened to that baby and my daughter couldn’t contact someone.

When we moved back to the States, to Ohio, I realized that few parents are willing to pay well for childcare – $5 was the norm per kid – and my teens were expected to cook, supervise those meals, clean up from meals and play, sometimes bathe, and get kids in bed and asleep – before the parents returned. My teens babysat a couple times before deciding it wasn’t worth the effort.

A local pastor did pay my teen about $10-20 an hour for one vegan toddler, but they had two rambunctious dogs, so she chose not to continue that business deal after a couple times – because of the untrained dogs.

During the pandemic quarantine, I noticed so many parents realizing that is not feasible to work from home, have their children learn online at home, and also care for homes. I do understand that if a model is working or at least familiar, and then that is removed, it is very stressful. So many families couldn’t get any child care when they returned to work. Other families couldn’t pay for child care if their jobs were terminated.

There is a childcare crisis in this country.

Children delight me with their brazenness and eye contact and how they say and do the most unexpected things. They cannot and should not be controlled. So many children are destroyed by school systems and societal systems and religious systems, by those same system values perpetuated at home. The system is broken and is working exactly as it was designed to work.

I see oodles of posts in the city and mommy Facebook groups begging for babysitters, nannies, and whatnot – all year long, but especially now that it’s spring and summer is looming. These parents are desperate for camps, nannies, day care, something – for their children over summer while they are at work.

Some of the posts are interesting and the requirements are a bit outrageous.

I’m sure these parents are super nice. I wonder if it’s even worth the money.

It’s normal and natural that people want the most value for the least money. But a true caregiver has to be insured and have some kind of access to social benefits. For most, it is just a glorified part time job for cash.

Babysitting seems like a normal, acceptable, easy job for a teen or college student, young mother, retired mom or grandma. I think it’s problematic that care giving is often one of few jobs available for women.

I don’t want to be responsible for someone else’s children in my house, yard, car, at a pool, amusement park, restaurant. I don’t really want my kids to be responsible for someone else’s children. We live in too much of a litigious society.

I have witnessed things, y’all. In these days of ring doorbells and nanny living room cameras, it’s just someone’s word against a kid’s. Who will the parent believe? And I see and hear what these kids say and do in the streets, y’all. Whew.

I’m sure many don’t think of the worrisome situations that I do. I wouldn’t want to be liable and I sure don’t want my kids to be liable in case something happened with these children on their watch.

Childcare in Crisis: Ohio

  • Ohio now has the lowest eligibility for Publicly Funded Child Care in the country for kids 0 to 5. North Carolina, who previously held last place, updated their eligibility to 200% FPL for children 0-5 in July of 2023, leaving Ohio in last place for the same age group at 145% FPL.
  • Between 2019 and 2021 (the most recent figure available), the number of children benefiting from publicly funded childcare in Ohio dropped by 28,697, from 172,585 children to 143,888. Publicly funded childcare enrollment peaked seven years ago in 2017 at 181,122 and has declined since.
  • From 2017 to 2022, the number of childcare workers in Ohio dropped by 35.89%, with the biggest decrease of nearly 5,000 workers happening between 2019 and 2020 Many areas around the state simply have not recovered from this loss of workforce and many remaining childcare facilities are at a high risk of closure as key federal COVID emergency funding ends.
  • The median hourly wage for childcare workers in Ohio is $13.15 — an annual salary of $27,352 for those working full time. For comparison, the median for all workers in Ohio was $21.51 an hour in 2022, with 13.4% of Ohioans living in poverty.
  • The amount the state reimburses childcare providers per child is not based on the actual cost of childcare, but rather on a backward-looking market rate survey of what providers recently charged for services in an area. This rate is important because it determines the amount of money providers receive and therefore their ability to stay open, improve facilities, and pay providers a living wage.
  • 39% of Ohioans live in a childcare desert. A childcare desert is any census tract with more than 50 children under age 5 that contains either no childcare providers or so few options that there are more than three times as many children as licensed childcare slots. 41% of white Ohioans, 37% of Hispanic or Latino Ohioans, and 29% of Black Ohioans live in a childcare desert. In Ohio, childcare deserts are most prevalent in rural areas.
  • Affordable childcare lets parents work. According to a poll done in 2023 by the First 5 Years Fund, nearly 59% of parents who are not working full time would do so if childcare was more affordable.

I don’t have answers to the childcare crisis in the USA. Other countries provide childcare and education and parent benefits and medical care. We don’t value families here. Get out and vote.

Some people have interesting requirements for pet sitters:

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Standing Alone

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I am lost in an individualist society.

I have no support system.

I have no family.

I have no friends.

I don’t even have acquaintances.

I attended public school and lived in the same house from birth until I was 16 years old, surrounded by peers and family – aunts and cousins. My classmates all lived within a certain small radius and many attended each other’s birthday parties. I played outside with a whole gang of multi-aged kids after school and on summer breaks.

Everyone I knew existed along the same plane, a similar demographic. There weren’t so many comparisons since there was no Internet, except maybe on Christmas and birthdays, when some kids got the big presents or name brand things…and others did not. But we didn’t really stress that much over it, and I remember more generosity and compassion then than there is now.

Perhaps it was just a bubble that burst when I grew older.

I grew and gradually felt more distance between myself and my peers. It’s like they had a linear trajectory and mine has been an absolute tangle.

And it’s like people slept through their young adult years, but never really woke up. They coast along, oblivious to anything that does not directly affect them. Why would they want to think about it? They’re not awake to anything except their daily grind. They’re so individual. They don’t notice others.

And so little does directly affect rich healthy white people.

There is no therapying away the troubles our USAian society has created and perpetuates. It’s systemic and I see little to no change in our future. We could have tackled racism and sexism and fought the patriarchy. We had the lovely opportunity to make vast revolutionary improvements during COVID and we failed, y’all.

I am constantly angry, upset, saddened by the news around the world – and by everyone being oblivious to it all. And all the information is always at our fingertips, so we are just bombarded with all the news, all the time. It was different and I know I was sheltered as a child. But I still felt all the feelings so big all the time, even then. It’s overwhelming.

I have four kids, ages 13-23. I am a horrible role model for them developing friendships. But I do know how healthy relationships should work.

When my kids were little, it was a bit easier. We could go to parks or homeschool events and kids would just congregate together and play and it was all very low-key. We didn’t have to plan much. There were no real playdates. I would listen to the moms’ conversations, but I never really had much to contribute. I would observe and learn. Almost always, I would say or do the wrong thing. I never felt accepted or included. Those moms didn’t really want to hear anything I had to say. They didn’t want to think or feel. Their conversations were always shallow – about entertainment or mothering issues or marriage troubles. It was always negative and never intellectual in any way.

It didn’t help that we moved frequently with the military. My kids feel hollow and struggle now that we are “settled” and have lived here for six years. They still don’t know how to make friends that feel permanent. I worry they will always feel transient.

I’ve been accused of being excessively angry and I have lost jobs over being too blunt. I don’t see the point of sugarcoating anything. Yet, I deliberate constantly over my word choice and tone. It seems that I never can say the right thing in the right way.

We do feel jealousy about people who have friends and family and have lived in their place essentially their whole lives.

I can only do so much within my own household. Everyone needs support.

Where do we get these relationships? Where is our village? Where are our friends?

from Facebook

How do I develop trust? How do I find time to nurture a friendship? It seems daunting.

And how do I learn to love others when I feel so unlovable?

My parents told me that no one would ever love me like they do.

While this seems like a wonderful, loving, caring sentiment, it is actually very toxic.

What my parents taught me while I was growing up, sometimes verbally out loud, other times subliminally by their actions, moods, reactions, and body language – is that I am worthless.

They made me believe that I couldn’t do anything right, that only my performance mattered, but it was never good enough. They complained about my appearance. They complained about my school grades. They complained I would isolate and read books. They complained if I wanted to go out. They complain if I asked for something for a holiday – even if they ask me what I want; that was not in their script.

My parents talked ill of all my extended family members. No one was a good person – my grandmothers, deceased grandfathers, my aunts, uncles, cousins. They all have fundamental problems. My parents act like they were superior in every way. As an only child, I had no one to compare my life since I was all alone. It’s been shocking to hear truths from my cousins about my parents now that I am an adult.

I was never taught how to have a relationship outside of my parents.

“There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first; when you learn to live for others, they will live for you.”

― Paramahansa Yogananda

I learned that any friendship should be lightweight because it took me away from my parents which was so selfish. When I was a teen, any boyfriend was a potential predator and I was just wasting my time anyway. It was selfish of me wanting to go out instead of staying in the house with my parents. They encouraged me to get a part-time job, but complained about my schedule. They complained when I cooked meals, but they wanted only to eat microwave dinners that I loathe.

After my suicide attempt, they really doubled down on the idea that of course no one could really love me, that they were only using me.

They taught me that they held my puppet strings and would never, ever cut those strings to allow me to be independent.

So, why is it a surprise that I learned how to be self-reliant?

I stand alone. I always have.

We are amused by and we idolize books and films and shows that portray INTJ or neurodivergent women, but no onet really wants to navigate relationships with them in real life. Wednesday Addams and Elizabeth Zott in Lessons in Chemistry are portrayed rather positively, but most are villains or bad girls.

I absolutely love and get very emotional about The Crab Scene from the Joy Luck Club. We are too often unseen and misunderstood by even the other women in our lives.

There are lessons and warnings in the old fairy tales. The “witch” seeks to capture and steal from her daughter, the “princess” her youth and beauty instead of embracing their own transition, wisdom, age, beauty in a different, less conventional or socially acceptable way.

Is a woman’s worth only in her youth, beauty, and men’s desire?

Is it any wonder that women are encouraged to pretend they’re still young and fuckable with hormone therapy, hysterectomies, mood enhancing drugs, Botox, expensive skin creams, shapewear, and all the physically, mentally, psychologically altering items we are marketed?

The Internet has brought us together in ways we couldn’t be together geographically. But, it also isolates many in the various accomodations the Internet offers. We don’t have to leave our homes to interact with others at all if we choose not to do so. There’s certainly a loss to barter for the convenience.

In my local city Facebook Moms Group, I usually lurk and read…and judge. So, so many moms post anonymously and I get that. They know they will be judged less harshly if they maintain their anonymity. The thing is that so many moms do not have any support networks and we do all judge each other way too much.

“How do you manage a relationship with in laws who don’t like you when there is children involved?”

There are 62 comments and counting. Many commenters have zero contact with family members and others have really tricky complicated relationships.

Another women’s Facebook group I’m in had a commenter mention that she was experiencing sorrow and grief making the transition to older motherhood. She realizes she will never have another baby and she is embarrassed to feel jealousy over her eldest daughter’s pregnancy. She had nowhere else to express herself other than a exercise/weight loss group! Thankfully, the mods didn’t remove the post and I am pleased by all the comments supporting and comforting and grieving with her.

Y’all, OMG we need to discuss these life experiences and transitions that women face without shame and with more love and compassion and comradery.

Our society doesn’t condone appreciating or honoring our elders. I see articles, art, movies and shows, and memes perpetuating and encouraging the younger generations to ridicule and humiliate the older generations. Sure, many refuse to grow or adapt or learn and stick to old ways that are outdated or harmful, but many of us long to bridge the gaps and help everyone rise up together.

So, so many of us didn’t get to witness our mothers, aunties, grandmothers experience feelings of loss or transition or growth or aging in any way, and certainly not in healthy ways.

Being a mother is very lonely.

While I often stand alone for my values and beliefs, it’s sad to always stand alone.

It is an honor to grow and age and transition into an elder lady with wisdom for the younger women.

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Healing Mother

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Parenting is not transactional.

Our kids don’t owe anything us as parents.

When we expect something in return, it’s business.

My dad used to say that he couldn’t bust me in the mouth because he spent so much on braces to fix my teeth. It wasn’t funny. I felt guilty that I had cost him so much money but confused that he wanted to hit me and was making jokes about it. I realize as an adult that my parents only paid to fix my teeth so they wouldn’t be embarrassed by my appearance. It was never about me.

My parents said all those horrible phrases to me about bringing me into this world and providing me with a roof over my head, utilities, food.

“Look at all we’ve done for you!” was said often when they felt I was being ungrateful about anything.

Nothing my parents ever did for me was for my own benefit. It always came with strings attached. I was supposed to “pay for it” somehow.

I was never allowed to make decisions. It was a difficult path to independent adulthood.

I was terrified of my parents. I was never enough. Nothing I ever said or did was enough. And I was a good kid. I did almost all the “right things.” They come back and tell me how ungrateful I am – still. I’m 46 years old and I’m still never good enough.

There are better ways for parents to receive gratitude from their kids than demanding it or trying to buy it or whining and complaining about it.

I am healing myself so I can be a better mother to my children.

I constantly look for ways to delight my children. I research all the time. I want my children to be the best they can be, healthy and happy and strong. I want them to have all the best foods, books, tools, everything – to become who they will be.

It’s not about who I might want them to be. I cannot live vicariously through my kids, no matter what losses I feel in my soul. My own lost little girl cries to sleep at night but I put on a brave face during the day to be a good mom to my kids.

Motherhood is indeed a thankless and often invisible job. It’s behind the scenes. Mothering work is only noticed when it is left undone or isn’t done well (by whose standards?). Moms don’t get to rest. There are no sick days or down days. There’s no such thing as self care for moms and those who do take time to care for themselves have a luxury to pay for others to do the domestic duties or let them slide. And there’s always, always, always blame and shame.

One day a year to celebrate mothers lets our society off the hook for all the lack of community and services and actual help. For the gift of a 6-week unpaid maternity leave that we’re supposed to be oh, so thankful for! Flowers, candy, brunch is supposed to be enough to show gratitude for the invisible labor of motherhood. I never get a day off, not even Mother’s Day or my birthday or any other day.

I enjoy spending time with my kids. I am learning to ask for and express what I want and need. It’s easier now that my kids are all over twelve years old. They’re not babies physically attached or toddlers with separation anxiety or young kids needing constant verbal and visual affirmation. They’re independent thinking, feeling, opinionated, compassionate, empathetic persons!

They’re understanding that I am a mother but also a person with needs, dreams, desires. I get tired and sick sometimes. I need alone time occasionally. I ask for help when I want or need it – trying to do so clearly without whining or exasperation. I can’t expect them to read my mind. I have to teach them to notice what needs to be done and show them how to do it.

It’s taken over twenty years for me to find a voice that was somehow stifled or lost by shame and guilt and humiliation and ridicule. I was a person before I was a mother.

I invite my kids to do projects with me, but I don’t make them feel guilty if they don’t want to or can’t right now or if they say later, in a minute. I ask for my kids’ input and I listen and I make adjustments and I take their considerations to heart without getting my feelings hurt or projecting my issues onto them. (Sometimes, my feelings are hurt, but I keep that to myself.)

It’s not your child’s job to appreciate having a better childhood than you did.

Bonnie Harris

I don’t have to do it all just because our society says that’s what mothers should be and do.

For years, I felt shame and guilt and regret about my very existence. I didn’t think I was lovable. I felt I wasn’t worth anything unless I performed well – and I never felt that I performed well. I had so internalized the way my parents treated me that I projected that onto everyone else. I didn’t receive the love from my husband and kids.

I take a bath every single night with chamomile tea and a book. This is my me time – for thirty minutes alone. It’s important and everyone in my household knows it’s my time. I do try to make sure everything is in order so I can have that thirty uninterrupted minutes.

It took me years to start healing myself and realizing that my kids are healthier and lovelier than I am. They show empathy and seek relationship with me even when I don’t feel well. They are healing me. They are helping me find myself.

This is it, I thought. This is my life. And sometimes, living sacred just means being present—moment to moment, day by day.

Rivvy Neshama

I could complain and cry about how my parents don’t love me in ways I understand. I really don’t want to focus on the negative. I have made bids for 46 years that are often ignored, thwarted, ridiculed. I am tired. I have set boundaries. I have received silent treatment. My parents are emotionally immature. They are 80 and I’m an only child. I focus on my four kids now. So much of what I do is an opposite of what I learned and how I was treated. I am sad my kids don’t have grandparents.

Ways my kids show me they love me every single day:

  • Sending me memes, TikTok videos, and Instagram posts about foraging, plants, birds, cats, jokes, music
  • Making me tea, just whenever
  • Snuggling during read alouds
  • Watching history documentaries, movies, and TV shows with me
  • Riding along to the grocery store and helping (so fun with teens!)
  • Planning and making meals or baking with me
  • Planning, gardening, and doing yard work with me
  • Sitting and talking at the table after dinner
  • Helping clean up the kitchen
  • Hiking and walking with me outside in nature
  • A MYRIAD of other ways…my kids are loved and loving

My kids have been, are, and will be good people. They are thoughtful. They are learning how to be emotionally intelligent, loving, and kind. I am constantly amazed by their thoughts, words, decisions. I remember how I was at their age and I am so proud of who they are.

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Celebrating Holidays

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Maybe some of us didn’t grow in healthy homes or with families who celebrated holidays in ways we want to continue with our own children.

I grew up an only child and I felt so much pressure to make birthdays, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day special since I had no one to share it with.

I feel pretty whiny about writing this, but it seems like it needs to be said.

I spent my own money that my grandma sent to buy thoughtful presents for my parents. They were seldom appreciative. I remember my father demanding I buy my mother flowers for their anniversary one year when I was a teenager and I bristled at that chore since I felt it was not my responsibility. I remember many birthdays and Mother’s Day when she unwrapped perfumes and whatnot that my father purchased and said were from me. We usually went out to dinner for steak on birthdays.

My mother always wants more and loves shopping as entertainment. I don’t share that hobby. It stresses me out.

I remember most of my birthdays were when my father was out of town on business trips. My mother invited her family and my school mates and neighborhood friends. I realized when I got older that my father didn’t like gatherings.

Christmases were always pretty stressful when I was young. My mom is the youngest child of six and everyone getting together on Christmas Eve was bound to end in negativity on someone’s part. I was mostly too young to notice, but I knew my parents fought about it before and afterwards. Most years, my dad stayed at home while I accompanied my mother to the Christmas Eve party. My grandmother passed when I was 16, and it all deteriorated after that.

My parents usually send me a check, not divisible by 6, so I wonder every year who they don’t like. They’ve started wrapping and packaging weird handmedowns for my kids and it’s always a confusion when the kids ask me about their presents. Sometimes, I don’t know what to say. And apparently my mother thinks I need and use an inordinate amount of kitchen towels.

My parents possess three SUVs, pay a $850 mortgage for a 3500+ sq ft house, receive 3 retirement checks each month, and yet do not buy me or the kids anything for holidays. They constantly complain that they don’t have enough money.

It’s hard for me when my parents ask what I want for my birthday or Christmas and I tell them an item I really want, but they say, “oh, no, not that; what else do you want?” So I usually just say: “I don’t really need anything, thanks.”

As a mom of four, I am dealing with my own issues and trauma. I don’t want my kids to feel pressure. If they don’t want to celebrate my birthday or Mother’s Day per society convention, that should be ok.

I just want to feel cared for too.

I want my kids to realize that some people might have gift giving/receiving as their love language. It’s important to show people we love them in ways they can understand. I know my grandparents had this love language, but it might be only because I saw my grandma a few times a year and she felt a need to make up for a shallow relationship with things.

I am trying to work out my own hurt feelings when my birthday passes by with nothing. It seems that something or other always tries to ruin the day. I try to look at where I failed and how I can live better and model a better reaction to anger or fear and we can still celebrate more appropriately, perhaps without pressure or presents but still a rather cheerful greeting or hug.

I’ve tried to model celebrating with my kids’ birthdays, serving special meals, homemade cake, and presents. I ask their preferences which vary year to year as they get older. I hope I’ve done well. We’ve done away with flashy parties since we have no one to invite and we’re never invited anywhere. Perhaps they’re resentful but the younger three kids surely have little memory of the time before when I stressed over keeping up with others in that way.

I wanted a Pinterest-perfect holiday season before there was even social media. I wanted it to look like something out of style magazines on my husband’s lieutenant budget. Every year without fail, I cried over a failed expectation or the wine spilled or the pork roast was still raw in the middle.

I used to make myself physically ill planning events and holidays. Surely it wasn’t worth it. I don’t think anyone really noticed except that I was very upset if things weren’t living to my impossible level of perfection.

I needed to calm down and reflect on what was most important: relationships.

What memories do I want my family to have of holidays?

There were some recent Christmases when we traveled and minimally decorated and didn’t do presents, but the kids are too young to trade that and asked if we could do it more traditional from now on.

My husband has never shown interest in birthdays or holidays and all the work falls to me and I feel resentful. Years go by and things get forgotten until they roll around on the calendar again. Yet he bragged when we were dating what a thoughtful unique gift giver he was.

The stress of all the past years are like a tidal wave of trauma.

I don’t like knick knacks or presents that will just sit around and collect dust. I’ve purged and minimized so much over the years with all our military moves. I’ve streamlined and curated our possessions. While I have some regrets of items we had to sell or donate, I’m pretty content and I don’t just need more “stuff.”

When we first married, he bought himself a DVD player and surround sound system but wrote my name on the wrapped presents under the tree. I was maybe more upset by memories of my first husband only buying items for himself. I don’t care anything about electronics. If it weren’t for him and the kids, I wouldn’t own a TV.

He tried to buy me jewelry a couple times. The jade pearl necklace and bracelet set was obviously on sale because it’s missing some beads, but surely he didn’t know or look closely enough. He once bought me a children’s pearl necklace set that I returned to the store and he got very upset.

I told my husband just not to buy me presents anymore and he didn’t. He hasn’t.

Fifteen years have gone by.

He bought me caramel chocolates for our anniversary when he was last deployed. Everyone who has ever known me knows I loathe caramel.

My husband never showed appreciation for the presents the kids made him or that I purchased “from” them. I guess he didn’t have a good model for that. He doesn’t much remember what his family did on Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, birthdays. Christmas was a huge affair, focused on the kids. I stopped buying anything for my husband on holidays. We were strapped for money for many years anyway and I convinced myself this was best.

I mentioned last year that maybe it’s not healthy for the kids to see us not give each other presents on holidays. The kids asked me about it and I didn’t have a good answer for them.

I need us to model for the kids a healthy relationship, healthy holidays, healthy celebrations. We need to do better.

He bought me a hoodie for Christmas and kept asking all.day.long did I like it; did he do good? It became exhausting.

We have no relationship with my husband’s family so I felt so inauthentic and impersonal sending them gift cards for every birthday and Christmas. They probably misinterpreted my desire and reason to end that practice but I found it almost impossible to find gift cards for them when we lived in Germany and we never found a replacement tradition. I want more than a gift card relationship. I’m not sure what kind of holidays he had with his two sisters and parents while growing up. I know Christmases were huge affairs with piles of presents. I can’t and won’t recreate that.

My parents are not generous with their time, affection, money, or things and it makes holidays difficult when I am torn between being their daughter and also a wife and mom to my own family.

My daughter works part time and I would never ask her or expect her to spend her own money on presents for me or her siblings, but she doesn’t have to brazenly announce that we are not worth her time, effort, or money. She needs to learn to express her frustration in healthier ways.

It is exhausting and painful for me to try to please everyone all the time.

Perhaps I should practice more what I preach: say what I mean and mean what I say. Precision of language.

Most people can’t really handle bluntness or boldness. They need things sugar coated because they’re used to word and mind games.

Children know what they want and aren’t shy about asking for it.

I collect presents for my children all year round for Christmas and birthdays. I pay attention to what they say they like and want.

I focus on food during holidays because those are good memories for me. My aunt always had a gorgeous spread on Christmas Eve, Easter, Independence Day. I learned a lot about decorating and cooking from her.

And my daughter criticized me for cooking too well that holidays aren’t even that special. What a backwards compliment.

Should I speak up and ask specifically for what I want on my birthday and Mother’s Day? It seems selfish and greedy. I’m not one to spend money on myself often.

It feels like a “Mommie Dearest” kind of a moment to sit them down and demand that that my kids do something for me.

But they all miss the point: The true gift any mother wants is not to do anything.

Lyz Lenz

I’m often overlooked and I don’t want my kids to grow up thinking that’s how to treat people, especially their own future in-laws. I want them to have healthier families than mine was and is, what I’m trying to teach them even with my mistakes.

It’s up to me to end abusive or traumatic cycles and this includes making holidays and celebrations a cheerful, not stressful time. I want my kids to have good memories. I don’t my kids remembering their mom sulking every Christmas because the cinnamon rolls overbaked a tiny bit and complaining about not getting anything for her birthday again this year.

Maybe my family doesn’t really know or remember my preferences, likes, dislikes so they just don’t do anything. Maybe they really are thoughtless and don’t even want to put forth the effort. But maybe my family just wants a bulleted list or PowerPoint presentation about what to get Mom on Mother’s Day, Christmas, my birthday.

Yes, I realize we are privileged. We don’t struggle financially or medically. We have nothing but time and effort to improve our relationships with each other.

How I like to celebrate holidays:

Breakfast: spinach onion Parmesan omelet or veggie frittata

Dinner: seafood. I especially love salmon and scallops.

Presents: Always welcome are books from my wish list, bird feeders, experiences, gardening items.

I like to keep things simple.

How do you celebrate holidays?

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A Mother’s Résumé

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I haven’t worked at a “real job” for at least a dozen years.

It’s frustrating that introductory small talk still focuses on “What do you do?” and is disdainful or even scornful of motherhood as a vocation. People even dare ask or mention that my education was a waste. It’s like my only worth is in a salary or job for pay outside my home.

These microaggressions don’t endear me to people whom I’ve just met. They dismiss me as unimportant because I don’t have a salary and it’s so frustrating.

Motherhood isn’t valued in American culture. Homeschooling is still considered weird.

There’s little purpose to keeping up my LinkedIn profile.

I can’t imagine going back to teach at any school, at any level. I sometimes miss the classroom, but the hassles and negatives don’t outweigh the few positives. I don’t have current state certification and I don’t have any desire to jump through hoops to recertify.

If you hired someone to do the work of maintaining a household, especially if you have children, the cost would be approximately $ 90,000 a year. This is what a “traditional” at-home spouse would get paid today to clean the house, be a personal shopper and personal assistant, run errands, and take care of the children.

Eight Dates: Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of Love by John Gottman, Ph.D., Julie Schwartz Gottman Ph.D., Doug Abrams,  Rachel Carlton Abrams M.D.,

Things You Didn’t Put on Your Résumé

How often you got up in the middle of the night
when one of your children had a bad dream,

and sometimes you woke because you thought
you heard a cry but they were all sleeping,

so you stood in the moonlight just listening
to their breathing, and you didn’t mention

that you were an expert at putting toothpaste
on tiny toothbrushes and bending down to wiggle

the toothbrush ten times on each tooth while
you sang the words to songs from Annie, and

who would suspect that you know the fingerings
to the songs in the first four books of the Suzuki

Violin Method and that you can do the voices
of Pooh and Piglet especially well, though

your absolute favorite thing to read out loud is
Bedtime for Frances and that you picked

up your way of reading it from Glynis Johns,
and it is, now that you think of it, rather impressive

that you read all of Narnia and all of the Ring Trilogy
(and others too many to mention here) to them

before they went to bed and on the way out to
Yellowstone, which is another thing you don’t put

on the résumé: how you took them to the ocean
and the mountains and brought them safely home.

~Joyce Sutphen

As a mother for the past 19 years, I can attest to having quite an impressive work history and specific skill set.

The mental workload of being a mother far outweighs any “job” I’ve ever had.

As a teacher in various school and classroom environments, then as a homeschool educator for the last 15 years, I honed my expertise by focusing on my students’ unique needs.

As a military spouse, I retained my skills and honed a lot of new ones over the last decade and a half.

There are no gaps in my work history. I worked constantly, year-round, daily, overnights, with no vacation days, through sickness and injury, and during two deployments with no assistance or support.

Experience

Director of Child Development

$39,744 average annual salary

  • Oversee social, academic, and emotional development of students from birth until adulthood
  • Develop educational programs and standards
  • Design program plans, oversee daily activities, and prepare budget for activities and curriculum
  • Support gross and fine motor skills
  • Maintain instructional excellence

Educational Leadership

$88,390 average annual salary

  • Knowledge of pedagogy and methodology
  • Relationship building
  • Continuing education in field regarding trends, concerns, issues
  • Global mindset
  • Plan cross-curricular lessons for various ages, abilities, interests
  • Conflict resolution
  • Extensive library
  • Use of technology
  • Personalize feedback on student assignments
  • Advise students regarding academic courses and career opportunities
  • Encourage students to present their views and participate in discussion
  • Share personal experiences and values
  • Record keeping

Project Management

$134,182 average annual salary

  • Initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria at the specified time.
  • Establish expectations
  • Be proactive
  • Organization
  • Risk management
  • Delegation
  • Teamwork
  • Growth Mindset

Life Coach

$46,678 average annual salary

  • Discuss needs and goals
  • Develop strategies and plans
  • Keep records of progress
  • Evaluation
  • Adjust goal strategies as needed
  • Assist manage stress and increase productivity
  • Excellent listening and questioning skills
  • Confidence to challenge in a caring way
  • Support goal-setting, personal growth, and behavior modification 

Domestic Engineer

$59,496 average annual salary

  • Oversee operations of all systems and procedures
  • Budget for and allocated appropriate expenditures
  • Delegate operational tasks to promote equal labor division
  • Maintain cleanliness and sanitation of all work, play, and living areas
  • Food purchasing, preparation, and storage
  • Multi-tasking
  • Home economics
  • Laundry expertise
  • Basic mending ability by hand and sewing machine
  • Organization and efficiency

Religious Advisor

$58,130 average annual salary

  • Education about religion and faith through various books, activities, social justice, music, tradition, travel
  • Evolve faith through experience and learning
  • Help understand spirituality to promote peace, healing, and union with God and others
  • sensitivity, empathy, and understanding
  • Ensure proper growth and relational development
  • Spiritual counsel and advice
  • Meet their spiritual, emotional, and relational goals
  • Meditation and contemplation

Protocol Officer

$71,135 average annual salary

  •  Research traditions and customs
  • Distinguish between time-honored tradition and mindless repetition
  • Knowledge of preferences and customs of each person
  • Prioritize welcome and respect
  • Educate daily on etiquette and customs for various situations
  • Minimize or eliminate any opportunity for embarrassment or offense
  • Establish and enforce consistency using logic
  • Develop itineraries and agendas
  • Identify security risks and create safety plans

Travel and Event Planner

$41,873 average annual salary

  • Research, suggest, and decide where to go, methods of transportation, car rentals, hotel accommodations, tours, and attractions
  • Advise about weather conditions, local customs, attractions, necessary documents, and currency exchange rates
  • Visualization
  • Organization and planning
  • Plan and execute ceremonies and special events     

Budget Analyst

$71,590 average annual salary

  • Manage family finances, analyze and prepare monthly expenditures
  • Estimate future financial needs
  • Research of domestic economic and spending trends
  • Develop projections based on past economic and spending trends
  • Technical analysis, monitoring spending for deviations, and preparing monthly and annual reports
  • Analyze investments and their market performance
  • Education about financial terms, issues, trends, economic history

Historian

$55,800 average annual salary

  • Organize data, and analyze and interpret its authenticity and relative significance
  • Gather historical data from sources such as archives, court records, diaries, news files, and photographs, as well as collect data sources such as books, pamphlets, and periodicals
  • Thorough investigative and research skills
  • Analyze and interpret information
  • Interest in human behaviour, culture and society
  • Enquiring mind

Personal Stylist

$50,346 average annual salary

  • Attention to detail
  • Analytical mind
  • Problem-solving ability
  • Knowledge of fabrics, colors, seasonal items, accessories, etiquette
  • Knowledge brands, designs, trends

Personal Chef

$62,282 average annual salary

  • Customize unique meal and snack plans
  • Skilled at recognizing flavors and judging the balance of seasonings
  • Knowledge of kitchen tools and appliances and their uses
  • Procure and organize various recipes
  • Shop for all groceries within budget
  • Prepare the meal in a timely manner
  • Clean up the kitchen to excellent standards
  • Store leftovers promptly

Chauffeur

$22,440 average annual salary

  • Transport people to various activities in a safe and timely manner
  • Stock vehicles with amenities
  • Keep vehicles shiny and clean
  • Vehicle maintenance and repair

Waste Management

$64,000 average annual salary

  • Plan, implement, and coordinate comprehensive waste systems designed to maximize waste prevention, reuse, and recycling opportunities.
  • Evaluate the success of plans and make changes as necessary.
  • Minimize the impact of waste to protect the environment.

Plumber

$50,620 average annual salary

  • Unclog sink drains and pipes as needed
  • Replace salt in home water softener
  • Humidify and/or dehumidify the air in home
  • Repair water supply lines, waste disposal systems, and related appliances and fixtures

Special Skills

  • Good at untying knots
  • Feeding picky children and spouse
  • Finder of lost things
  • Making shoddy rental houses comfy and homey
  • Empath
  • Introvert
  • Comforter
  • Creativity
  • Innovation
  • Initiative
  • Time management
  • Stress management
  • Interpersonal relationships
  • Excellent verbal and written communication

Research

I can research anything. I enjoy researching. I loved researching literary, psychological, and educational analyses in university – and all the details of citing the sources properly. I can find anything on Google. Over time, I just have learned the best keywords for a search. I can find the best whatever we’re looking for in minutes, before we move to a new base or city. I research what we’re learning about in our homeschool and design my own curriculum.

Frugal

We have learned to thrive with one income. We’ve learned to survive with one vehicle. I’ve worked with very tight budgets as we’ve raised and homeschooled four kids all over. We focus on eating well and traveling and living life to the fullest. We’re investing for the future with 529s, IRAs, mutual funds, life insurance, and retirement plans. We’re paying down debt.

Multitasking

I can do it all and do it well. When life gets hectic, I’m in charge to streamline everything. I have a great memory and seldom get sidetracked for long.

Adaptable

Things change. We’ve received written orders that have changed last minute. We had to cancel plans to travel on vacation in order to PCS. We’ve had extensions fall through. We’ve experienced deployments. I have to stay flexible. I have to be strong for my kids.

Critical Thinking

I don’t want my kids just to regurgitate information and blindly obey. I want them to know right from wrong and question everything – me, tradition, reality, authority – why? why? WHY?

Observation, analysis, interpretation, reflection, evaluation, inference, explanation, problem solving, and decision making

  • Understand the logical connections between ideas.
  • Determine the importance and relevance of arguments and ideas.
  • Recognise, build, and appraise arguments.
  • Identify inconsistencies and errors in reasoning.
  • Approach problems in a consistent and systematic way.
  • Reflect on the justification of their own assumptions, beliefs, and values.

Education

M.Ed. secondary English education, gifted endorsement

B.A. English literature with minor in psychology, cum laude

Summary

As a military spouse, I have some unique skills.

I may have developed these abilities anyway.

But my life is very different than it could have been because I married an Air Force officer, my dad retired from the Army Reserves, and both my parents worked as GS employees since forever.

Being a military spouse can be like having a full-time job. Much of the expertise I’ve developed over the years are highly transferable and marketable in the workforce.

All in different seasons and different bases, I have worked outside the house, stayed at home, worked from home, and considered going back to school. I have a master’s degree in education, so that’s essentially an expensive piece of paper at this point since I don’t want to go back to teach in a school.

Every day, I develop and further solidify impressive marketable life experience just by supporting my active duty husband, being a stay-at-home mom, and homeschooling my kids. 

I may not have an impressive résumé or curriculum vitae, but I know what my abilities are.

My worth is not only in what I do. My value is not in the income I bring or don’t bring into our household. As a wife, mother, and homeschooler, I have intrinsic value in the efficiency of my household management.

The TRUTH about the military spouse job search.

There’s little to no personal fulfillment.

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Navigating Motherhood During Deployment

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This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of 1 Natural Way, a TRICARE breast pump provider. All opinions are entirely my own.

We’ve PCSed a couple times with infants. That’s interesting. There’s so much stuff to travel with – in case of any scenario.

Military life definitely has its challenges.

Our first deployment was when our son was only nine months old.

We PCSed to Utah in August and my husband deployed in January.

I had never lived through a real winter. I had always lived in mild, warm climates. And I had four kids under 10.

Being a mom is often hard.

Being a single mom can be quite difficult. I did that with one child for four years.

Being a military wife with a deployed husband and four kids is an adventure.

First deployments are really hard. There are so many unknowns. We’re up for our second deployment later this year and I feel more prepared.

If you know a mom whose spouse is deployed…take some time to help or just listen during this lonely and hard time.

You’ve seen and checked off all the deployment checklists. You’ve gotten the POA and all the right paperwork.

You’ve said your goodbyes at the airport gate.

The house is quieter. There is so much less laundry to do. Why are there so many leftovers at dinner?

You wake up sprawled in the middle of the bed instead of on your side.

You don’t think you’re gonna make it through these next few months.

I’m here to tell you that you’re gonna make it. You’re gonna be just fine.

How to Navigate Motherhood When Your Spouse is Deployed

Tips to Navigate Motherhood When Your Spouse is Deployed

Routine.

I ran my household like clockwork. I was efficient. I was prepared.

As a homeschool mom, I could have just allowed our lives to run into chaos.

But I set a strict schedule and kept to it. Meals, schoolwork, some fun activities, indoor and outdoor playtimes, chores, baths, bedtime.

With four kids under 10, I had to rely on them a lot and we all learned to be interdependent and help each other. It’s amazing what kids can and will do – if you just let them.

I anticipated disaster.

Then our basement flooded and disrupted all my best intentions.

But the routine held and life went on.

Relax.

Deployment may not be the best time to go back to school or haul the kids to a gazillion summer or after school extracurricular activities.

While routines and schedules are great for sanity…don’t lose heart or get discouraged if it slips. Don’t be legalistic about it.

Holidays and special events can really suck during deployments. Do something special but don’t stress and worry over it being perfect. It won’t be. Do your best. It’s good enough.

Give yourself a little break and realize there’s only one of you.

There are no good or bad emotions. Feel. Let your kids see you. Lean into it. Comfort each other. Discuss your feelings. Validate the sadness and anger but don’t live there.

Network.

Learn who your key spouse or the equivalent is within your organization. Get connected to other deployed spouses.

Ask for contacts at church in case of emergency.

Join a moms group. Or a homeschool group. Or a book club. Find a friend somewhere.

Inform neighbors or HOA so they are aware and can assist if needed.

Family visits can be a hassle or a blessing during deployment. You know what’s best for you and yours.

Ask for help.

This is a hard one.

I’ve never liked asking for help.

Our church pretty much ignored us during deployment and that (among other issues) prompted us to find a new one.

My husband’s group commander’s wife came and shoveled snow out of our driveway and it made me so uncomfortable. She also watched my kids a couple times for me to go out but I had nowhere to go and nothing to do. It just wasn’t what I wanted or needed.

Decide what you don’t want or like to do. It may be snow shoveling or mowing the lawn. Find a neighborhood teen to pay to do those tasks.

It helps to know what you want and need – and how and whom to ask.

My neighbors rallied together to help me with our flooded basement and that was an amazing experience. I wouldn’t have known where to start.

If you or your child needs to talk to someone, TRICARE covers at least 3 preliminary mental health appointments with family health care providers and can refer you for more with a therapist if necessary. Don’t hesitate to make those appointments. Be honest with yourself. No shame. Do what you must for the health of you and your family.

Self care.

This is hard for many moms.

I do better now taking care of myself than I did when my kids were really little.

Eating well and getting enough sleep are challenges for moms of little ones and also for moms whose spouses are deployed.

Set small goals like getting a daily shower and getting dressed in clean clothes.

You’re living your life in three-hour increments as you’re nursing, caring for little ones, surviving.

It’s enough.

I keep some quick meal items in the freezer and pantry for when I don’t feel well.

Deployment can a great time to get active, lose weight, get healthier, reset, and refocus. I find it easier to cook and eat what I like when I’m alone. The kids help me stay active.

Set a schedule that works for you and your family. That could mean putting the kids to bed earlier or later for your sanity.

Do something new.

Create a little list of some new and different activities to keep busy.

Ask the kids what they’d like to do and try to do some of their list too. Distractions are good when they miss their parent.

Don’t get overwhelmed, but it’s nice and often necessary to keep your mind busy during those lonely months. Bonus if it’s something you can do with the kids!

Lots of museums are free during summer and National Parks offer free or discounted passes to military families.

Some fun ideas:

  • calligraphy
  • jewelry making
  • painting
  • yoga or pilates
  • online classes
  • reading
  • journal
  • cooking
  • charity work
  • church activities
  • hiking
  • birding
  • photography

Know your benefits and privileges as a military spouse.

Many military installations offer events for deployed spouses – Give Parents a Break program, free family meals, free tickets, portrait ops, and more.

Get lots of free stuff here for deployed families.

Make sure you’re on email lists for deployed spouses or check social media for your options. Take advantage of the events offered and make new friends too.

I wish these breast pump benefits had been available when my babies were little and nursing!

1 Natural Way offers the popular Medela, Spectra and Kiinde brands. In addition to breast pumps, 1 Natural Way also offers breast pump accessories, compression socks and postpartum care supplies – covered under your Tricare insurance plan at no out of pocket expense to you.

The following five simple steps will take less than 5 minutes, and your breast pump through Tricare will be on its way:

Step 1: Fill out our insurance information form found below

Step 2: Select your breast pump model (Tricare covers all models we offer)

Step 3: Enroll in our Monthly breastfeeding accessories program (called Resupply)

Step 4: Provide us with a prescription or your doctor’s information, and we will obtain one for you

Step 5: Your pump and supplies will ship right to your front door via UPS or USPS

1 Natural Way handles contacting both your health insurance provider and your physician on your behalf. They offer the easiest process in the industry-backed by thousands of reviews and testimonials from moms everywhere. They work hard to make it an enjoyable experience to receive your breast pump with minimal or no out of pocket expense to you.

Deployment is always an inconvenience. We’re thankful for our military family and our freedom.

Hang in there.

How do you manage motherhood when your spouse is deployed?

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Becoming a Gentler Mom

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I’m becoming a gentler mom.

I was spanked as a kid. I grew up in an authoritarian home.

I feared everything.

When I became a parent, I surely went overboard with strictness, trying to counter the Disneyland father visitation syndrome with my preschool daughter.

I briefly attended a church that lived by the principles in the Pearl child-training book. That was disastrous.

When my eldest child just turned fourteen, I realized I was losing her. Despite everything. Too little relationship, too late. Too much coercion into compliance and obedience when she was younger was leaving her confused and broken when she was gaining independence and making bigger decisions.

Children who are coerced into obedience develop a victim mentality.

Coerced kids often become rebellious teens. I’ve seen it with some of our aquaintance’s families.

I’m raising servant leaders and I won’t succeed with opposition-based leadership methods. I was losing the battle.

I need to become a gentler mom.


I witnessed power struggles between my husband and daughter. I see power struggles between my four kids. I power-struggle with my kids occasionally.

Are discipline and obedience the same thing?

Many Christian and secular parenting articles and books and leaders would say yes.

“Obedience is doing what you’re told, no matter what’s right. Morality is doing what’s right, no matter what you’re told.” L.R.Knost

Obedience is all about gaining control.

Discipline is all about cultivating a relationship.

Discipline and Disciple are from the Latin discipulus, meaning “student.”

As a homeschool mom, I certainly don’t expect my children to know everything. That’s the whole point of homeschooling them. Why do I expect their behavior to be perfect? Why do I expect them to know how to act in social situations, or to have self-control when they’re tired or hungry?

These are issues that even many adults can’t handle, much less children.

I must end my own selfishness and unrealistic expectations to disciple them, guide them, lead them.

I know many parents who are exhausted from the power struggles of getting their kids to clean up their stuff. They threaten, shame, punish, yell, spank, and follow through with the threats by getting rid of the stuff, as if that’s the culprit.

I’m not perfect. I used to be like that, but I’m changing as I realize these methods don’t work.

And the greatest manipulations of all?

Timeout.

Using the Bible as a weapon.

Forcing kids to clean the plate.

Making decisions for them that they can and should make themselves.

What lesson do we teach our kids?

Timeout sends the message that our love is conditional since isolation breeds fear and dissension.

Throwing the Bible around as a lesson to kids doesn’t make them understand or want to know Jesus. They learn to see Him as an extension of abusive authority.

Food issues become about control instead of loving hospitality and fellowship.

Kids who never make their own decisions grow up into adults who don’t know how to make wise decisions. They fall into addiction or promiscuity. They become victims.

Really, as parents, we need to separate our emotions and our past issues from our parenting.

I fear all these parents who don’t respect their children as people and command and demand and have little relationship with their kids. All in the name of Jesus.

And they wonder why they lose them to the world.

We parent from fear.

Fear that we’ll be like our parents or the kids will make the same mistakes we did, fear that our kids will harm themselves or others, fear that we’ll look bad.

It’s time to trust in God to put down fear and to parent from the heart.

That may make us unpopular. We may look bad on the outside. We’ll learn who our real friends are. And we’ll gain our children in the process.

What can we do?

Pray. Jesus is the gentlest parent.

Apologize. Tell children we haven’t loved well and we’re going to do better.

Deal with our past. Know our triggers and problems. Forgive ourselves. Relinquish control.

Parent with respect. Realize that children are thinking people who can make decisions for themselves, with our guidance instead of coercion and control.

What does this look like in our home?

Simplicity.

We threw out all the printables. Kids can learn on their own. It’s amazing to stand back and watch them explore their interests. I’m a guide, helping them in their research and finding materials for them. See how we learn.

Frugal.

It’s our goal to be debt-free. We constantly minimize to maintain our goals. It’s important to encourage our kids to see value in experiences instead of stuff. We don’t like clutter in our lives or hearts. See our frugal journey.

Discipleship.

Obedience is not wisdom. We focus on discipling and it’s a constant process, reevaluating and learning ourselves. We focus on relationships, self-control, and kindness.

Proactive.

I have to plan and be proactive for our family to stay healthy and happy. We don’t punish or reward or praise. Behavior issues are not to be punished, but are cries for connection. My favorite parenting book list.

We’re not perfect. It’s been a struggle sometimes. No one has all the answers. We certainly know what doesn’t work.

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What About Me?

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Holidays for moms usually just suck.

Moms don’t get any days off.

Mother’s Day is always a weird day for me.

My birthday is often forgotten, just another ordinary day.

I don’t wake up to a breakfast buffet laid in the dining room or presents and cards piled around my placemat or the birthday banner that I hang up for everyone else in the family.

And I tell myself that’s mostly ok.

I don’t even get to sleep in.

I wake up to my kids, before dawn, demanding breakfast, as usual.

Of course it’s not very popular to hate my birthday, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day…or any holiday, really.

Motherhood is an eternal negotiation of various selves — your own self with the lives around you — and a balancing of needs (by which I mean who gets to poop alone). Yes, it’s beautiful and crushing, infuriating and transcendent.

But Moms are expected to put themselves last, after their children, spouses, parents, in-laws, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, pets, neighbors, houseplants.

Self care is for influencers to brag about on social media who have staff take care of all the tedious tasks.

I haven’t had new glasses in over ten years. I can’t remember when I got new underwear. I feel guilty when I get my hair done, so I cut it myself. I haven’t had a mani/pedi in over ten years.

Christmas shopping update: I bought myself something from my husband. I bought my husband something from me. I bought my in-laws something from us. I bought the kids something for my husband. And I bought my husband something from the kids. Any questions.

Molly England

My parents don’t send me gifts or flowers. Not for my birthday, Mother’s Day, Christmas, ever. They send a check with a signed card. My kids get the same. My husband gets a check that’s twice more what the kids and I get. I’m an only child.

My parents possess three rather new SUVs, pay a $850 mortgage for a suburban Atlanta 3500+ sq. ft. brick house, receive three retirement checks each month. They constantly complain that they don’t have any money.

Just a couple times a year, it’d be nice to have a special day of no responsibilities. It would be nice to feel special. It would be nice to think anyone cared about me at all.

I don’t get any time off.

My birthday was on a Wednesday one year.

So, of course, I dragged the kids to a field trip at a local grocery store.

They got to make Easter baskets and gorge themselves on candy and snacks while I learned about the store’s features and deals.

This may seem weird, but it’s a German store and I’m American and shopping on the German economy can be tricky sometimes and it’s a little different than shopping in the American stores I grew up with. So I didn’t want to miss the lessons.

Oh, and on Wednesdays, we have music class.

We went to the playground between the store field trip and music class because the weather was gorgeous.

I’m an awesome mom like that.

I enjoyed the downtime of watching my kids freely play while I soaked up some spring sunshine.

But it wasn’t a special day for me. No one even knew it was my birthday.

I remember my birthdays when I was little.

I grew up in simpler times with simple birthday parties.

Every year, almost my entire school class and some neighborhood playmates were invited to a simple birthday party at my house with pink crepe streamers and a plastic disposable game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, musical chairs, and hot potato.

When I was a teen, I invited my 2-3 besties for slumber parties. My dad was usually out of town.

As a young adult, I’d go out to a nice dinner with my significant other or friends.

My husband took me out to dinner around my birthday for a few years. It felt like an obligation.

My birthdays lost their importance after I had a family.

I really, really try to make my kids’ birthdays special. I want my children to know I value them as people over mounds of stuff.

Pinterest makes me feel like an absolute failure with birthdays and holidays.

We did the crepe paper streamers and balloons against the bedroom door a couple times and that didn’t end well when the birthday child had a nightmare and woke up to more stuff of nightmares trying to get comforted and running into the spiderweb of birthday doom.

We don’t give our kids an expensive birthday party with a real-live pony carousel, petting zoo, rented carnival games, or gourmet have-to-order-a-year-in-advance storebought 6-layer cake decorated with real gold leaf that is more elaborate than my plain Publix wedding cake was.

We don’t reserve a party room at the local amusement park, bowling alley, indoor playground, movie theatre, skating rink, or water park and invite everyone we know in hopes of reciprocation.

We don’t even invite any people over anymore to celebrate events. No one comes and no one RSVPs. A few times we were left with too much cake, snacks, décor, and lots of empty chairs. I was more upset than my kids. They didn’t understand.

The stress level of competing with other moms over the kids’ birthday party events and décor is too much for me.

We just have a lovely homemade banner and from-scratch cake or pie and a homemade dinner of choice. I buy pretty paper napkins (this is special because we normally use cloth napkins!). We often go to the pool, bowling alley, a movie, trampoline park. or somewhere special and fun as a family to celebrate. We’ve had success for a few years having these frugal birthday celebrations.

As a mom, it’s hard to see time and money spent on me.

But I would like a little tiny celebration, someone to notice me sometimes.

Eventually I realized it was taxing waiting on others to celebrate me and that with a simple mind shift, I could enjoy my birthdays (and Valentine’s and Mother’s Day) a lot more.

Erica Layne

I can’t get past the cost of cut flower arrangements, a mediocre and stressful dinner out, or frivolous presents that will just collect dust or get broken or lost in our many moves as a military family.

Also then there’s the dishes awaiting me from the meals that my husband and/or kids cooked. The kitchen is an absolute disaster.

I’m trying desperately to teach my kids not to feel entitled or focus on stuff. So I need to change my attitude when I get irritated that my day isn’t special. I need to adjust my expectations. And it’s so hard.

It feels like a “Mommie Dearest” kind of a moment to sit them down and demand that that my kids do something for me.

But they all miss the point: The true gift any mother wants is not to do anything.

Lyz Lenz

I won’t steal my kids’ joy by refusing the blessings of their adorable handmade gifts and cards on holidays.

While I’m in the shower.

Because moms get no privacy either.

What about me? It isn’t fair

I’ve had enough, now I want my share

Can’t you see, I wanna live

But you just take more than you give

Moving Pictures

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My Priority

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So, I have friends who are well into their 30s, 40s, 50s, – some with one or two kids and some without any kids and some with grown children. And others with part-time kids (they’re a stepparent).

The majority chooses to send their kids to public school. This is the expected norm. I get that. I know I swim upstream.

I don’t ask questions about lifestyle choices. I don’t pry. I don’t make snide remarks. I don’t say my way is best for you.

Why do you feel the right to make snarky comments to me because I choose to have four children? In my home. Every day. All day. Homeschooling. Working from home. Every day.

I have different priorities. My priorities have changed over the years. I’ve been refined.

I realize what’s important for me.

I’m tired of explaining that “I don’t have time” doesn’t always mean that I literally have every second of my life accounted for, but rather that “This isn’t a priority for me” or “I’m giving as much of myself as I’m able to right now.”

I’m also tired of explaining that “I don’t have the money” doesn’t always mean that I literally have every penny accounted for, but rather that “This or that isn’t a priority” or “I’m spending as much as I desire at this time.”

My Priority - I have different priorities. My priorities have changed over the years. I’ve been refined. I realize what’s important for me.

Things I Don’t Do

No, I don’t want to find a babysitter so I can go to the coffee at 10:30 in the morning and listen to the little wifeys complain about commanders who don’t like their husbands or landlords who don’t do what they want and when and the culture differences that they don’t like since we live in Germany – or Utah – or Hawaii.

No, I don’t want to go to the girls night out when I could be at home with a healthy homemade meal and listening to my kids laugh over games or arts and crafts. My husband leaves for work before I wake and gets home at dinnertime. We like to spend a couple hours together before exhaustion overcomes us. I don’t want to miss that nightly read aloud time or Bible stories before the sweet bedtime prayers, then all the jumbles of snuggles, kisses, and hugs that almost physically hurt when four growing bodies pile on my aging, aching, sagging (squishy) one – but it fills my heart to bursting.

No, I don’t want to go shopping with you. We have all that we need and opening up my mind and heart to commercial temptation isn’t what I want to do. I don’t need retail therapy. Shopping is not entertainment for me. I have more than I need and I’m diligently working on downsizing, organizing, and simplifying. I don’t watch the sales. When I need or really want something, I buy it online or I go directly to pick that one item up (if I know it’s available locally).

No, I don’t want to join whatever club, extracurricular activity, or even church group that will further send any of us out of the house an extra night a week when we prefer to just be home together. I understand many perceive Scouts, AWANA, and other organizations are great. I don’t do scrapbooking or crafts. And I’m sure they are great for you. I just don’t want our family run ragged as we compete for participating in the most activities. We have peace. We’ve done it and the stress wasn’t worth it. We like to have meals and bedtime routines at home, together as a family.

No, I don’t want to watch your kids. Just no. I have enough responsibilities with my family – and being home all day, every day doesn’t mean I’m lonely and bored. I am working and teaching. I’m sorry you have so many engagements where your kids aren’t welcome. It should not be described as a play date either, when you need to get rid of your kid to get your nails done. I turn down many important invitations because my kids come first.

Their childhoods are short. Perhaps, there will be time for me to play on the other side. For now, my priority is discipling and developing relationships with my four children. I joyfully sacrifice for them.

I don’t want to have regrets about what I missed out on when the kids are all grown up. I want them to have good memories of Mommy being available and not running off all the time, leaving them alone or with babysitters. I want to cherish this time.

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Mommy Guilt

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I could write a series on mommy guilt alone.

Day 2 (and I probably won’t really have time to post on weekends, just so you know):

31DaysofDyingtoSelf.jpg

We get pulled in so many different directions as a mother.

Comforting a child in the middle of the night, changing diapers, helping with dental hygiene, planning and preparing meals, cleaning up spills, braiding hair, finding that missing soccer shin guard (why can’t she wear the pink ones today?), driving to gymnastics on a Friday evening, listening oh, so intently to the telling of nonsensical stories about the teens’ antics at youth group, monitoring online activity, limiting screen time, keeping up with seasonal clothing that fits four children and doesn’t make them look (or feel) weird.

And the devil just loves to pile on the guilt to make us doubt everything.

It’s exhausting enough doing all the mothering things without those twinges of guilt.

And then there are the moms at the library storytime, play group, homeschool co-op, church, or wherever-it-is-that-you-socialize-with-other-mothers.

It’s hard not comparing.

yeah, yeah, yeah, I know comparison is the thief of joy.

How do we eliminate guilty feelings?

No, not going out at all isn’t really a viable option, though I have seasons when I just want to stay home more.

Dying to self kinda sucks and our flesh will buck and kick like a bronco. That means you’re doing it right. Expect resistance.

1. Stay in The Word. Read and study the Bible – alone, with your husband, with your kids, with other moms.

2. Pray. Unceasingly. Especially around and with your kids. Teach them an attitude and lifestyle of prayer.

3. Be proactive. What are your goals as a mother? What do you want your relationship with your adult children to be like? Plan for that. Start now. Even if your eldest child is a few months old.

4. Find a mentor. This is harder than it should be. Lots of women talk the Titus 2 talk, but few walk the walk. Seek out a woman from church or in your community whom you admire and befriend her. Invite her over for coffee/tea/kombucha or out to lunch or for a snack at an affordable café. You don’t have to send an engraved and embossed invitation to her requesting the honor of her mentorship (though I would be your Jane Austen-ish bestie if you did that!). Just start out as friends. Most of us want to be a friend. My mentors are more or less my peers, some with kids older than mine and most with kids younger than mine. I still learn lots from them!

5. Turn off the TV. Or the Internet. Or your smart phone. Or even that relationship with that worldly neighbor. Whatever it is that distracts and encourages comparison. If you’re overwhelmed by your family (or yourself) constantly exclaiming, “I want that [insert worthless item here that will be discarded next week]!” or “She has the hottest-newest-sparkly-overpriced-thingamajig!” then it’s time to remove the temptation. It’s amazing how much more we accomplish and how improved everyone’s attitudes are since we rarely see commercials or adverts.

And all this will help alleviate mommy guilt. Mostly.

Except when you have to explain to your kids or the neighbor or the in-law why you choose to live differently and make different choices. That’s a whole ‘nother story.

It’s for your sanity, Mama.

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