Last month, a major life changed happened. Verity, my youngest - my baby - started
school.
Here she is, on her first day of school.
I’ve been waiting for this for years. Abigail was born in 1998, which means I have
had at least one preschooler in the house for the last 16 and ½ years. I’ve been a stay at home mom for most of that
time. I don’t regret that one bit. The problem is that I’m not a natural stay at
home mom. It doesn’t come easy to me.
When Abigail was a toddler, I really struggled with two very
conflicting desires. Part of me wanted
to plow ahead with all my career ambitions.
But another part of me knew that option was not best for Abigail. I felt very strongly that I should be at home
with her, but at the same time, I didn’t feel that I was suited to being at
home. Beyond all this internal conflict,
however, I felt that God had called me to be at home with her.
So I centered my life around my family, rather than around
my work. I knew it was the right thing
to do, but it was still a huge challenge for me. I wasn’t a particularly patient person. I had a hard time with the repetition
involved in being with little children day in and day out. Money was always very, very tight on a single
income with a growing family, and we struggled.
I watched working parents give their kids all the latest electronic
devices and take their kids on exotic holidays, while we forewent the
electronics and took our kids camping in Cornwall, or hiking in the Lake
District.
Moreover, I harbored a constant longing to get back in to full-time
academia. So some days in a fit of
tearful frustration I would vow to go back to work, starting the very next
day. But when I prayed, God’s message to
me was always the same: Not yet.
So I watched friends get promotions and pay rises. I watched them take business trips to places
like South Korea, Rome and the Ukraine.
When they would call me, they always had exciting news. They had just presented something at the UN,
or they were writing a new column, etc.
My news was, well, not as exciting: Imogen has a solo violin recital coming up. Samuel just built a huge Lego model by
himself. Abigail is finally starting to
read chapter books on her own. I can’t
get Georgiana to eat dinner but we’ll get there some day. The older kids keep fighting and its
exhausting. I’m trying figure out a way
to get the kids to do their daily chores independently. I’m reading the new Harry Potter book to the
kids and they love it. No, I haven’t
finished that academic article yet which I’ve been working on for a year now;
and so forth.
And I waited. I
waited for God to tell me when it was time for me to go back to work. In a sense, I felt like I was waiting for
life to start.
But that’s where I was wrong. You can only wait for so long, before you
start to think deeply about what the purpose of the waiting might be. Slowly, eventually, I began to see that my
life had started. Life with my small children was life. It was a season of my life,
one that wouldn’t last forever, but one that I had to get right. Sometimes I really wanted the season to
end. But other times I would catch the vision
of what I was accomplishing with them, and I would feel a deep peace come over
me that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
And when I say ‘what I was accomplishing with them’, I don’t
mean that my children were becoming child prodigies in music or art or math or
chess or French. They were just ordinary
kids, a fact that sometimes I filled me with dismay. I did my best to help them succeed in school,
the arts and etc., but eventually I started to see that the main thing I would
accomplish with my children was, simply, my relationship with them.
So being a stay at home mom was really just about building a
strong relationship with my kids. It was
a humble goal, but it turned out to require all the energy, patience, time,
spirituality and love that I had.
And then, the same month that Verity started school, I got
an email. Would I be willing take on a
teaching position at the Department of Philosophy at the University of San
Diego? This time, considering employment
was different. I felt God smiling on me,
telling me that it was time. I could start devoting
more attention to pursuing an academic career.
So I guess it’s the end of an era, the end of a
season. In a way, I’m relieved. But mostly, I’m just grateful. Being a stay at home mom has taught me more
about myself, and about the human condition, than I could have possibly
imagined when I started on this journey.
So many days I felt like I was staying at home only for the benefit my
children. But looking back, I can see how transformed I've been by the whole experience. In a good way, I might add. And that transformation is going to affect how approach my work outside the home. I can see that I am
coming back to academia with a completely different, and much deeper, perspective
than I ever had before I cared for my children.
So to Abigail, Imogen, Samuel, Georgiana, Eleanor and Verity: thank you for an incredible 16 and 1/2 years. I'm raising you, but you all are raising me, too.
