All our lives, most of us are told that our identity lies with our profession, our career. We are told in school, through advertising, and perhaps even by our parents that women have a right and even a duty to balance the preponderance of men populating the world of careers – from scientists, to doctors, to business movers and shakers. We buy into the idea without much thought. After all, who doesn’t like the idea of being part of a movement? And everyone around you tells you the best path for your life is to challenge the traditional concepts of women’s roles as a helpmate and mother. How can being a stay-at-home mother compete with the thrill of being a college professor? And so we follow the path others encourage us to tread.
It is not until after we have our children that many of us notice an incongruity and the arguement begins to fall apart. We need, many of us, to homeschool our children because it is simply the best thing we can do for them. Our own path cannot compare in importance to the education and security of our children.
And so we give up our “professional” identity to homeschool. We tighten our belts and cut back expenses as we choose to homeschool our children and live on one income. We become more than parents and teachers to our children. We now have to spend a good deal of time thinking about economizing and tradeoffs between our own desires and the needs and requirements (and desires) of our children. We decide to abandon our “professional” identity to put everything we have into our family’s future: our children.
As a result many of us turn to God, our husband, and our children in search for our new identity.
Most days I am happy to face the challenges of teaching our children and raising them to be good and honerable and faithful. But every so often I feel a sense of “What about me?” creeping into the far reaches of my thoughts. Today I was standing at the kitchen sink, washing dishes. The same dishes I washed last night and the same dishes I will wash tonight and again tomorrow at lunchtime. The repetitiveness of washing the same dishes leads me to play all manner of games with said dishes. Which types to wash first and optimizing my stacking techniques to fill the dry rack with as many dishes as possible. But today, as I washed and listened to my wonderful children eat their lunch at the kitchen table it struck me that I already have my identity and an immense reward. It is not monetary. I have a family. I make my family happy and safe and secure and teach them to understand history and algebra and how to analyse poetry. It is all part of the same identity and it is it’s own reward.
Spending an hour with my children at lunch time each day in my kitchen while we sing and laugh and enjoy life is my reward. It is not my only reward and it will not make me rich, but my soul settles into a soft and quiet place at lunchtime in the kitchen with my children. And that reward eclipses any that I could receive if my identity were tied up in my profession.
