Here or There

We don’t watch much TV in our home, so I love that the tube is always on at the salon. Like whip cream on summer berries, it’s a treat on top of getting my roots covered. Last Thursday I sat in foils in front of Rachel Ray. I don't know who Miss Ray was interviewing but the topic was mamas in the workforce, which seems to be in my face quite a bit lately. With nothing short of glee, the woman being interviewed reported that now days it isn't about being a stay-at-home-mother or a working mother. This caught my attention. She explained that it's not about that, because you can have both now. I chuckled. Out loud. You didn't...

Who are you?
Where am I?
Did you really just say that?
You can have both now? You can be home and away? Present and absent? Here and there?

Oh honey, something must be said. Your mama made a deliberate choice to be here, not there. I won't let them minimize that. I have a degree that's collecting dust. I still have a big ole I-owe-you out to Miss Sally May. I'm smart, savvy, and stubborn enough to know I could be rocking the work-force ladder. But I'm not, I'm here. Every waking moment, I'm here for you instead of there for them. It infuriates me to have people soften one of the hardest choices I've made. I chose this. I love it. Being nothing more than a stay-at-home mom is insanely more challenging and rewarding than any other employment I could pursue. I have the financial luxury of doing so, but even when your daddy’s salary was less than minimum wage (when you considered the 80+hr weeks) I still chose to be present. Not absent.

When you get here you’ll be faced with this choice too. Pray over it. Remember that way that Christ loved was sacrificial. Love is doing what’s best for the other person, despite the cost (consider 1John 3:16).

I must tell you, there are two polar reactions to the stay-at-home decision.  First there’s the envious. I have no idea why I’m so blessed to comfortably be here, but I’m sincerely grateful and understand that at any moment, it could change.

On the other side, there are folks who see a well-educated women going weeks reading only Dr. Seuss and Mother Goose. What a waste. They clamor to superficially justify and validate me because they know I’m strong and smart and they must assume neither trait is fortified at home. They feel sorry for me.

Sometimes sacrifice means leaving your career for a while. Other times, it means leaving your babies. Two of the women I admire most have made the choice to work, nearly full time. What Rachel Ray’s friends said minimizes their choice too. When they look at their family they see that they need to work and they make a wise sacrificial decision to be away, not home. And what a blessing it is that God gifted them with ability to do so. It's worth adding that when they clock out, they are one hundred and ten percent devoted to their families, more than I am, because they realize the basic fact - when mama is there, she is not here.

Either way, this decision is one of the hardest you’ll make. So hard that apparently Miss Ray’s friends don’t want to make women choose. They want you to have both. You can’t. You are either here or there. It is a monumental crux because, as Jacqueline Kennedy said, “If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do matters very much.”