She wouldn’t have changed her choice for $1 million
I would like to extend a special Happy Mother’s Day to all stay-at-home moms. Thanks for making all the financial sacrifices you make to raise your own kids. You are doing a tremendous service, not only to your own family, but to society as well.
A well-meaning nincompoop once said to my friend Tracy Hill, “You are so lucky to be able to stay home with your kids.” Tracy replied straightforwardly, “Luck had nothing to do with it. My husband and I have made huge sacrifices so that I could stay home with our kids.” Tracy is 100 percent correct.
In our family, our income was cut in half when I quit work to raise our children. That was 23 years ago. My husband estimates we have lost about a million dollars in deferred income over those 23 years. He does not begrudge a penny of it, because he thinks our kids are turning out fabulously well.
And I do not begrudge a penny of it because I have had a marvelous time. It has been a 23-year sabbatical, a 23-year vacation, a 23-year semi-retirement while I was still young enough to enjoy camping and going to the beach and painting with my kids.
Pete Seegar says, “Parents are the hardest working segment of the population, with the longest hours. But we do it for the high wages … kisses.”
Pete is partially correct. The hours are long and the wages high. But I always shared the work. In fact, one of the many things I miss as my kids grow up and move out is having someone around to help with the chores, particularly grocery shopping.
I grant that they were not much help at grocery shopping at first. Until the baby was six months old, I carried him or her in the sling: just another semi-animate burden. After six months, he or she would sit up in the cart and munch on a heel of bread. At this stage, which lasted until 18 months, they were at least someone to converse with.
But after about 18 months, as soon as they could walk reliably, they became very helpful at carrying groceries into the house. In our heyday, when Nick was 8, Oliver 5, and Anne 2, I would pull up into the driveway, unbuckle the baby, and carry two bags into the house. I would start putting groceries away.
Nick would unload the trunk, handing individual non-breakable items to Anne and bags of everything else to Oliver. The boys would race, using Anne’s doll carriage or little wooden wagon to zoom heavy items such as two-and-a-half gallon jugs of spring water into the kitchen. After a fast and furious 15 minutes, the children would have transported all the groceries into the kitchen, and I would have put them all away.
Now that the two oldest are up and out, and Anne is either working or at Gavilan College every daylight minute, I have to unload all the groceries myself. Back and forth, back and forth, car to kitchen. Boring!
I am forced to admit that one can be a working mother and raise good kids. My sister’s two boys are wonderful young men.
But I wouldn’t trade my memories of wheeling my kids in the wheelbarrow on top of piles of leaves in the fall for, well, for a million dollars.
My daughter gave me my mother’s day present a few months ago, though she does not realize it. I was driving her out to the stable, as usual, and we were listening to Dr. Laura, as usual, and the caller was complaining about her terrible childhood. Dr. Laura told the caller to read her book, “Bad Childhood, Good Life.”
I said to Anne, “Someday you are going to be calling in to Dr. Laura to complain about me.”
She laughed, and said, “She’ll have to write another book and call it ‘Good Childhood, Good Life.’ ”
So I wish a Happy Mother’s Day to all you mothers who are making or have made good childhoods for your children. Keep up the good work.
Cynthia Anne Walker is a homeschooling mother of three and former engineer. She is a published independent author. Her column is published in The Dispatch every week.
