If you bother to read this corner of my world, it's been a long time since I bothered to post a single thing. Life got upended, and then crazy, and well, crazy hasn't stopped.
In May, Bri participated in her Spring Show at School of Rock. She was amazing, and most surely headed for another best of show, when life intervened. On her way home on May 10th, she was involved in a car accident that resulted in a broken jaw, 5 days in the hospital, 4 weeks of her jaw wired shut, and everything suddenly changing. Her army ship date was put off, she lost close to 20 pounds, and through it all, she was a trooper. We easily forgave her for the tears and sometimes depression. Imagine if you had to consume a liquid diet for 4 weeks. (Side note: If you are looking to lose weight, the liquid diet will do it.) She has since been unwired, and gained back 15 pounds. We are still waiting to find out how things with the Army will pan out, but it's in God's hands, and He always knows best.
On top of the accident, Softball season started at the end of April (and is still going), and baseball season started the middle of May. Until the middle of July, we were doing baseball two days, softball two days, and youth group on Wednesdays. We were never home.
The baseball team struggled, but they never gave up. Lots of new kids this year, so we'll see how they progress into next year.
Softball? Well we finished as the number one team in our conference, but lost a heartbreaker in the playoffs on Thursday night. Double elimination means we get another shot to make it to the championship game though. It's a long season.
Joshua was the busiest of us all this summer. One week at Creation, one week at Camp Sankanac, one week of band camp, and next week he does a week at the School of Rock summer camp. I knew he was growing up when I watched him this week at band camp. Being in the marching band is not easy. They learned 3 songs, drilled 3 songs, and then did a field show for the parents just yesterday. They did a very good job. I did find out something interesting this week. Well, I sort of already knew, but when you put a whole bunch of drummers together, it becomes obvious. Drummers? They are their very own species. They are a brotherhood that looks out for each other, gives each other a hard time, and they are very very strange. Every day they had their very own huddle at the end of practice with chants like "Blood Brothers" and "Drumline is great. Better than chocolate cake." If Joshua thinks drumline is better than chocolate cake, well, that's something.
In 7 days we leave for the Outer Banks. This week, Bri finds out where things stand with the Army, we play softball on Thursday night, and Joshua and I try to finish his Honors American History summer assignment. Life is good.
**Note: If I never post again, it's because my son has murdered me for posting this picture of him in his band uniform. Isn't he handsome? (He's not a fan of the plume.)
I woke up this morning sore and feeling blah. I ran yesterday with my daughter, who is working out in preparation for Basic Combat Training in the Army. I work out most days of the week, but I'm out of practice running up and downhill. So I woke up and wrapped myself in a blanket and plopped down on the couch. (This was, of course, after doing the dishes, wiping down the counters and walking the four-legged children.) Normally, my TV would be on Fox News, however, last night the DVR was doing double recording duty. The Craig Ferguson Show and Justified, meaning my TV was on FX. FX was playing Mona Lisa Smile. It's a guilty pleasure, that movie. So I watched it. While watching this movie, set in 1953-54, I was struck by how much the culture has changed since then, and how the very principles that Miss Katherine Watson was seemingly trying to impart on her students are run-of-the-mill today. This, of course, triggered the part of my brain that occasionally dwells on the successes of the early feminist movement (Susan B. Anthony and Suffrage anyone?) and the failures of the modern feminist movement (Elizabeth Wurtzel.)
I am a stay-at-home-mother, and I will admit, I get my back up every time someone asks me if I am currently working. I almost want to lie, since that avoids the look you get from other working women. If you are a SAHM, you know the look. The one that says "Oh, yeah, you don't have a job. You aren't being a productive member of society". If you aren't a SAHM, and have never been one, you have no idea what I am talking about. Somehow working 8 or 10 or 12 hours a day, at some other job, is somehow a measure of your success. I don't lie though. So I bear the looks, the disdain and sometimes pity, because well, I know something they don't.
My job is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. It never ends. Go on vacation? The job comes with you. If you are lucky, once every few months, you get a night off with your husband, but even then, you talk about your job. Your job is your life. I don't bring home a paycheck, or at least not the monetary kind. But I do work. Every day. Today for instance, once I'm done blathering here, I have to clean my stove and my microwave. I have an errand to run. After school I have to pick up my daughter and one of her friends and take them to School of Rock for show practice. After I drop them off, I'll head to the library where I'll spend some time either studying the Bible or working on things for the church softball league where I'm the website administrator, scorekeeper and general admin. I'll get home somewhere around 9 pm, where I'll have just enough time to maybe relax for a few minutes before passing out and starting all over again tomorrow. Yes, I really do work.
Outside of that I have interests. I enjoy crocheting and running. I read. A lot. Fiction, Non-Fiction, the news. I blog here and on my political blog, although not as much as I'd like. I play piano. I edit essays and papers for my kids when they ask. I spend time with my mom.
I could have gotten my degree and been some high powered executive, or lawyer, or a college professor. Instead, I chose to be a mom. I've worked full-time twice, and both times, my family suffered. My marriage suffered. For some people, I know it works, but it didn't work for us. And I wasn't thrilled to be a working mother. I'm thrilled staying at home.
And yet the modern feminist movement, and it's most outspoken members, look down on me, because I don't work outside of the home. A few of them have had the audacity to call me a whore. You know, because all we do is have sex with our husbands and they take care of us. We are "kept" women. According to these flag-bearers for supposed equal rights for women, I'm lazy, stupid and obviously not worth the air I breathe. I should, if I have half a brain, be out there working.
All these people supposedly being the champions of women having the ability to be anything they want to be think being a wife and a mother is wrong. Not just a bad decision, but the wrong decision. They aren't really fighting for the rights of all women, just the women who adhered to what they think is the proper course in life. If you think I'm wrong, watch how the modern feminist movement treats women who don't champion abortion rights, who don't have careers, who dare to think differently. You have to do it all the way they think it should be done, and if you don't? Well, you better turn in your feminist card, because you don't qualify.
If a woman wants a career, go have at it. It's your right. But, isn't it just as much my right to choose differently and NOT be looked down on, as if somehow I am a lesser member of society? Women fought so hard not to be looked down on when they chose to work, and now they look down on those who choose...differently. This is the biggest failure of the modern feminist movement. Those who fought to break the mold in the 1950's and 60's, have now fallen into the mold they sought to destroy. That women really have only one "right" path to take.
There is a quote in Mona Lisa Smile, when one of Katherine Watson's students, Joan, is explaining her decision to forego law school so she can have a family.
"You stand in class and tell us to look beyond the image, but you don't. To you, a housewife is nothing more than someone who sold her soul for a center hall colonial.. She has no depth, no intellect, no interests. You're the one who said I could do anything I wanted. This is what I want."
We housewives, we stay-at-home-moms, we have depth and intellect and interests. They may not be the same as yours, but we are not some image on the cover of a 1950's issue of Better Homes & Gardens. We looked beyond the image, and found something more.
