The Question of Meaning

So, Kal and I and a few others have been talking a lot. More or less what we normally do. In our discussions it has been mentioned by a few people (Kal, Joc, Jonathan, and I think one other person) that I am putting all my ideas of happiness into me being a wife and mother.

In some senses they have a point. But here's me trying to explain my point.

I don't actually expect to be HAPPY as a wife or mother. I'm not expecting to be miserable, but I don't want to be a wife/mum in order to be happy. Happiness is not the point. I am expecting that by and large I will be happier (I am one of those females who really is far happier with a guy and around children) but that isn't the POINT.

The point is meaning.

Being a wife and mother is for me the most MEANINGFUL thing I can do. There is nothing more significant than making someone you love smile. Than making a favourite dinner for no other reason than that you love them. Than reading the same awful story to your kid five times - a night. (I did that for over a year with my youngest brother.) There is nothing more fun than watching a little child grow, and the closer you are to that kid the more precious it is. There's nothing funnier than watching them make faces at each other when they are cross with each other, when you know that they are going to be best buddies in two minutes.

My job now, and all other jobs I've had, just don't have that level of meaning. And I love my job. If I was a career woman, I'd want to do my job forever. But I put in to 'my' kids, only to have them go home and have some of their parents undo all my work. When it comes to those whose parents actually support things like the kids being obedient, that usually gets undone within their first few years at school. People think that by putting into LOTS of children I'm compounding my influence. But I'm not, I'm spreading it around, I'm diluting it. And I'm building up relationships with people (mainly kids) who will disappear rather abruptly, with nothing to show for it. And then there are the regulations - not only no smacking, we even have no time-outs. (I still do them, I just call them calm down times - Mwa ha ha).

With my kids, whether I have my hoped for 20+ or merely 1 or 2, my influence, and that of my husband, will be real. What we put in will actually show fruit.

And THAT'S why I want more than anything to be a stay-at-home-wife and homeschooling-mother.

[Originally posted as Be Warned, I am Serious Here at my not-serious blog Sam-Is-Mad, on 12th of June, 2008]