November, 2005
One of my kids came home from school recently and looked me in the eye and said, “Mom, what do you do all day?” I chuckled, laughing it off and asked why she wondered.
Apparently, this child had told her teacher that her babysitter would be picking her up to which her teacher questioned why she needed a sitter when her mother was a stay-at-home mom. She explained that the babysitter does a lot of the driving because we had five kids. The teacher then said that she, too, had five kids AND a job but did not need a driver. She pressed the issue further, asking why a driver was needed. My daughter explained that I had lots of laundry and was busy. Well, apparently the teacher has laundry too.
It put my daughter on the spot. What was she to say, “My mom does more than you”? Was she trying to make it a competition of who is more busy? It made me mad because her style of questioning caused my daughter to question me, and possibly have less respect for me. I always try to build up and support my kids’ teachers and here was one, in my perception, tearing me down.
Frankly, I don’t care if I sat and ate bon bons all day, the teacher should try to support the parents and build up respect for the parents, and the reverse is also true. At the same time, I try to help the kids to see that their teachers are also human – they have good and bad days, they may be wrong on occasion – but respect is non-negotiable. It should always be given to those in authority. It’s tough enough overcoming the women’s lib movement and holding up my head as a stay-at-home mom. I don’t need my kids’ teachers tearing me down. But then what made me madder was that I started questioning myself. “What do I do all day?”
Do I clean? Well, it feels like I’m always picking up after somebody. But I hire cleaning ladies to do the bulk of the cleaning. Do I drive? Well, yes. My rear is shaped like my
Do I work for the farm? I used to, but my job there was hired out long ago. I don’t think they even miss me.
That night I bumped into the teacher. She asked my how my day was and I told her I had spent it trying to explain to my daughter what I did all day.
She looked at me oddly and said, “Well, you’re writing now, right?”
Yeah, a whopping one day a month. But it’s more than I used to write! I wanted to say that I spend hours a day studying scripture and praying. That’d beat her in this little competition! But I couldn’t say it and be honest. I walked away, questioning myself. Sometimes I think I just stay busy. What do I have to show for my work? I don’t even have a business card. Moms don’t have business cards unless you count my five living breathing business cards walking around. It’s just that my business cards are kind of hard to stuff into someone’s wallet.
I’ll give the teacher the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps she was just toying with my kid. Or perhaps, she too has fallen victim to society’s expectations. It just bugs me that she rattled my cage.
In the world’s eyes being a mom is not that important. Oh, sure, the rhetoric is that moms are not insignificant. Any good politician or leader will say so. But the reality is that the respect of mothers doesn’t go beyond not being insignificant. It never goes to the positive side of reinforcing the importance. Apparently in this teacher’s eyes it’s not that important either. There are days I struggle with it as well. I know that my job is extremely important, that I am raising five disciples of Christ, five leaders of the future. My fear is that in my daughter’s eyes my job will be deemed unimportant. No, my fear is that, in my daughter’s eyes, I will be deemed unimportant. And that scares me.
Like a rock,
The Submissive Despot
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