Storytelling Time: A Lesson on Taking Care of OUR Home

Here’s what I was promised when I decided to have children: My life would not amount to anything. It would be the last I’d see of an education. Life would be a temper-tantrum soiled-pamper drag. My children’s life wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans either. And, if this wasn’t a persuasive enough argument to clue me in on the terrible decision I was making, I was told my man would not marry me. He was going to walk off leaving me a single mom.

“But don’t hate the messenger(s). There’s no telling what may have been had not I taken those vows to heart.”

Now, for a short True story.

One day when my children were small, still toddlers a few years away from school-age, my husband came home from work and told me he’d found me a job.

He found me a what? Haha. I laughed. I already had a job, though none-the-less, I was quite amused. I was amused because my husband and I had already discussed this. He and I both agreed it didn’t make sense to pay daycare to raise our children since, after daycare expenses, transportation costs and TAXES alone, my out-of-the-house take home pay would be a sully sullen wash, or less.

Yet, back to finding me this job, I right away knew what happened. More well-wishers’ trying to help take care of our home had gotten in my husband’s ear. Straightaway I imagined how this other conversation went down. “Man, you let her stay home? I wouldn’t let my wife lay up on me like that. I would make her go to work.”

Yes, some do not see childcare and housekeeping as a career. Unless someone else is doing the work and drawing a salary, homemaking careers can rack up a lack of ambition votes. Never mind the reward and compensation I saw tacked on the back end once my children started school. And even so, I couldn’t help but be humbled by this inherited ‘work ethic’ mood so brazenly trying to take care of our home.

Now, forget for the moment how this job was ‘found for me’, an even funnier detail I’ll spare us all a good laugh, but I don’t think I lasted more than a week on the job. Starting the job with the right attitude wasn’t the problem. It wasn’t the problem at all. In fact, I started the job more than a little curious to see if the math I calculated on my out-of-the-house take home pay were accurate. It was! Down to the one-dollar bill I ran out of the house to have framed.

Note: I didn't come up with the topic out of the blue, coasting around all on my own. I got a lil' inspiration from over there at 'Keeper of the Home.'