Monthly Archives: June 2009

The phrase “working mother” is redundant. ~Jane Sellman

It was the kind of splendid September day when sending kids to school just feels wrong. Fortunately, that year I was home schooling and calling the shots. Plus we were living in California, an hour from the Pacific Ocean. For all I knew, it could have been the last day of summer, and we wouldn’t want to miss that. So it was off to the ocean with five children under eight―Josh, Matt, Ben, Zach, and Sophia.

Together, we cleaned up from breakfast, prepped the car, and then gathered beach blankets, umbrella, towels, swimsuits, diapers, sunglasses, sand toys, first aid kit, sunscreen, a cooler full of snacks and drinks―ay yi yi yi yi! Hello, motherhood; goodbye spontaneity. I loaded the assorted car seats and strapped, snapped, and buckled five wiggling bodies into Big Blue―the 1989 Suburban we outgrew only a few years later. We were on our way.

With everyone else in school, the whole beach was ours. I staked out our territory close to the water, hauled everything down from the car, and set up camp. For five hours I served as personal valet, sunscreen slatherer, weather advisor, recreation director, swim instructor, lifeguard, EMT, food concessionaire, manners consultant, bus boy, interpreter, peace negotiator, psychologist… not to mention keeper of the lost-and-found.

Finally, I hauled everything back to the car, strapped, snapped, and buckled five sunscreen-and-sand-coated-but-no-longer-wiggly warm, limp bodies back into Big Blue and headed for home. The sun through the window was soothing, and the car was full of contentment. It had been a wonderful day and I was pleased with myself as a mother. Then, from the back seat, I heard Zachary clear his throat, and in his deadpan four-year-old Eeyore voice ask, “Mom, when are you going to get a job?”

“This is my job,” I said, somewhat amused and just a little edgy.

Homeward bound with the kids falling asleep one by one, I was left alone with my thoughts. I began to see the beauty of Zach’s question. Somehow―even though it could be hard work and even though I had my testy moments―my kids didn’t think of motherhood as a job.

And I decided that was a good thing because it’s not really a job at all, but a calling. And callings just don’t look like jobs, because they require more of a person than a job requires. This is particularly true of stay-at-home mothers whose days are spent conquering mountains of laundry, creating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and kissing owies.

We live in a world where success is measured by progress, as recorded on report cards, sales reports, performance reviews, pay raises and symbolized by ribbons, trophies, and merit badges. In our lifetimes, our husbands and children will bring scores of these items home and make us proud. We’ll put them in scrapbooks, sew them on uniforms, frame and hang them up for all to see.

But I don’t know of any special awards for teaching a child to tie her shoe or come to dinner when called. No raises or praises when a mother drops everything to drive someone out for poster board―”your project’s due tomorrow? But it’s almost eight o’clock!”

Every day this goes on with everyday moms doing everyday things― sometimes struggling with feelings of inferiority or even worthlessness ―just being obedient to their calling.

But while motherhood can look easy (after all, it certainly is not rocket science), the irony is this: while lots of important people in important places conduct lots of important business every day, the truly most important work in the whole world is really going on at home, where the CEO is mommy.

I guess if we got disgruntled enough from lack of appreciation, we could start a Mommy Power movement with bumper stickers that say, “If Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”

We could sue people who put us down at parties and maybe even become a protected minority.

But that wouldn’t be very mommy-like, would it? Because there’s something about mommies that should be soft where others are hard, kind where others are cruel, patient where others can’t wait. We may not start out that way at all, but there’s absolutely nothing like motherhood to change anything about us that needs to be changed.

At least, that’s how it’s been on my motherhood journey. I set out to make a home, to grow a family, and to help my children reach their potential.

The most amazing thing is that while I was helping them reach theirs, they were helping me reach mine.

(Every Mother Is a Working Mother From Chicken Soup for the Soul: Power Moms)

It’s kind of a popular question..if you are not married, people will ask when will you get married, once you are married, they will ask are you pregnant yet? and once you popped out your first child, they will ask when are you going to have the second one, if it’s a boy, they will ask don’t you want to have a girl?…sigh!

I don’t know about other women, but personally I feel really offended and demeaning when a man dictates how many kids he wants…hello?? no uterus, no demand, OK!

Do you know that it’s hard to be pregnant – if you don’t have morning sickness, then you are really a lucky woman, but if you do, then you know how it feels to puke all day long, whatever you eat and drink, come out through the mouth, right from your stomach once again makes you feel tired (some even vomit blood because the esophagus get irritated by too much vomiting), you are feeling really sick, your body are in silent pain – all the major organs are working too hard, all the joints stretch to accommodate the extra weight causing pelvis pain, backache, the heart is pumping more as if you are climbing a mountain, you have nausea, and you put up with all these just because you want to bear your hubby’s son or daughter..

I think if God grant a man a capability of conceiving and giving birth, the entire human population will soon diminish.

And not to mention the agony of childbirth, the pain during contraction, the pushing out process, even with petadine, you will still feel the pain. I just can’t imagine how women in the old age stand childbirth without any drugs, no wonder some even die while giving birth..huhu!

It’s painful to the extent that when the gynae is doing the episiotomy, snipping your perineum, you can hear her scissors snipping but you don’t feel the pain or rather can’t differentiate the pain because the contraction pain was more powerful..(as Hubby said he saw the blood gushing out from the snipping wound, luckily he didn’t faint! heh!)

Note: Episiotomy is a procedure where the skin between the vagina and the anus is cut. (This area is called the the perineum.)

During childbirth, the area called the perineum is often cut to facilitate delivery (A). First, a local anesthetic may be given (B). The perineum is cut on an angle with scissors (C). After delivery, the layers of muscle and skin are repaired (D and E). (Illustration by GGS Inc.)

And the sore that comes after the episiotomy…huhu…and yet a man dare to ask for sex after 30 days (I heard stories about some men who do it even during his wife’s confinement period – 20 days..what a beast! – as if he can’t think of anything else but sex, and the timid wife gave in painfully because she feels that it’s her tanggungjawab, takut nanti laki cari pompuan lain, bullshit!) Imagine if someone slash your penis and during the healing time someone rape you..

And the burden doesn’t stop there, some women battle with postpartum depression, fighting the weight gain problem (bini dah gemuk lepas beranak, komplen pulak tu), and the tiring experience of raising a child..oh, please don’t preach to me about all the pahala of being a mom, try for once taking over a little bit of her responsibility and you’ll know why God give such big appraisal for the job..

For all the men who simply “do it” and somehow proud of impregnating their wives every year (konon jantan habis la tu), I am not sure whether your wives do it because she really love children, or she terpaksa dalam rela, or she has to put up with all of these susah payah because she wants to be isteri yang taat, giving in to your demand to have how many children in how many years…as a woman, I pity her!

To all men (who happen to read this), I don’t mean to create any controversial issue here, but if you could at least sit back and ponder through, I hope you could appreciate your wife even more for all that she has done for you..