A Working Woman

My job is going okay, but I sometimes think of something I wrote here a while back, about retired homeschooling mothers. I looked it up will indulge myself in the vanity of quoting myself:

…we can get a job. Now, homeschooling moms are pretty hard-working people, with a strong sense of responsibility and duty. But we don’t necessarily play well with others. The actual “work” wouldn’t be a problem, but the whole workplace environment, with all those people… that would be hard. And you know… we aren’t good at following rules or taking directions. Especially if they don’t seem logical to us. And being on someone else’s schedule would not sit well with us. We would either end up running the company or be fired within the week. (If we need to bring in an income, it would probably be better to be self-employed.)

Um, yeah. This is all very true.

It’s okay, though. The work is fine, even if I don’t make nearly enough money for the kind of work and daily driving I do. My youngest son just got a similar job, but in a specialty hospital and rehabilitation facility where he will work 3 shifts of 8 hours instead of driving around the countryside working for 2-4 hours at a time. He makes $1.50 more per hour than I do. So unfair.

Things are a bit of a mess at home, naturally, and I’ve traded time for money. That’s what a job is. Your employer is purchasing your time. The money is undeniably a blessing. Provision. But as I said back then, it’s not easy to do, especially for a retired homeschooling mom. The actual work isn’t a problem — it’s the “being employed by someone else” part. Humility. Submitting to someone else. I’m sure it’s all part of my growing process. Character building, right? (Some people say I have enough character already…)

God is good.

Spring Brides!

Do you have a bride-to-bee in your life? Create an heirloom quilt and a precious memory at the same time, with a GloryQuilts Women of the Family Bridal Bee.

A new generation of women is reaching adulthood. These women value family history and relationships, and they want to establish extended family ties that will last beyond their own lifetime. Separated by busy lives and distance, many of us seldom have the opportunity to really visit with our mothers, sisters, aunts, cousins, grandmothers, nieces, and old friends. A quilting bee provides this opportunity. Conversation is easy when the hands are busy. There will be time for leisurely reminiscence, catching up on current events, advice on marriage and motherhood and life in general, laughter and maybe a few tears. New brides and new babies are wonderful reasons for women to come together.

Cracked Pots

“The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.” — Madeleine L’Engle, author

We don’t stop being who we are just because we are old, even if we suffer from dementia or debilitating pain.  It’s just a new stage of who we are now.  It’s wrong to think that a person’s life is over just because they don’t remember other parts of it — even if they have indeed “lost” the other ages they have been.  We are no less precious to God when our pot is cracked and crumbling.

Zechariah 8:4-5

A friend shared this with me today:

This is what the LORD Almighty says: “Once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with cane in hand because of his age. The city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing there.”

Isn’t that a lovely picture?

Integration and Segregation

Over the years, I’ve tried very hard to encourage integration in the various church fellowships to which we have belonged. I still believe it’s very important. Vital to any community with hope for a mature future. It was one of the best things about homeschooling. Our modern culture insists on grouping children into convenient clusters, separated by age and comprehension level, for easier teaching and occupation/entertainment. Instead of stretching immature learners, we just keep them at their own level of understanding, never pushing for more. We have “markers” for what should be expected at certain ages. Unfortunately, some churches actually perpetuate this, encouraging parents to send their children to Sunday school while the adults attend the worship service. Family worship in the home is all but obsolete, reduced to prayers at meals and bedtimes. If we don’t stop isolating specific age groups, we never have true nuclear families, let alone extended families.

On the other hand, there are practical, natural forms of segregation for scheduling purposes. Families with young children are not available for social activities or Bible studies after the children’s bedtimes or during school hours. Stay-at-home moms find it easiest to socialize with other stay-at-home moms, during non-nap hours, when the children can play while the moms visit. Married couples and parents may not want to do many weekend activities because it cuts into the only time they have with their spouse and family. In our busy world, we have to make careful decisions about the use of our “free” time. Sometimes the segregation is simply a matter of interests. Men and women often have different interests. A study of workplace evangelism or Biblical parenting may not be of interest to a college student or a retiree – or perhaps those particular studies may not be the best use of their limited time. A multi-generational meeting with many children running around can get too loud and distracting for some people. There are exceptions to all of those examples, of course.

The main problem with the integrated church is that the people over 50 are always expected to be teaching. It is good and Biblically correct for that to happen, but it usually fails to make any arrangement for the “care and feeding” of the older people. A ministry to shut-ins is excellent, of course, and meeting the physical needs of the elderly is important. Absolute integration, however, often fails to address the spiritual interests and needs of that age group. From my observations, studies and sermons and the format of the worship service are often directed toward young adults and families. In spite of the flood of baby boomers at or approaching retirement age, there is little attention paid to that stage of life. It’s a time of great personal change, but instead of being encouraged to explore this new stage of life, learning what God wants us to do here and now, we are expected to turn around and teach, as if we are “done” with the really important stage of life.

Youth is nice, but really, it’s just “youth.” It’s just one stage of life. At 50, according to current life expectancies, we are only halfway through our adult life. Often, it’s a major turning point in life. Right in the middle of it, done with raising kids and with much more to come. We are not done learning. Our opinions and preferences are valid and worthy of consideration. They are not outdated or even old-fashioned. Even if the younger people are interested in learning from us, we are not only there to teach them. We are still learning and growing. Our interests are very different now, as we learn to be married without children, start new careers, ministries or hobbies, or as we become elderly or are caring for our own elderly parents. Our interests and our needs are changing. We are seeing new vistas and opportunities. Don’t relegate us exclusively to the position of teachers to the youth, as if our current age is not just as vital a stage of life as childhood or young parenthood.

So a good “integration” actually includes some segregation. It isn’t just about young families, ending at the empty nest. It’s about the entire span of the life God gives us. Beyond issues of age, it includes single people, people with hurting pasts and presents, and people who are alone outside of their church family. It’s nice to include them all in one large, integrated family, but that family is made up of individuals with different needs and interests. Everyone is as important as his brother and sister. We have to be careful to remember that. It’s not all about 20-somethings or all about 70-somethings or all about children or all about college students. It’s unified diversity!

The other end of the pro-life spectrum

A new season of my life… I am now working part-time as an in-home caregiver for a company that helps the elderly (or other people in need of such care) stay in their homes as they age.

This experience has been very eye-opening to me. It’s a reminder of the other end of the “pro-life” spectrum.

It has made me ashamed for all of the people who have said, “If I ever get like that, just shoot me.” or “I want to remember them as they were when they were young.” These people in this stage of life are just as precious to God as they were at 5 or 20 or 30 or while in the womb. They often need the same kind of care as a baby – being fed and changed and read to and pushed in a stroller. The baby is selfish and demanding sometimes. They nap and often doesn’t sleep through the night. The baby can’t communicate or understand our conversation, but the attention is appreciated. And that babyhood stage is precious to God, too. He said we need to take care of our elder family, because they need care and we are repaying them for the care they gave us as children.

It’s really a very good job. It suits me.  I have worked with five clients so far. One of them just needed a ride to the city, to see her doctor, but the others are regular clients. Sometimes I simply give them their medications. Sometimes I clean house. Sometimes I transport them to the hairdresser, doctor, bank and other appointments.  One client requires much more physical care, because she is in very poor health: multiple strokes, heart surgeries and pacemakers, artificial hips, dementia, partial blindness… I lift her from bed to chair to toilet and back again, preparing meals and helping her to eat, cleaning house, and providing companionship even when she barely knows I am there. I think she recognizes me even when she can’t remember my name, and sometimes she surprises me by carrying on short, sensible conversations. And this woman, in this stage of her life, is exactly where God wants her. He loves her and values her here and now just as much as he does the newborn infant.

Sometimes, I worry more about the other people who live with the main client. The 93 year old husband of the lady described above causes me more stress than his wife. He totters around with vertigo, but he still drives. His health is even more precarious than hers, and at least she is always sitting down! I worry about him falling. I think he hangs on because he knows his wife will only be kept in such good care as long as he is alive to insist upon it. The rest of the family lives far away and is impatient of Dad’s insistence on remaining at home and keeping Mom there, too.

Most of the clients are wealthy enough to pay for this kind of care, but some are community health cases. One is a mentally handicapped man whose medication has to be doled out twice a day from a locked box. I worry more about his very elderly, frail mother who takes care of him to the best of her ability.

So many people don’t need to be warehoused in nursing homes or group homes, but they can’t do everything on their own. A little help makes it possible for them to live out their lives in dignity, in their homes, in comfort. Sometimes they just need to see a friendly face and have their dishes washed or their trash taken out. Lightbulbs replaced. Groceries picked up.  Their glasses cleaned or their hair washed. Laundry. Sweeping the floor. Changing the bedsheets. Maybe they would like to have their toenails painted or need help addressing Christmas cards. Getting out the autumn table linens.

God loves them NOW, just as they are, no less than when they were babies or children or younger adults. We shouldn’t just value and respect our elders while they are still cogent and relatively mobile. It goes beyond that. As long as God gives them life, that life is precious and should be preserved. He will decide when it’s over.  For now, they are truly alive.

The Quietude of Your Home

“Thank God, O women, for the quietude of your home, and that you are queen in it. Men come at eventide to the home; but all day long you are there, beautifying it, sanctifying it, adorning it, blessings it. Better be there than wear a queen’s coronet. Better be there than carry the purse of a princess. It may be a very humble home. There may be no carpet on the floor. There may be no pictures on the wall. There may be no silks in the wardrobe; but, by your faith in God, and your cheerful demeanor, you may garniture that place with more splendor than the upholsterer’s hand ever kindled.” — Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, D.D.

It’s a picture from the pages of a Grace Livingston Hill novel. Those books gave me a vision for home and family. I could not successfully aspire to it in the modern age, but I hope I have adapted some of it to my life as a wife and mother.

Is your home quiet? I don’t think the author of that quote is criticizing the happy noise of children. I believe he is referring to the invasion of the home by the stresses of the outside world – a blaring television when we need some quiet, over-activity that interferes with the unity of family, a discontent and critical wife, whining and poorly-behaved children…

The author commends the woman’s faith in God and her cheerful demeanor. I always told my sons that when considering a wife, a cheerful disposition is better than physical beauty.

Does your husband look forward to opening the door after a day at work? Does he step into a good place filled with loving people who welcome him gladly? Is the noise cheerful and productive, or is he met with stressful confusion and complaint?

One of my favorite quotations about homecoming husbands:

“Always be at least as glad to see him as the dog is.”

Make your home a good place… a place where your family will be glad to open the door. A respite, a haven, a place to come home to.

Gratitude

Life changes – drastically, sometimes suddenly, sometimes gradually. Some things are lost, some things pop up. Some things are recovered and renewed. God is eternal and never apart from us. He will never leave us or forsake us, in the good times and the fearful times and the times of pain.  A solid rock.

Really Retired

I’ve been cleaning the office, and I finally tackled the file cabinets. There were six very full drawers. Not all of it was homeschooling. There were quilting class records and patterns, and I saved some of that in my sewing room. I will have to organize that room later.

In general, I am not a packrat, but the file cabinets are different. Out of sight, neatly organized, out of mind. But I finally sat on the floor and sorted the wheat from the chaff. I reduced our six STUFFED drawers to one not-quite-full drawer (not counting my quiltmaking records, which will be in the sewing room.)

The biggest, most emotionally-charged project…

Today I reduced the last ten years – 8 years of homeschooling – to four folders. One for Alex, one for Matthew and one with some artwork. For each of them, I saved some assignment sheets from each year, some writing, some tests, and whatever else looked interesting.  I am embarrassed to admit that I don’t know who did the artwork in the last folder. If the guys don’t know, I will probably throw that folder out, too. The last folder contains some of the paperwork that I want to hang on to “just because.”  There is Marcelyn’s unit study on Rome and Kysa’s plan for Astronomy. Pat H’s ideas for a unit study of Greece. There is a lot of the manly poetry that I collected and had the boys read and use for speech.  The infamous “Bean Jar”  Bible verses we used as correction, reproof and training in righteousness, by Mary Leggewie. A plan for a library scavenger hunt and some dictionary exercises, from Beverly. How Laura Jean taught her son to write a 5-paragraph essay. A worksheet for connecting geography and cultural studies to literature. A worksheet for discerning an author’s worldview. Mini unit study outlines associated with different holidays. An explanation of the dubious origins of Labor Day. A commentary on the Declaration of Independence. A booklist for learning about Rome. A list of “important things to know” about the geography of the world. If you are a homeschooler, you know exactly what I am talking about.

Ok, I guess I am not counting the 40 spiral notebooks, 12 binders, and at least 10 filled consumable books (including some of Brad’s, dating from 1989). I am not even going to discuss the textbooks and other materials still sitting on our shelves. After all, we might want those again someday! But all the paperwork that was in the file cabinet drawers has been reduced to those four folders.

Matthew was done with high school two years ago, but he has still been here while attending the local community college. On Sunday, we will take him to the university and he will move into a dorm room.  The nest will be empty for a few weeks and then we will have Alex and Jennie (and the baby) back with us. But life is a-changing.

Multiplication

Our cup sure is running over lately.   In eleven weeks, we will greet our second grandchild – another girl!  And just this week, we learned that we have been blessed again, and Brad and Renee will have a baby in the spring.  God is so good!