The ironicness of my life never seem to stop tickling me. I was groomed to be a traditional stay-at-home wife and mother where my days would be filled with cleaning and cooking and nurturing the children. This is what my mother did and what was pretty much expected of me. I do all those things. Ok, most of the time, I should say… There was no need for a degree in some sort from college. If I wanted that, it would have to a bible college where I was expected to meet a nice pastor or missionary and get married. This part I didn’t do. I went to a community college, paid with loans and mostly my own money and then got accepted into a university, but never attended due to lack of funds. My parents made too much money for me to get an acceptable size loan and financial aid would not consider me independent of them, although my parents refused to pay a dime. I forged my way into social work with from community college and then switched to the corporate world and found a company that would pay for my schooling. Two years of that and then I received certification in Human Resources. I worked this job, (my favorite of them all) until a week before I had Tyler which was actually 4 years ago this week.

I can’t even imagine working now and being able to take care of the house and kids the way I do now. I don’t know how working moms do it. I am thankful that as a child I learned important skills on how to be a housewife, as I use them daily. But even as a stay at home mom I do some many more things, that my parents never imagined I would do and never bothered to expose me too, because well, they are “GUY jobs.” Not . for. a . woman. I guess they never imagined I would marry a guy that didn’t readily do things around the house. They laugh at all my projects and the stuff I do and now wish they had taught me these skills as a child with my 3 brothers. I wish they did too.

I have been laughing to myself all day because of the seeming extremes of my chores today:

-get kids dressed

-went to Home Depot

-installed new closet door in Ty’s room

-made boys lunch & switched laundry

-installed new lift support on my minivan

-frosted and decorated cookies for Ty’s class

-put new weather stripping down around front door

-comforted a sick Ty

I know in this modern world today, the way I was raised is outdated and silly, and I have no intentions of raising my kids the same way. I want them to know how to do it all. I make sure both the boys and A are along when I show them how to do home repairs and the boys enjoy helping me with what I was taught are traditional women chores. I am sure I am not what my parents pegged me to be when I grew up. They now warn me to not expect your children to turn out one way because you just never know. I guess they know best. I am sure none of the six of us turned out as they had hoped or expected. Sorry Mom and Dad. But it is hard. As my kids grow and fine tune their interest and personalities I find myself slipping into dream of the future- of their future. I am not thinking all lofty and perfect dreams, although I do have those too, but rather dreams of what type of people they will be. What about all you other parents out there? Do you imagine what your children will be like when they are adults?

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