When I graduated high school, I went straight to a 4-year university. My parents have degrees, and that was the natural progression. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do, but I had time to figure it out. I came from a middle class family. My parents paid for most of my education, and I took out student loans to cover the rest.
As an A/B student, and student athlete in high school, I didn’t expect to struggle at all in college. Then I encountered something I’d never anticipated: distractions. I was still an athlete with morning workouts, evening practices and weekend games. But suddenly, there were mixers, and parties, and shows, and I began to favor those distractions over my classes. This went on for my entire sophomore year.
By the start of my junior year, I decided to buckle down, choose a major, and really focus on the reason I was there. I majored in mass communications with a concentration in public relations. I worked extremely hard, joined an organization within my major, went to networking conferences, and even landed an internship in the marketing department at my university. Those two years of hard work really paid off-I graduated at the end of my 4th year and my GPA within my major was a 3.5. Not bad.
About 6 months after graduating, having gone on several interviews to no avail, and even attempting to join the military as an officer, it occurred to me that my experience in college may not have been as necessary as I had once thought. Over the next few years, I worked part time in several different industries. None-that I loved, and none that I felt were using the gifts that I knew I had.
After meeting my husband, getting married, and having our first child, we decided that I’d stay home with her full time. I had always wanted to be a mother, and it just made sense to us, that I’d be home to raise them. The next few years brought financial stress as my husband was still new to the Marine Corps and his paychecks were meager.
We learned to save and to stick to a budget and year after year as our family grew, and he rose through the ranks, the burden became lighter and lighter.
New Territory
After getting stationed in Okinawa, Japan, and birthing our third child, I decided I wanted to do something new. The American Red Cross was offering training for a Dental Assistant position in several local military dental clinics. My husband agreed that it would be good for me, and I applied and got in! Over the next few months, while my children were in childcare, I went to class. My daughter began her first day of kindergarten, and I was in class. I felt guilty, but justified it by reminding myself that I needed to do this.
When I graduated and began working, I noticed a huge change. Not o my was I pregnant again, but I was exhausted. All my energy went to my job and when I came home, my family got what was leftover. I no longer looked forward to cooking dinner for my family and hearing about my husband’s day. I didn’t even both making my husband breakfast in the mornings, because I was rushing to get the kids to childcare to get to work on time.
Over the next few months a series of unfortunate events ensued. My husband ended up in ICU with septic pneumonia and I couldn’t leave work to visit him because I hadn’t accumulated enough leave time. One of my children had an allergic reaction to food he was given at childcare, and my other child was left outside when her care providers and classmates went back inside. Needless to say, being present at the job that I loved, was causing problems with the family that I had created.
Lesson Learned
After the birth of our fourth baby, we decided that I’d stay home from now on. It took time, stress, and a lot of guilt, but I finally realized that my primary job was to be a keeper of our home and a present mom to our children. I no longer desired to leave my home to feel accomplished. Or that I needed to contribute financially. Soon after, my job found a new dental assistant to fill my position. But I can never be replaced in my position at home. Who better to spend my time on, and share my gifts with, than my own family?
I know I’m a little radical in my thinking, but I strongly believe that women, especially those of us married to service members, are doing ourselves and our families a disservice by seeking to work outside the home, if it causes our family to suffer as a consequence. What if we all focused our talents and gifts on keeping tidy welcoming homes where our husbands and children could retire for the day? What if we could greet our husbands at the door with a hot meal prepared and a smile? What if we had time and energy to bake cookies for our children for their after school snack, help with their homework, and make sure their silly socks were clean for spirit week?
Since coming to this realization in Okinawa, my husband’s job has caused us to move twice, and no matter where we live in this world, my job remains the same. And I can tell you, I’ve never been more fulfilled.
