O.k. I have joined this blogging thing and so far I am doing a lousy job of it! I am amazed to see how well some of the other blogs mothers that are in the middle of homeschooling years are doing. I am sure they are catching minutes after everyone else is asleep or before everyone gets up! I remember the days when there were six of my children at home. "Mom" was the best resource for everything so quiet time for Mom doesn't usually happen during waking hours! I do remember I was so tired at the end of the day that I wasn't too good at sitting and listening at the bedside. We did say prayers and recite a verse of memorized scripture before turning out the lights. I remember my Julia who is now 24 and a mommy herself holding onto my hand tightly so I couldn't leave her room. I would often say to her that I was so sleepy and break loose of her grip! If I could go back and change things but then I think would they really change ...we do the best we can. I do think the reason I was so tired when it was the children's bedtime was that I always rose early before everyone else. I would write my letter to my mom(which I did at least once a week) and do a devotional(not always). I also would get bread rising and laundry going or whatever didn't directly involve the children done in the early hours.
Now 20 or so years later we have 1 teenager at home and I work a full time job 3-11. I still get up early, in fact I am writing this at 8 a.m. My husband has left for work(he has a part-time job) , and retired from the P.O. which he worked hard at for 29 years. He always had himself on the overtime list and did a lot of it! We lived quite comfortably and I could stay at home and homeschool our children. It is sad, he really doesn't feel like he was around a lot,but really what else could we have done? I do remember we made a big deal of his going off to work and coming home and we were able to have some nice family vacations. They were nothing extravagant but we had em! We often went to Virginia Beach or a trip to Grandma and Grandpas.
Most days were almost idyllic when the children were all under the age of 15 or so. It was the teenage mutant years that we really struggled with many things. They all of a sudden change from being your best buddy to "get out of my way I don't really like you at all!" I always remember a friend saying to me "little children little problems...big children big problems. I hate to sound pessimistic and I pray it won't be that way for everyone out there reading this but for us it was extremely hard. I am sure we made a lot of mistakes, but honestly I wouldn't know how to do it any different today!
I hope my children don't hold any bad feeling against us for whatever. Parenting is a hard ,hard, job. Especially when one or both have to work another job also. We also had no family close by and I think there is more of that going on nowadays. I always did try my best to get us into a church that would replace family but that never seemed to work real good for us. One Godsend for us was good neighbors. I always made friends with grandma types (I guess I wanted a mother-type close by and also this age group had time) , they were such a blessing. I am remembering Mrs Holmes, Mr and Mrs Embrey,(early years when we had three children),then Mr and Mrs Yates and Alice Kilby( good neighbors where we lived the biggest chunk of time 21 years) and then later Alma Williamson when we were down to two still at home. Thank God for these giving, precious people that really cared about us! Only two of the above mentioned are still living.
1 comment:
Those are some good thoughts. They reminded me of this article by Economist Gary North which I have thought upon many times since I first read it almost a year ago. http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north507.html
For what it's worth, my girls do the same thing as did Julia at bedtime, but the thing is, if I stay in there I just keep them awake, so I don't most of the time. But sometimes I do stay a while and talk to them or read to them or do some silly routine to get them laughing. Those are special times and I can imagine looking back on them some day with a sense of loss when they have passed. But I suspect there are new sorts of special times to fill that sort of void at every stage of life. Good memories I think should be a treasure, not a curse.
Grandpa sent me a book on parenting by Dr. Bill Rice. I read it and it was nice, but I had my disagreements. I think he is too strict. When I look at how God treats his people there is not that sort of strict consistency. Sometimes God does punish infractions almost immediately. But other times (most times) God is very patient, and sometimes he seems to overlook sins altogether, or at least overlook them for a very long time. In trying to emulate that relationship with my children, I think it is appropriate at some times to be strict, but other times to show mercy and other times to let things go. Anyway, it's just not in me to be that strict. Will my children suffer because of it? Maybe. I guess time will tell. I really liked the story at the end about Dr Bill's father and grandfather and how a good deed done by his grandfather came back to his son and completely changed the course of his life and his children's lives for the next few generations. Now that's really something to think about.
I see where you were asking on the messenger who had snow? Well today is cold but it was nearly 80 degrees all week last week. I was wearing T-shirts to work and it was hot! Strange, strange. And all the while the midwest is getting pounded with winter storms. It's like we live on different planets.
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