I have had a lot of feelings come up in the last couple of days centered around the fact that I’ve worked from home as a stay-at-home mom for the last 20 years.
I look back, and I have done it all, but
so much of the work I’ve done has been the invisible kind.
No award. No paycheck.
I have memorized facts on the inner workings of several humans that no one else would ever know.
I have run the calendar, made the food, and executed the plans for everyone.
I have counseled at bedsides, and cleaned out the throw-up bowl again and again;
And I did it all willingly,
but it means that so much of my life has been doing the things no one in my house really even understands.
Some days it feels like I barely exist.
Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s been a valuable time that I would never trade.
It is 100% what I wanted.
But it has meant no real retirement that is just mine.
It has meant 20 years missing from my work history,
and no independent security if something ever happened.
It’s meant years of my kids answering,
“My mom? Oh. She doesn’t work,” when asked what I do by other adults or their friends.
Never mind that I was a housekeeper,
a school janitor,
an art teacher,
and did daycare in my home for 16 years.
Never mind that I have been writing for the Bob and Sheri show for nearly a decade as I have done it.
I was selling things I made online,
painting murals,
Teaching in discussion groups,
and studying illnesses.
I was sewing things,
baking,
cooking,
driving all over the county to soccer,
writing emails to teachers,
fixing appliances,
fixing plumbing,
and running a six-person household while also raising a calf in the backyard,
and learning to cut hair.
On paper, though,
it’s all nothing.
A gap.
A glaring hole where no “real job” fit.
To some people, just existing and twirling my steadily thinning hair must be all I did.
And all of a sudden, I’m really feeling it.
I am feeling the inner isolation of creating an entire world for other people and then realizing you don’t quite live in it.
I am feeling kind of like a ghost of myself that haunts the hallways while other people sleep.
The girls are talking about their lives after they all leave home,
and I keep wondering where exactly that will leave ME.
Yesterday, after expressing this online, someone sent me an article written by a woman named Nicole Johnson, who was in this same position,
and who had been given a book on the great cathedrals of Europe by her friend.
The book had pictures of amazing architecture, brilliant design, art in every detail, and pointed out that many of these cathedrals took a hundred years to build,
yet the builders remained unknown. No one ever knew one fact about them.
These builders had worked their whole lives on something they would never even be able to sit in.
That resonated so much.
I build, and press my face to the stained glass windows, longingly looking in.
Just when the author was getting ready to question why this book, she noticed that on the inside cover, her friend had written an explanation:
“With admiration for the greatness that YOU are building when no one sees.”
I cried reading it
I knew when I got into it that much of what moms do is never seen, understood, or appreciated,
but that is not why they build. I knew it because of the example of my own mother, who had done so much of the same…Who does it still.
They do it hoping that one day, those they love will come in, feel peace and belonging,
and they will look around, finally noticing the detail, and will see that a place that LOVE dwells was created just for them
I sat with that mental picture:
A cathedral built with my own two hands.
On this same day I was sent this, my 17-year-old daughter, Tessa, and I got some alone time running errands.
I love one-on-one time with my girls.
No four girls were ever more different.
None were ever as individual while sharing such similar faces and all their genetics.
I love how alone time with each of them allows me to see who they are more clearly.
I thought about how this type of time is what has always shown me how to build;
What is in need of tweaking and repairs.
I’m always astounded by Tessa.
It’s been that way since she was small, and I have always been continually shocked at how deeply she sees and understands things.
We talked about everything from the world’s expectations of women, to church theology, to what we feel like my granddaughter, Mavis, will grow up thinking we each represent.
My conversation with her was literally the most stimulating, emotionally intelligent conversation I have had in months with any person of any age.
I felt known and understood.
It quite literally quenched something that was parched in me.
I felt completely like my full self.
In that moment, looking over at her profile, noticing the light in her eyes, and the slight smile at times on her lips, I thought about those cathedrals again.
I saw that, even though it looked like I was just in a car driving down the road,
I was currently inside one of them.
The last 20 years of motherhood has been so fulfilling, but also exhausting, draining, and often extremely lonely work.
Sometimes I have felt like I have searched the whole world, looking for a person who can truly understand me, and sitting there, I realized that person has never been far away,
and doesn’t only exist in my dreams.
That person actually lives with me.
She is right here.
She has become someone brave, thoughtful, deep, kind, and intelligent, due in part to all that invisible work.
My girls and the lineage they pass on are the masterpieces.
The job is never fully complete.
I must continue to build and build.
I needed the reminder that it’s about what it is I am actually building,
the thing that will exist beyond me,
not just the hours of seemingly invisible work that went in.
I hope, one day, they can look around and take in the love, the intention, and the craftsmanship.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
