The Job

I had plenty of time to think. Four hours of enforced aloneness, during the commute to my new job. One hundred miles each way, two hours in the morning and two more in the evening. Add that to an eight-hour work day, and I worked twelve hours a day, five days a week.

I borrowed a motivational tape from work. As I listened, the speaker talked about identifying my chief purpose in life. Instinctively, I thought about my family. My chief purpose in life is to be part of their life. My vocation is to make a haven for them where they feel safe and loved; a shelter from the storm. Not that they always get my best, but they have the top priority in my life. I owe it to them.

Without my family, I would be lost. I depend on their emotional support for the courage I need to face the world outside of our home. I have a life, a career, things I care about besides them. None of it would have the remotest possibility, if I was not part of that life-raft I call my family, and little of my life would be as pleasurable without them as it is with them.

After deciding my chief purpose in life, I questioned how I fulfilled it. The motivational speaker made no bones about it. If I did not consciously work toward my purpose, nothing else was going to work out. Hmmm, let’s see, my purpose is to take care of my family. I spend 12 hours away from them each day, and when I return, I am not always fit company, after dodging the assassins on the freeway. How does that jibe with my purpose in life?

The plain and ugly truth lay before me—it did not. While it might be heroic of me to continue in that job, I worked at cross-purposes with myself. I could have rationalized that my work brought in money we needed. No one ever complains when we have surplus money. On the other hand, we have gone through thick and thin, and mostly it has been thin. We would survive fine without my job.

I persisted in the lunacy for four months—the four longest months of my life. Homesick on a daily basis, I began looking forward to the Mom-tell-her-to-act-right phone calls, because at least I could hear their voices.

Arriving home at 7 p. m. to find supper uncooked never seemed to bring out my best. I made it clear that I was not going to cook when I got home. Sometimes, they still failed to cook. I left them in the middle of prime family time to go to bed each night, so I could get up at 4 a. m. to do it all over again. I was not a happy camper.

Then one day, the second boss came in and fussed at me for some infraction and informed me of the policy that she had implemented to teach me not to do it again. I thought to myself, I don’t want to work here anymore.

Two hours later, the third boss came in to tell me of another sin, and the measures he had implemented to teach me not to do it anymore. This crime, however, was bogus. I proved my point, then told him I was going back to work. I let him know I thought he was wasting my time (which he was). He fired me on the spot.

I had gotten my wish, but it took a while to see it that way.

I had plenty of time to think while I got over the humiliation. I decided not to work for someone else. I would rather be poor than disconnect from my lifeline. And I decided I was worth whatever it took to establish myself as a freelancer who got to spend the most important moments of her life with the most important people in her life.

My children have told me that my decision has helped them stay out of trouble. I can believe that—most teen pregnancies begin between 3 and 5 in the afternoon, while kids hang out unsupervised waiting for parents to get home. They say I was a bear during that time; but the most interesting thing they ever had to say about my foray into cubicle-ville is that they are glad I got fired. We didn’t need the money that much anyhow.
© 2005

You Can Have That--If You Can Afford It

Like everyone else, we do not generally have piles of cash lying around, so when my son came to me as a junior in high school and asked for a class ring, I volunteered to sell my own class ring to get him one. Jewelers buy scrap gold by weight, so a class ring will bring a bit of money. However, the price of a ring also depends partly on the amount of gold in it, there was not likely to be a ton of money to buy his ring, especially considering the difference in weight between a woman’s ring and a man’s.

I’m no martyr. I last wore my class ring probably 15 years before. It already awaited recycling in a box of broken gold jewelry. This just seemed like the appropriate time to do it. However, I discovered it was not the appropriate time when we arrived at the jewelry counter at the local Wal*Mart store.
“I don’t want it if it comes from Wal*Mart. I want one like Joe’s,” he informed me. I felt my blood pressure rising. I knew for a fact that Joe had spent an ungodly sum of money on his ring. Money I did not have.

I had two other children at home. I juggled finances to make sure everyone got what they needed without complaint. I did so willingly. But I was not willing to tell his two sisters that they would have to wear their shoes another month or two because big brother needed a class ring.

“Okay, we won’t buy it,” I told him.

I have to confess, I called a friend. My son was angry with me, and I was angry with him, and I needed some clarity. Her answer: He was playing me like a fiddle.

Family life calls for making sacrifices, and it calls on parents and children alike to make them. Simple arithmetic proves it: If two families have $100 for Christmas presents, the only child gets more spent on her than the boy with two sisters.

We do not borrow money unless we have to. There is no “have to” about a class ring, or name-brand jeans, or car insurance for kids. When it comes to nonessentials, if we do not have the money, our children know they have two choices. They can pay their own way, or they can do without.

Mom and Dad take care of the necessities, the roof, the food, the clothes, and if we’re flush, we try to add a nicety here and there. They have our blessing and encouragement to earn anything else they want. We may not give them everything they want, but we will not let them to do without things they need (like financial stability) for things they want.

My son got a job, but the class ring never made it to the top of his priority list. He spent his money on clothes and on having his hair styled, and we let him. We still gave him money for school clothes, and we would have paid for a haircut at the barber. He wanted style at thirty bucks a pop, and he paid his own way to have it.

He never got a driver’s license until he left home, because, once again, saving up thousands of dollars for car insurance was not on his list. Since the state requires vehicle insurance to register a car, until he had the cash for insurance, he did not get to drive.

His sister got her license at 17. She got her first job within walking distance from home. She pays her own insurance. And this spring, she and I took a road trip across country to see her friend in the military. She paid. Both my children have learned earn what they want, and neither has a class ring.

But the most important lesson for all of us is about setting priorities. When my son wanted to drive badly enough, he gathered up the money for insurance. Insurance became a priority, and he did what it took to get what he wanted. I may not always agree with their priorities, but I do not have to, because my children’s priorities do not belong to me. I have modeled good priority-setting. They are smart kids. I have faith in them. They will get it.
© 2005

Over Fool's Hill

My son is a delightful young man. He has enough charm for two people and a priceless sense of humor. He can be considerate and loving, a good companion and friend. However, he has his faults. He seems incapable of keeping a thought in his head at times. Not only must we remind him to come to Christmas at Grandma’s house, we have to remind him how to get there. And regardless of how many Christmases he spends with us there, and how many times I give him directions, he always gets lost. Never, ever give him an important piece of paper. You might as well shred it, because it is as good as lost the minute he gets it in his hand.

Even with his faults, I delight in his company anyway. His sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents all think the world of him, which makes it doubly frustrating when I have to remind him over and over that he should plan to be at his sister’s graduation, or his dad’s birthday.

He does things that make me want to scream. One year, I had to help him retrieve his car after they towed it—three different times—because he refused to buy a parking permit. Mind you, the first time they towed him cost more than the permit would have.

I asked why he kept parking in places where he shouldn’t. He never had a satisfying answer for me. His girlfriend lived on campus at the university, and he wanted to visit her, so he did. When he came back, his car usually had a parking ticket, which he promptly tore up. After a few of those, when he came back, his car had disappeared.

It makes a mother wonder when she sees the child she raised doing the same thing over and over and getting bad results every time. What did I do wrong? Surely he gets it that campus police will tow or ticket his car if he parks where he doesn’t belong. So why does he go back again and again?

Well, it turns out that he is on the slippery down-slope of Fool’s Hill. He parks there because deep in his heart he knows that rules do not apply to him. Rules are for other people. Nothing but nothing will convince him otherwise until he is ready to see.

My mother was just as frustrated watching me at his age. And nothing she could say would have made me act differently. I only ever changed my behavior when I disliked the consequences it brought me. Some things you just have to learn on your own.

When I think about my son, I have to remember that even at 21 years old, he is not really an adult. I was a child at his age, so why should he be different? He came into my life during my time on that long, tortuous road from my twenty-first birthday to adulthood.

I have been extraordinarily lucky. I have always had friends willing to tell me the truth, even unpleasant truths. One pointed out to me that although I wanted people to understand me, I put out very little effort trying to understand them. I chewed on that a long time. It may have been the first stepping-stone down off Fool’s Hill for me.

One day I told a friend of my frustration with my son. I was angry with him for not being an adult. My friend poured me another cup of coffee and said, “You don’t have to like your kids. Your job is to love them and help them stay alive until they get to the top of Fool’s Hill. After that, Life takes over and you can relax.”

I can relax. My son is a bright fellow, and he will catch on that rules do apply to him. It may take a while, but as his mother, I have the unique privilege of getting to enjoy him and getting to ignore his foolishness. I never have to say “I told you so,” because if I did tell him, he knows it. I can run into him at a coffee shop and listen to him tell me about his life and his adventures and be proud of the fine young man he has become. His lessons now are private ones, and unless he chooses to involve me, I can stop mothering a little and befriend him. I did my best. Life will do the rest.

© 2005