My Career

I have been a stay-at-home mom for 25 years. Oh, I have always done something, such as babysitting, teaching adult education, writing and editing, and working part-time in a store, while raising my kids. I need to be productive in some way, and I have a lot of curiosity about the world that I could never satisfy by simply being at home. I never had to leave my children with a sitter, though. Having gone through that experience myself, I had no desire to inflict it upon my kids. So I took them with me, worked when Daddy was home with them, or worked while they were at school.

So, here I am, over 50, with no career path and no retirement of my own. Don't get me wrong--I know with absolute certainty that I did the right thing. But it's hard to endure the lack of response to my job enquiries. I'm sure a lot of it is because nobody can believe that a woman who graduated from college 30 years ago has anything to offer. Even if there are no gaps, essentially, in her resume.

Let's see: making Halloween costumes and high-school play costumes, while memorable for my kids, isn't doing anything for me. Ditto making all those cinnamon rolls, breads, pies, cookies and other goodies for my family. Not to mention having dinner on the table every night. With vegetables.

Writing and editing nice little essays about home life? Nope, doesn't hold any water, evidently. I'm a good writer and editor, but my work, though published, has mostly been on some pretty lightweight subjects. At a friend's house one evening, I told her husband, a lobbyist, that I was available for freelance work. Oh, he didn't need me. He has a guy on retainer who used to be a chief editor for Advertising Age. I felt like the world's biggest loser when he told me that.

My book on how to dress and conduct oneself? Huh. The one agent I did speak with wanted to know if I had a TV show. The fact that I taught adult education and have over 25 years' experience helping others to get a more professional image means little to literary agents. They want a name people recognize. Sigh.

And all that volunteer work I've done? On committees for our homeowner's association, president of the Drama Boosters at the high school for two years? Fat lot of good that does me. I don't even bother mentioning it.

Granted, I live in the Washington, DC area where power is everything and everyone is truly top-notch. I'm a little guppy swimming with piranha.

Still, in my heart I am deeply content. My older daughter told me recently she and her siblings-in-law were discussing their childhoods. There was nobody, she said, who'd had a happy childhood. But that wasn't true for her. "Couldn't have been better," she said. My son has said the same thing.

Maybe I can't retire on that, but it's worth more than a million to me.

College or Not?

I watched a wonderful 15-minute address by Steve Jobs (one of the founders of Apple) at the 2005 commencement ceremony at Stanford University. See it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

Jobs did not finish college, and he talks about that. But mostly he talks about following one's passion and loving what you're doing.

There is a tremendous amount of merit in what he says. Yet, I still feel that a bachelor's degree is one of the most important things a person can achieve.

This is why. In college, you can spend time on a breadth and depth of learning and exploring ideas with other students that is impossible during any other period in your life. (After attending for one semester, Jobs spent a year and a half just auditing various classes at Reed College; I got the impression that he was not going for credit.) A college degree also gives you an edge over other candidates for a particular job. It means you will very likely never have to work in a fast-food joint. Knowledge is something that no one can ever take away from you. Interest in a lot of things enriches your life and leads you to lifetime learning. The people you will associate with will challenge your thinking and teach you broadmindedness. And you will earn, on average, 60% more over your lifetime than if you have only a high school diploma.

My daughter seems to think that she is going to college only to please me. Believe me, it's an expensive pastime of mine, if that is the case! She does not understand that I am trying to prepare her for independence and self-sufficiency, while doing meaningful work. She does not know that she will look back regretfully if she does not finish school, but will have no regrets at all if she does.

I love what Jobs had to say to the Stanford graduates. He displays the admirable quality of having learned lessons from his life. Fortunately, not having finished school has not hindered him. However, this is no longer the world Jobs lived in during the 70s. A degree is even more important now that it was 35 years ago.

My college years were probably some of the worst of my life. The work was hard. I was lonely (though I still keep in touch with some of my college friends!) I was making the break from my parents, which can be agonizing, as I re-examined my values and chose a lifestyle different from theirs. I struggled with my weight. I struggled with the schoolwork. I began confronting my personality flaws. I had some issues with depression. But basically, I learned that I could stand on my own two feet, emotionally, financially, intellectually and spiritually. It was very, very hard. And it was worth it.

BAAA!

Woo hoo! TAMN, also known as Tiffany/Amber/Megan/Nicole, of Seriously, So Blessed has posted a blog entry I wrote for her! If you aren't familiar with this blog, and you're a Mormon woman, you need to read it! It's a hilarious sendup of Mormon-mommy blogs--and from some of the real ones I've read, I can assure you she's not far off the mark. The accent, the highlights, the pedicures, eating at Cheesecake Factory--all feature in the twentysomething life in Salt Lake City.

As TAMN would say, BAAA!

Over the Hill?

Today I went to a church meeting for a committee I'm on. We plan quarterly activities for the women's auxiliary. There were 6 women present, and I was the eldest. One other woman has a daughter in college and two middle-school age children, but of the other four's combined 11 kids, the eldest are 7. Needless to say, I could not contribute much to the planning of the activities for the year--I've been there and done that, for the most part.

This is just one other instance that reminds me I'm getting a bit long in the tooth. While I am a member of the largest age cohort in the United States, I still feel a bit past it, as the British say.

My home is starting to look a bit dated, for example. The rich golds, burgundies, and navy blues I favor are no longer in vogue. My Karastan rugs have been manufactured in the same color scheme since the 1920s, so they are modern classics, and my furniture is all basically reproductions of federal styles, but the latest iteration of Mid-Century Modern that the thirtysomethings favor makes my stuff look, well, stuffy by contrast. Now, I know the mid-century modern aesthetic is going to look passe in a few years too, but there you are.

Then there's my clothing style. I try to stay up on things and not let my look get too dated, but I still favor a lot of eye shadow and some volume in my hair--reminiscent of the 1980s when I was in my twenties and thirties. (Fortunately, I have a fabulous stylist who changes my hair on a regular basis.) I am loath to get rid of my beautiful silk blouses and wool suits, though they are not currently in style. A lot of the time I feel like a frump.

Women my age cannot wear clothes from Forever 21 without looking idiotic, but I am finding the happy medium of staying au courant without looking teenagey much more difficult than I thought I would. I keep reminding myself that just because something is not worn out doesn't mean it should still be worn!

My political position seems to be out of it, too. I have noticed a very liberal trend among younger people. Ultimately, this means that even Republicans will be more liberal in the future than they are now.

What did John Mellencamp say? "Life goes on...long after the thrill of living is gone." Gosh, I don't want to believe that.

Body of Evidence

Sometimes in a church meeting there is an electrifying lesson or sermon. Sunday delivered one of these.

A woman in our stake Relief Society presidency (the women's auxiliary of the Mormon church) gave the lesson. She talked about creating a body of evidence regarding our belief in God.

Now, while I would not say my childhood experiences were stellar, I had stable, loving parents and a secure environment. This woman, however, had an alcoholic father and a mom who worked and was away from the home most of the time.

She had been sent to visit her grandmother every summer, and that was who taught her to believe in God. When she was nine, she decided to pray to God to help her father stop drinking. She went alone to a playground in order to get to a high place--the huge slide that was there--to deliver her prayer.

"When I walked home, I got the feeling that everything would be okay. When I got home, of course, everything was the same--but I was different. I had received comfort from that prayer." We went on to discuss what she had learned from this initial experience in faith: that there was comfort in prayer, and this encouraged her to do it again. She had taken a baby step--but after all, she was only nine years old. She went on to say that it takes a lifetime to build this body of evidence, and something that I have often thought: we learn every day, line upon line and precept on precept, here a little and there a little.

So I began thinking about my relationship with God and what constituted the body of evidence for my faith.

I really can't remember when I didn't believe in God. Thankfully, my parents had taught me to pray and began sending me to Sunday school when I was three or four, though they did not attend church themselves. My father taught me the Lord's Prayer, and I had a Little Golden Book of prayers. I felt the spirit when I was young and I prayed, although I couldn't identify it as such. I just knew that I felt that a Presence heard me.

As I have grown older I have come to learn that the Lord is there, and He loves me, and He loves everyone else, too. He has granted my prayers, and He has given me a miracle or two. I have come to believe in His Son and His atoning sacrifice.

It seems odd that at age 51 there is still so much to learn, but I hope that I can continue to learn, and make the most of whatever time I have left. This, I feel, is at the heart of a life well-lived.

A Woman's Work is Never Done

I swear I have the dustiest house in North America.

Not that I am one to dust on a regular basis, but when I do get to it, I manage to enfilthiate (my word) dust cloths at three times the rate my mother ever did. And it seems that the minute I finish, the dust reappears.

Mom made us dust when we were kids. She had unfilled travertine tops on a lot of the furniture, which means dust-holding holes. We had to dust every week, and we were admonished to DUST THE BASEBOARDS as well. I never remember those dust cloths picking up much at all. It seemed like a wasted effort to me. I never saw a dust bunny during my childhood.

Not so in my own house. I live in a colonial style house that has colonial moldings, which are much dustier than the Los Angeles mid-century modern simple, rounded baseboards I grew up with. I also have six-panel doors, dust hoarders all, as opposed to the blond wood smooth doors in my home of origin. Mom also hated knicknacks--"Just more to clean"--so we had few of those to REMOVE AND DUST (of course, being kids, we kind of flicked the dust cloth over and around them). I, however, have "tablescapes" on every flat surface, with lots more tchotchkes than Mom ever had. (Back then, though, we had ashtrays everywhere. It was the sixties, after all.)

My mom was a champion cleaner, at least until she started working full-time. She'd nearly rip the clothes off your body when you came through the door ("Give me that blouse! I'm doing light wash-and-wear!"). Nobody had whites like hers. She and the occasional maid, Homako, would go through the house like a dose of salts. They'd wash the windows every month, wash the woodwork, vacuum everything. It was amazing.

Mom still makes me clean the bathtub and shower every single time I use it at her house. Even though she can't climb the stairs and inspect the bathroom, I am still very careful about it. Her regimen includes using a squeegee and then rags to dry the remaining water from the glass doors and tile walls.

Once my sister and I were nine or ten, though, and Mom worked, the story changed. Although she never let us touch the washing machine, we had to fold the dried laundry. And iron the pillowcases. Vacuum the house. And, of course do the aforementioned dusting.

As you might expect, we lied a lot about whether we had done our chores. We couldn't see the point in doing all that work every single week. When we did do it, it was done halfheartedly.

For the last thirty years, though, I've had to do my own housework, and boy, has my attitude changed. I had to educate my husband on the virtues of "deep vacuuming" (which means moving all the furniture and using the edge tool to get the corners, and rooting out the dust bunnies from their gambling dens and whorehouses, or so he says). I never forced my kids to do much, either, because I became so particular about how things were done (big mistake). Yet, my daughter Julie, as a college freshman, called me one day and said, "Mom, you've done it. You should be proud. I am dying to clean the dormitory bathroom." Obviously, she didn't go to BYU, which had the best janitorial staff I've ever seen in any institution.

So here I am, spending nearly all day today dusting and vacuuming and cleaning bathrooms. And I'll do it again, and again. But I do have to admit, when I glance around that clean, dust-free living room with its gleaming mahogany tables and porcelain vases, I do get a sense of accomplishment. Sick, huh?

Ring in the New

I seldom make new year's resolutions. They usually go by the wayside, and I feel guilty for not sticking with them. On the other hand, if I don't make resolutions or set goals, I feel guilty for being a lazy slug.

There are several things I'd like to do: lose fifteen pounds, always do my visiting teaching and let the supervisor know on time, quit swearing, stop participating in gossip. In other words, to be perfect.

Nancy Drew was perfect. She always knew what the right thing was to do, and she did it. She may not have been attending college or pursuing a career, but she could ice skate, dance, ride a horse, shoot a gun, and apply makeup like a pro. She was nice to old ladies. She always had just the right emergency supplies in her car's trunk. She never overspent, lied, or gained weight. And she never got mad (at least, as long as no one was trying to kill her). She was humble, too. She never lorded it over anyone else. I'll bet she could sew a dress, mow the lawn, and install crown molding as well! All by age 18.

Do I believe perfection is possible? Theoretically, yes, intellectually, no. I understand that I am imperfect and that's what Christ's sacrifice in Gethsemane was about. However, in my heart of hearts, I believe it is possible, and I will never, ever, measure up.

Do I hold others to my standards? Not at all, though I tried to inculcate high personal standards in my children--with limited success.

The balancing act comes in working toward perfection while still loving the imperfect self. This is difficult and it takes a lot of faith.

So perhaps my resolution should be to simply act with more faith in myself, God and others, this year.