I read something last week that said, "Bearing children is a faith-based work."
Jeez, I needed to hear that. Because sometimes it doesn't all make sense. I keep asking myself, How do I make my house more peaceful? How do I help my kids get along? How do I stop all the whining!?! Feel free to leave your brilliant answers.
Anyway, Ella, Kate and Dash are growing up! And there are so many things I need to teach them. It weighs on me. I think about their total education daily.
For example, I want to homeschool but can't quite get comfortable with it. Private schools in the area are out, and public schools have some real drawbacks. For example, sometimes I feel like our nation can't agree on a general moral standard. But how do you teach history or social sciences or any discipline that requires context and nuance if you can't agree on a few things that are right and wrong?
I want my kids to be excellent, and not because I care about ego or prestige but because I know they are capable of excellence. I wrote down these things about a year and half ago and they are the benchmarks I am using to make decisions.
- Excellence
- Discipline
- Kindness
- Humility
- Integrity
- Innovation
- Delight / Joy
In addition, our family has some goals.
1) Enjoy our work
2) Experience nature / recreation
3) Live below our means
4) Live beautifully and simply
5) Cultivate health
6) Love passionately
7) Laugh often
8) Help others
9) Make a life
I look at this list often and it has been a compass for us as we have made some big decisions the last two years.
But part of being the mom and carefully thinking about these things is that you have to have time to implement them. I have to have time to study the things I want my kids to know; I have to have time to laugh at silly things and wrestle on the floor and not worry about deadlines and the clock so much. That is the rat race that adulthood brings and kids deserve their time in the innocent land of childhood.
So I have quit freelancing. I have been canceling projects and phasing out clients. And although it has taken me years to come to this point, I am finally there.
Although my brain is constantly racing with ideas and projects and creative energy, right now, I am devoting everything I have to the faith-based work of motherhood and infusing my home with joy and comfort and love for my family and those who walk in my door. Wish me luck because as many of you know it is not easy but hopefully will be worth it.
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More from that article:
Live the Hope of Eternal Life
Parents, teachers, and leaders: live in your homes, in your families, in your marriages so that youth will develop hope for eternal life from watching you. Live and teach with so much clarity that what you teach will cut through all the noise youth are hearing and so that it will pierce their hearts and touch them.
Live in your home so that you’re brilliant in the basics, so that you’re intentional about your roles and responsibilities in the family. Think in terms of precision not perfection. If you have your goals and you are precise in how you go about them in your homes, youth will learn from you. They will learn that you pray, study the scriptures together, have family home evening, make a priority of mealtimes, and speak respectfully of your marriage partner. Then from your example the rising generation will gain great hope.
