SAHM

Okay, I think maybe I've been coming across as a whiner lately. So it's time to clear up a few things.

First things first. Although I have had my moments (okay, hours, maybe days) of feeling like Cinderella lately, and would welcome a fairy godmother with a magic wand, I am not without a handsome prince. Jeff takes care of me and believes in me and loves me in spite of my weaknesses. He is a great dad for our boys, he works hard for us, AND he cooks delicious dinners on a regular basis, just to name a few things. I am lucky to be married to him and to have him for my best friend.

Second, I love being a stay-at-home mom. Like any other job or occupation, it has it's frustrations (thus my whining), but I am grateful that I am able to stay at home, and given a choice, I wouldn't have it any other way. My family is my most important priority, and I can't imagine me, with the limitations I know I have, trying to juggle anything else right now, however worthy or fulfilling it may be. Also, I believe, as President Ezra Taft Benson and other prophets have counseled, that mothers should be at the crossroads. I know that if I went out and got a job, my kids would not automatically become juvenile delinquents. I trust, however, that they will be blessed and I will be blessed for staying home with them.

I visit teach another stay-at-home mom with a very large family. Her oldest two sons are on missions right now, and her youngest is not quite two years old. Just yesterday she was telling me how she's received some compliments lately about how calm and patient she is with her younger children. And she realizes she is more calm and patient with them than she was with her older children when they were young, because she has a different perspective. She can see now that how she raised her older children worked. She's getting some of the payoff. And she probably knows better what didn't work. I suppose I'm a little envious of that, but the older I get the more grateful I am for the process of learning from our experiences. She's just a few years ahead of me in the mothering experience. Anyway, the point is, I can't see right now what difference it might make that I am a stay-at-home mom. But I'm trying to do what I know I am supposed to do, despite the frustrations, and I'm trusting that somewhere down the road I will see some of the payoff too.