What do you DO All Day?

As a child, and throughout my teen years, I had a dream.  That dream was to be a helpmeet to my husband and stay-at-home mom with lots of children.  I remember being harassed by other kids, and one well-meaning school teacher, when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up.  My reply was always, “A mom!”

“But what do you want to BE?” they would persist in asking. I never wavered in my answer.  Occasionally, I flirted with the idea of becoming an actress or ballet dancer, neither an area in which I have even an ounce of talent, but in my heart I knew it didn’t matter if I had fame, fortune, or a pink tu-tu. All that mattered was that I would raise a passel of children with my knight-in-shining-armor.

I met my knight at a fairly young age.  He was eighteen and I had just turned nineteen, but it didn’t take long for us to realize that we had found our soul mates in one another.  Nearly everything about our lives, ideals, and dreams were identical.  Even at that young age, he would talk to me about our future children and what qualities I possessed that he thought would make me a good mother.

So, by the age of twenty-one we had our first beautiful, bouncing, baby girl.  Staying home with her wasn’t a dream that was immediately recognized, but it did happen eventually.  That’s when the confusion started.  People gave me blank stares when they found out I was “just” a mom.  Well-meaning, single friends asked, “But what do you DO all day?”

At first I was offended. How could anyone not understand the value of a wife and mother? I was extremely busy doing important things day and night, and I couldn’t comprehend how they didn’t know that.

After a couple of years I realized they truly just didn’t understand, so, I went into “educate the uninformed” mode.  In reply to the persistent, “What do you do all day,”  I would list various duties presented in the form of occupations:  Dietary Manager, Chauffeur, Domestic Engineer, Accountant, Nurse, Activities Director, Consultant, Counselor, Interior Decorator, Gardener, Personal Shopper,  Laundress, Teacher, etc, etc.

These days I don’t care what folks think about my chosen lifestyle.  I have three great kids, my knight’s armor has only gotten shinier, and in seven weeks we are being blessed with a new addition to the family.  It truly doesn’t get any better than this.

Of course I still get asked the, “what do you do all day” question, but now I’m old enough and confident enough to find it amusing.  Sometimes I might reply, “Oh, nothing at all!  The kids are trained to do everything so I don’t have too.”  Or, “Hmmm, I’ll have to think about that and get back with you.”

Most recently, I was asked the question by my doctor.   He was trying to determine my activity level and so he said, “Let’s see, you are a homemaker. So on a daily basis you would um, well, you would, um, do some cooking.”  I nodded my head in the affirmative.

He continued, although it was quite taxing for him, “Let’s see, and you would, um, maybe, do some laundry?”  He paused, looking at me hopefully.  I simply nodded my head and smiled.  Watching him squirm under the pressure of trying to figure out exactly what activities a homemaker engages in throughout the day was quite entertaining.  I wasn’t about to let him off the hook by giving him a rundown of my over-packed schedule and household duties.

He stood looking at the ceiling with one hand on his chin, trying hard to think of something, anything I might do on a daily basis besides cook dinner and wash clothes.  I began to wonder if his head might explode with the effort.  Maybe he was raised by a pack of wolves and didn’t have a mother or “primary caregiver” whose experiences he could immediately bring to mind.  Perhaps it would help if I wrote something about the daily activities of a housewife and had it published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore.  After hemming and hawing for several more seconds, he looked inquisitively at the young, blonde, senior medical student who spends her entire days doing nothing but following him around the office.  They stood staring at each other for a moment, like two deer caught in the headlights, and then she shrugged.  She shrugged!  Her mother would have been so proud.

I finally spoke.  “Most of the time I watch soap operas and eat bon-bons, so I suppose I should make an effort to get more exercise.”

“Ah, yes,” he replied knowingly, while making a few notations on my chart.

I concealed my laughter with a convincing round of coughs and let him finish his examination.  Turns out I’m pretty healthy considering my grossly inactive lifestyle. This is why: being a mom allows for a wide variety of daily activities. Sometimes I’m even an actress and occasionally I practice ballet with my little girls.  I wouldn’t trade that for all the impressive career opportunities in the world regardless of what I would be doing all day.