May 5, 2008

It was the kind of splendid September day when sending kids to school just feels wrong. Fortunately, that year I was homeschooling and calling the shots.  Plus we were living in California, an hour from the Pacific Ocean.  For all I knew, it could be the last day of summer, and we wouldn’t want to miss that.  So it was off to the ocean with five children under eight – Josh, Matt, Ben, Zach, and Sophia.

Together, we cleaned up from breakfast, prepped the car, then gathered beach blankets, umbrella, towels, swimsuits, diapers, sunglasses, sand toys, first aid kit, sunscreen, a cooler full of snacks and drinks – ay yi yi yi yi!  Hello, motherhood – goodbye spontaneity. 

I loaded the assorted car seats and strapped, snapped, and buckled five wiggling bodies into Big Blue – the 1989 Suburban we grew out of only a few years later.  And we were on our way. 

With everyone else in school, the whole beach was ours.  I staked out our territory close to the water, hauled everything down from the car, and set up camp.  For five hours I served as personal valet, sunscreen slatherer, weather advisor, recreation director, swim instructor, lifeguard, EMT, food concessionaire, manners consultant, bus boy, interpreter, peace negotiator, psychologist – not to mention lost-and-found.

Finally, I hauled everything back to the car, strapped, snapped, and buckled five sunscreen-and-sand-coated no-longer-wiggly warm, limp bodies back into Big Blue and headed for home.

The sun through the window was soothing, and the car was full of contentment.  It had been a wonderful day and I was pleased with myself as a mother.

Then from the back seat, I heard Zachary clear his throat, and in his deadpan four-year-old Eeyore voice ask, “Mom, when are you going to get a job?”

“This is my job,” I said, somewhat amused and just a little edgy.

But homeward bound, as the kids fell asleep one by one and I was left alone with my thoughts, I began to see the beauty of Zach’s question:  somehow – even though it could be hard work and even though I had my testy moments – my kids didn’t think of motherhood as a job.

And I decided that was a good thing – because it’s not really a job at all, but a calling.  And callings just don’t look like jobs, because they require more of a person than a job requires.  

Which makes it hard for moms whose days are spent conquering mountains of laundry, creating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and kissing owies. 

We live in a world where success is measured by progress – as recorded on report cards, sales reports, performance reviews, pay raises.  And symbolized by ribbons, trophies, and merit badges.  In our lifetimes, our husband and children will bring scores of these items home and make us proud.  We’ll put them in scrapbooks, sew them on uniforms, frame and hang them up for all to see.