Women’s History Month

I wanted to take a moment and say how grateful I am to live now in this time. I grew up in the 90’s. I got to see strong women all around me all my life. Women who worked corporate jobs, women who stayed home with their kids. Both strong in their own ways. I never automatically assumed I’d just be a mother and stay home with my kids, although my mom was a homemaker and was always home when we were. She did also work part time jobs here and there. She had hobbies outside of just being a mother (she’s a writer like me). That was the example I had growing up.

And the truth is, that if I’d grown up even just twenty or thirty years before, I wouldn’t have had as many examples of women who got to choose what they wanted to do with their lives. They were still strong, and honestly I don’t know how they did it, but the only examples I would have had (at least within my limited sphere) is women who stayed home and took care of the house and did all the housekeeping and took care of the kids, and that’s about it.

Now, I’m a homemaker. I’m home all day every day with our little girls. But, I don’t do all the cooking, or the meal prep or planning, I don’t set all the doctor’s appointments, or do all the household cleaning. In fact, I’m not very good at any of that, thanks to my ADHD. But, my husband is good at those, so although he works 10 hours, 4 days a week, he comes home and does housework, and plays with the kids, and we work as partners to keep our home and family going. If one of us is struggling, the other steps up and takes on their load. Unfortunately, in our home, a lot of the time this means my husband is the one usually stepping up to the plate and taking on the majority of the work, because I’m worn out or I’m in pain or I’m struggling.

However, if I had been born even a couple decades earlier… I’m not sure I would have been able to handle all the invisible and visible labor of being a stay at home mom and homemaker… because that’s just not me. And the truth is, sometimes I wonder why I’m a homemaker, when I clearly don’t like any of these things. So, here’s the answer:

I love making my house a home. I love setting up our home for functionality and beauty. I love seeing my girls every single day, and always being home when my husband is so we can spend time as a family of four.

I love that I can choose my own priorities and my personal focus every day, week, month, year….

So, I’m so grateful to all the women who came before me, who made this possible. I’m thankful to my mom for never teaching me the only option was to be a stay at home mom. I’m thankful to my husband’s mom, who raised the amazing man I married. I’m thankful to all the generations of women in my family who came before me (I honestly don’t know how they did it). Most of all, I’m thankful to myself, for enduring. For continuing even when it got so hard I wanted to just end it all… because my girls, and my husband, and our life together is worth all the heartache and pain and struggles I go through on a daily basis.

Happy Women’s History Month! Thanks for being you, exactly as you are!

Clarissa