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OLD AGE IS NOT FOR SISSIES

NOTHING IN LIFE IS TO BE FEARED

It’s Not How Old You Are, It’s How You Are Old!

by Filed Under: Family Life, It's Not For Sissies, Opinion

Jules Renard once said, “It’s not how old you are, it’s how you are old.” I am a believer in this quote. 

The other day I ran across a photo of myself in my 20s. At first, I was unsure of my age in the photo, until I noticed I wasn’t wearing a wedding band. I married young in my sophomore year of college, but I had skipped twelfth grade and left for college at 17. I was married by the time I was 19 and divorced by 21. I remembered how old I was when the picture was taken. I was 21.

I put the photo next to one made a couple of weeks ago. I am now 71, and the two photos cover a period of a half a century. Goodness, time just slips away!

Old age brings with it many challenges—most notably, the decline of our health. As a result, we increasingly rely on the support of younger generations.

Pope Francis, who we just lost, acknowledged this reality, and the well-being of older people was close to his heart. He consistently expressed the importance and value of the elderly. One example was his establishment of the World Day for Grandparents and Older Persons. By doing this, he emphasized our value within families and society.

He believed the family was the most natural and nurturing environment, and he saw the elderly as ‘guardians’ of roots and values. He encouraged intergenerational dialogue and affirmed the vital role of older people in the life and mission of the Church, too.

How We Worship

In my church, which is Presbyterian, we are a small congregation of people over 50 years of age. We have no children who attend regularly. Parents and children today look for fast-paced worship services with sound stages, drums, and other instruments. It is what attracts them. What attracts many of us is tradition and reverence.

My church is traditional. The building itself is over 158 years old. Our ancestral members completed construction two years after the Civil War. We sing traditional hymns and complain bitterly when we do not know the hymns chosen for us. While our worship remains reverent, we cherish the passing of the peace — a moment like the tradition of old, when we leave our pews and spend nearly ten minutes greeting one another, reconnecting with friends and neighbors we may not have seen all week.

We take care of each other, praying for ourselves and our community, the world, and our country. We bring each other food when we get down. We thank God a lot, because we feel so blessed.

Our worship is a sacred rhythm — quiet, reverent, familiar. For many of us, it feels like home. We gather with those who share our season of life, exchanging peace not just in words, but in long hellos and warm reconnections.

Lately, though, I’ve been wondering: Is this enough? Are we, in choosing to worship where we feel most comfortable, missing the chance to show up where we’re most needed?

What if part of our worship included occasionally stepping into a different rhythm — one that pulses with drums or laughter or iPad Bibles — not because it speaks to us, but because it speaks to our grandchildren? What if we sat beside them, not to critique, but to bless — with our presence, our patience, and our open hearts?

It’s not about giving up what we love. It’s about expanding love. Worship doesn’t have to be the same for every generation, but it can still bring us together.

So maybe we keep our place of peace… and also visit theirs now and then. Maybe we show our grandkids that faith isn’t just something we talk about — it’s something we show up for.

My Youngest Grandchild at His Church

We Are Important to Society

Pope Francis tells us we offer memories—memories of people, events, and things that, in a sense, lay the foundation for the present and future of humanity. This wealth of experience, accumulated over many years, is a treasure belonging to all who have lived long lives.

Our past, our roots, our long-loved ways — these aren’t just nostalgic remnants of another era, nor should they be a ball and chain keeping us from the present. They are deep wells we draw from, not walls that trap us. When we carry them forward with open hands and open hearts, they become gifts — to share, not to guard. We should instead see them as fixed points from which we grow and meet new challenges.

Because I am a woman of faith, I thank God for this ‘time of grace’–this season of reflection, gratitude, and taking stock of my journey. Years of wisdom have shaped most of us. Life is better if we understand our importance in society, and the dignity and value of our old age.

 

 

 

 

 

You are losing us out here!

by Filed Under: Opinion, This & That

Until about a decade ago, everything they taught me about breakfast was wrong. My traditional eggs and bacon breakfast was bad for me. That changed during the Obama administration. Eggs, both yellow and white, were good for me. The bacon was, too, in moderation.

Years ago, the US Government, under Obama, finally took meat off the “do not eat list.” But no, we did not enjoy it for long before the naysayers ran to another group to put the skids on meat again. The World Health Organization claimed processed meats like bacon, ham, red meat, and sausage pose a cancer risk…as significant as cigarettes.

So now my breakfast is not good for me AGAIN. People, you are losing all of us out here!

WHO cited a study that showed a minimal increase in colon cancer for men and women who eat these meats daily. They explained it in this article from Australia.  http://www.uicc.org/how-interpret-iarc-findings-red-and-processed-meat-cancer-risk-factors

But I like meat, and I’m willing to take the risk if there is a risk. Why can’t we get along and realize? To each his own. Live and let live.

My parents had this attitude. They were part of a generation entitled “The Silent Generation.” Their generation was sandwiched between two very vocal generations—Civic (the greatest generation) and Baby Boomers (the loudest generation, according to my interpretation). I am a Boomer.

As I grow older, I am learning to appreciate my parents’ generation. According to Time Magazine in their November 5, 1951 issue,

“The most startling fact about the younger generation is its silence. It does not issue manifestoes, make speeches or carry posters. It has been called the “Silent Generation.”

Wikipedia says, “The Silent Generation, is generally defined as people born from 1928 to 1945.” By this definition, my husband Chuck, who was born in 1944, fits this description.

Wikipedia continued, “Silents were sometimes characterized as trending towards conformity and traditionalism, as well as comprising the “silent majority“. However, they have also been noted as forming the leadership of the Civil rights movement and the 1960s counterculture, and creating the rock and roll music of the 1950s and 1960s. They just went about it differently than anyone today.

I miss my parents, especially the quiet way they got things done. Our later generations need to study how they did it.

Wikipedia

Silent Generation – Wikipedia

An Unforgiving World

by Filed Under: Opinion

Have you ever booked a car, a room, an event, maybe a flight and then in a quick moment realized that you had booked it on the wrong date or the wrong plane, or maybe even the wrong event? Did you try to call them back quickly, say within a few minutes only to be told that it was nonrefundable, that you were just out of luck?

Let’s face it! We live in a world that is sailing past us at a ridiculous rate, and no one, “I repeat,” no one can ever make another mistake. You will be penalized.

It has happened to me. For example, every year we save our pennies and splurge for a weekend at the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center in Atlanta. I always contact their website usually just after the new year and book our reservation, because the hotel fills up so quickly for Homecoming.

In the years past, I went online to book the room on the hotel site. I pulled up the page and went through the motions of booking the room. I input my credit card and clicked the final sale. The minute I got the confirmation page, I realized I had made a mistake. I thought had the wrong date for Homecoming.

But It Is Worse Than That

I looked for a cancellation policy or place to click. I found none, and then I realized I wasn’t even on the website for the hotel. I was on a website called Reservations.com. They were a google ad that was listed before the Tech hotel site.

I unknowingly booked through a third party, and worse, I booked a nonrefundable hotel room. I couldn’t even find a number to call until I went back to the first page and found one there.

I called the company immediately, literally within ten minutes of booking the room; and I got a young lady that refused to do anything except remain perfectly nice on the phone but always telling me I was out of luck—that I had clicked and that was like signing a contract. She all but said, “sorry Honey but we got you and your hundreds of dollars.” Of course, she didn’t say it, but that is how I felt.

What has our world come to when people cannot make a mistake. Personally, I have never had it happen before. Oh, I have made mistakes very similar to this one, but the person on the phone always helped me change the order and get it right or reverse the charges.

But not this company. Reservations.com did not care. They just wanted the money. Customer satisfaction is something they do not believe they need, and they may be right. A sucker is born every minute, and the internet gives them a broad field from which to glean. They got me once, and they don’t care if they get me again. There are so many from which to choose.

It did me no good to even try, but that poor girl whose initials are RK (that was all she would give me) got an earful. I maintained calm and calmly let her know that she and her company should be ashamed of themselves and that I called immediately after realizing my mistake. I did not wait an hour or a day to call back.

I also told her that what they were doing to me and my husband was simply another way of stealing. They were taking hard-earned cash and keeping it even though they knew we could not partake of the product. She just quietly listened and calmly from time to time reminded me I clicked, and they had a contract.

I asked to talk to her supervisor, and I waited several weeks for that call. I called the Georgia Tech Hotel and related my dilemma to them. The front desk manager gave me his name and asked if I would call the Reservations.com person I talked to and ask her to call him. The Tech Hotel was willing to reverse the charges, but Reservations.com, when they called me back, would not let me out of the contract.

I also asked what time it was where the girl was from. It was 2 a.m. there while it was 11 p.m. EST here. I asked where the headquarters for the company was located, and she gave me an address in Orlando, Florida. I’m ashamed to say that the headquarters for this shyster company is in my own home state.

So we were stuck with a room for two nights in Atlanta that we thought we did not need. We have a daughter that lives there, and we always have a room at her home. But Chuck loves to go to Homecoming and fraternize with his old college friends, so we make reservations downtown for this one weekend.

In the end, we were fortunate, though. Homecoming was the weekend we booked. Chuck had the wrong dates. We just got very lucky! I just lost a lot of time and the whole situation stressed me out.

It just seems that there should be a law that requires at least an hour where people can break just such a contract. It gives both sides time to make sure everything is correct. We do it to purchase other items. Why not this type of contract? You have time to back out of a contract on a car within three days, I believe.

Frankly, I never thought we would need such a law because 99% of people understood and helped you correct the situation, even if it was offering an alternative or a gift card. This company, Reservations.com, though, seemed to delight in being greedy and unsympathetic.

The other part is that we are elderly. Chuck and I are in our 70s and 60s, respectively. Older people don’t always get it right the first time. I went back and looked at their Reservations.com/Georgia Tech Hotel website, and it looks just like the Tech Hotel website. There’s no doubt in my mind that they want you to think you are dealing with the hotel itself.

This is the reason I no longer click on ads. When you search for something, notice that Google marks the first few sites in the list on your browser as “Ads”. Always scroll past these and go directly to the place of business. It will help you steer clear of the shysters in the marketplace.

It is sad that companies like this are allowed to take advantage.

Movie Review: “The Way We Were” 43 Years Later

by Filed Under: Movies, Opinion

As a young woman of 19 in the 1973, this classic movie was one of my favorites.  I lusted after Robert Redford anyway, after all he was already the Sundance Kid; but nothing quite quickened my senses like Robert Redford in a Naval uniform sitting in a bar.  You just had to see the scene.

I saw the movie several times; but not in the past 15-20 years, so I decided to order it on Netflix.  Many see this movie as a chick flick, but I believe they overlook its depth.

My feelings about the movie are still the same, but they have deepened as now I’m a later middle-aged, if not a younger  elderly woman with different feelings and emotions.  My dear ladies, this movie is far deeper than I remembered.

I remembered that it was a classic romance of boy meets girl, boy marries girl and…well the rest would be a spoiler so I’ll leave it out in case you never saw the movie.  I was most moved by the difference in their look on life and the fact that they looked beyond this and became soul mates.

The real difference, though, is how I look at this movie now.  I now feel that it is right up there with some of the older classics such as “Casablanca” or “Gone With The Wind”. Surrounding this romance is college before WWII, the war itself (though it plays a very small roll), and those halcyon years after the war.

You get a peak at McCarthyism, and the role it played in the lives of those in Hollywood.  You get a peak at those moments before the war, when young people on America’s college campuses were either swimming easily through college or swimming upstream against war sentiment.

The backdrop, though, plays second fiddle to the magnanimity of the two stars, Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand.  They are cast perfectly, and there are some wonderful tender moments as well as strident breakups that they both play perfectly.  He’s a beautiful, good looking WASP; and she initially plays the part of a wall flower Jewish girl with bad hair. She’s strong, though; and he is never sure how to handle it, though that is what attracted him to her, initially.

I also have to admit that I’m much more conservative now than I was in the 1970s.  I still get on my soapbox about issues that I feel important and some of them are social, but there is a part of me that realizes that life is too short to argue all the time.  I also realize that sometimes we need to relax and enjoy each other and life in general.  Barbra’s character is the flip side of this.

I didn’t notice it as much then, but I do now.  I guess as I matured I realized that there is always a cause for negotiating and pushing, but one can overdo it.  I think Ronald Reagan may have helped me understand this better than anyone.  

I was afraid to vote for him in the late 1970s, but I did it anyway.  I was so tired of seeing the entire country bickering over so much.  I felt that we needed a change in leadership though I was a Democrat and didn’t think President Carter was that bad.  

But Reagan had a simple message that said quit worrying about everything and just live.  Boy did we ever in the 1980s.  It seemed like the whole country just lowered their heads and went to work. 

This movie made me remember all that.  I think this may be one of the best movies of the 1970s.  Do yourself a favor and see it again.  And besides ladies, you get to gaze upon that blonde hunk that we all lusted after so many years ago.

Grit: A New Year’s Resolution

by Filed Under: Family Life, Opinion, This & That

Meta Description:  <The “Greatest Generation” had grit, but do we and our children?  Will we be able to rise to the occasion if our liberties are threatened?>

 

Remember the John Wayne picture named “True Grit”?  In the movie, a fourteen-year-old girl Mattie hired Rooster Cogburn, played by John Wayne, because she heard that he had true grit. She needed someone with passion and resolve to track down and capture the man who had murdered her father.

Have you ever thought about that word “grit” and what it actually means.  What was it that John Wayne’s character had that was so special?

http://youtu.be/XTMeDBVknQY

Well, I decided to look up the definition, and here is what I found.  It means courage, resolve and strength of character.  Synonyms are bravery, pluck, mettle, backbone, strength of character, strength of will, steel, nerve, fortitude, toughness, hardiness, resolve, resolution, determination, tenacity, perseverance and endurance.  Kind of reminds you of the girl in “True Grit” when she crossed that river.

One example of use in a sentence was given by the online dictionary.  It said, “He displayed the true grit of a navy pilot.”

Which brought me to think about a generation that seemed to have these characteristics.  Many of us knew them as the “greatest generation”.  They were the men and women who carried our country through World War II.  As a whole, they epitomized this concept.

 

The Men of WWII    The Women of WWII

But their time was over seventy years ago.  And today is…well, it is today!  I can’t help wondering if our generation has this?  Do we have true grit.  I’m thinking, not.  I’m also wondering if we have raised our children to have it, too?

I’m concerned because whether we want to admit it or not, we seem to have an enemy.  Someone wants to take away our freedoms of speech, religion, and general happiness.  There are those elsewhere in this world who don’t like us the way we are.  They keep hitting us here on our own soil–a little here and a lot there (the Twin Towers).  Each time, the threat makes us realize that we may have to call on our young people to help us again.  And I’m not talking about simply air strikes in another country.
Attack on the Twin Towers

I guess I’m worried, because I’m wondering if we will have what it takes to rise up and do what is needed to be done when the time comes.  It will take much fortitude, courage and hardiness from not only our military but from all of us as well.

That word “fortitude” worries me, because it seems a little hard to maintain fortitude when we have such short attention spans.  I’ll give you a brief example that seemed truly insignificant at the time but may be an indication of a bigger problem.

As a family we celebrated our extended family Christmas on Christmas Eve.  There were 26 family members, including our children and their families, our sisters and theirs, a nephew and his, and even one mother-in-law.  As is traditional, we placed two of the grandchildren ages eight and seven in charge of handing out the gifts from the great pile under the Christmas tree.

There was one problem, though.  They would pick up two or three, hand those out, and then get distracted.  We would have to jump start the process again.  Their parents, too, were distracted and didn’t seem to notice the problem.  After about three times of this, I finally gave up and jumped in and handed out the gifts myself.

I thought of a quote I recently heard.  “People today have the attention span of a gold fish.”    Notice he didn’t say kids.  He said people, and I think he may be right.

 

The Attention Span of a Goldfish.

 

I’m wondering if we as productive members of society should be more concerned about teaching our children to have true grit–to demonstrate strength of character, hardiness and resolve.  It all goes hand in hand with “finishing the job”.  How can we have a “work ethic” if we never finish?  And again I’m not just talking again about the kids.  This is the job of parents and even grandparents, to maintain the effort through thick and thin.  To “finish the job”.  If we give up over and over, how can we expect our children to do otherwise.

Our nation’s schools of psychology are beginning to look more into this behavior called “grit”.  University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth defines grit as a child’s “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.”  She says that it is a better indicator of future earnings and happiness than either IQ or talent.

I found a blog post that explains how parents can teach their children grit.  It is entitled What is Grit, Why Kids Need It & How You Can Foster It?  Click on the name, and a link will take you there.

Also, this is the time of year when we re-evaluate ourselves to see what needs improvements.  It is the time of year when New Year’s resolutions are made.  A good focus for all of us can be to evaluate how we’re raising our children.  Subsequently, a good resolution might begin in 2016 that can teach our children grit and ultimately help themselves and ourselves.

I sincerely hope someone out there is listening.  These freedoms that we all cherish can only be maintained with diligence, attentiveness, and just plain “doing our part”.  We must maintain and finish the jobs that we’ve been given.

Grit may be a key ingredient to our liberties.

 

Grit May Be Key To Our Liberties

What Happens to a Type-A Parent When the Kids Leave?

by Filed Under: Opinion

Well, that’s a good question–one of which I think I may know the answer.
I was a Type-A parent who juggled parenting, a husband and household, a career, religion and philanthropy, and my own needs with varying degrees of efficiency. I noticed that when any one of these needs got too much attention, one or more of the others suffered greatly in varying degrees. It was a constant balancing act.

So what happens when all of them disappear over time as they all must? What takes their place? Well, here is what what happened in my life.

As soon as the kids left, I put more attention into my career. I was lucky. I loved my work and spent most of my forties and fifties being very productive and saving greater percentages of my earnings to use in retirement. Even with the added time, though, I got too mentally caught up in this and my health suffered. I forgot that it is always to be a balancing act. I spent my latter forties figuring out my new “older” body and how to better take care of myself.


Working for the Florida Game & Freshwater Fish Commission

Then Chuck hit his magic 70s; and we both retired, though I was only 60. He asked me to do it with him, but he didn’t have to twist my arm. After 40 years of working full-time, except for a brief seven years to have my kids and another brief four year period to go back to graduate school and keep my teenagers out of trouble, I walked away.

So what is this Type-A parent doing now? Well, I retired in May of 2014; and by that September I started this blog. By this date I had already started writing the first book in a trilogy entitled “Palmetto Pioneers”. I also started an application to have two of my ancestors certified as Florida pioneers.

I spend two days a week in libraries gathering research and the other three days on the Internet doing the same. I work mornings on these three days, and I’m usually out of the house or in my garden in the afternoons. I have a basic work schedule.

I fully realize that I just found myself another job. ?

And if that isn’t enough. I expanded our tree farm, tripling it in size. Tree farming was something I did on the side before I retired. It was inherited from my dad when he passed in 2003.

I spend more time than ever in my garden. Right now one of my beds is way overgrown but with carefully planted plants, not weeds. It rained a lot this summer, and the annuals and perennials did very well. My sister recently called it a hot mess. ?. I guess I need to do some pruning.

 

My garden last spring.

 
I exercise more regularly, and I haven’t felt better in years. I do yoga twice a week, lift weights twice a week and swim twice a week. Nothing major just 8 or 10 laps and about 20 minute of weights each session. I can wear sleeveless dresses again and I think my breasts have lifted some. ?

And then there are the grandchildren! It is a little like watching my kids grow up all over again. And if they get too rowdy, we always know that it won’t be too long before their parents come back. ? Last weekend we watched our three and four year old grandsons and even took them to a college football game in Atlanta. We all had a wonderful time. Both little boys were a testament to their parents’s parenting skills.

Our religious needs are handled in our own individual ways. Neither of us are regular church goers, though I was when the kids were still at home. Now we just tithe; and I fulfill my spiritual needs with a morning devotional, though I’m not sure everyone would agree with what I’m reading right now. I’ve been reading the books that didn’t make the cut–those Biblical readings that were left out when the New Testament was formed.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Most importantly, I thank God a lot lately for all our blessings.

I still attend alumni meetings of my old college sorority, and through them Chuck and I serve once a month at Grace Mission. I always feel sympathetic to the needs of the homeless, but giving them money to further harm themselves through alcohol and drug abuse is something I cannot do in good conscience. Helping at the mission is our way of helping.

Finally, Chuck and I like to travel. We just got back from cruising the Baltic Sea, which I plan to share in some future blog posts.


At Catherine’s Palace in Pushkin near St. Petersburg, Russia

So lately what do you think Chuck and I have been talking about? Well, we can’t figure out when we had the time to work before we retired!

So what is the answer to the question, “What Happens to a Type-A Parent When the Kids Leave?” You just get busier–only if you are really blessed, you get busier doing the things you most enjoy!

The History of the Tomahawk

by Filed Under: Genealogy, Opinion

Most of my family are Seminoles.  In American football, that means we support the football program at Florida State University.  We even support them by being Tomahawk boosters.  I have always thought that tomahawks were used first by our Native Americans; but now I’m not so sure.

This morning I read a Scots-Irish blog post that lends new light on the subject.  You can read about it Here.

Due to DNA testing, I’ve been told that I’m about 48% Irish; and after my uncle who is a Roe was tested, we learned that the Roes are Scots-Irish.  Thus the reason I read this blog.

Anyway, they know that the Scottish people have been using the toagh (pronounced ‘too a’ in Gaellic) since pre-historic times; and that they brought it to Ireland and then on to the frontier of America.  It was very handy for cutting and also for arming themselves.  In battle Experienced men could throw one with precision from five to 20 feet away.


I use a version of it in my garden.  It is handy when I happen upon a stray root or a venomous snake.  I have some Native American blood and always thought of it as a device from that lineage, which was also through the Roe line.  One of the Roes, probably the first in America in the 1600s took an Indian wife.

Now, I know that it was also part of the Scots-Irish lineage as well.

Can There Be Rights With No Responsibilities?

by Filed Under: Opinion, This & That

I ran across this today.  So rather than putting forth my two cents, I would like to hear yours.  

First question. Is this true?
  

Our government has something to say about our rights and responsibilities as Americans.  I found it on this page.  Below is a screenshot.

  
Second question?  Should a bullet be added regarding our responsibilities to our families?

Third Question?  Voting is a right, but should it also be a responsibility?

Young Girls Dressing Provocatively

by Filed Under: Family Life, Opinion, Style

I sure am glad that I don’t have to raise daughters today.  It seems as if society is working against the mothers of young girls.

Chuck and I raised two daughters.   By their teenage years I remember all too well how hard it was to get them to dress in what we thought was appropriate.  It was often a fight, and I remember my own battles with my parents over the length of my skirts when I was young.  It was the age of the mini skirt.  The style then was very different than the way I was raised up to that point.

My 8th Grade Birthday Party

My 8th Grade Birthday Party

So I was very interested in the blog post entitled,  “Why I Care: Speaking About The Post That Called Out Target” at the Blog called “Binkies & Briefcase”.  You can find it here.  Her blog post ended up becoming part of the national conversation on this subject.

The pressure on young girls to dress provocatively is so much more than when I or my daughters were young.   Back then, at least we had society helping us, instead of working against us like it seems to be today.  Magazine ads and store mannequins try to sell a style–a look that is often sleazy and/or garish.

My Girls

My Girls

I had no idea how bad it was until I read this blog post.  I encourage you to read it, too.  I believe she makes a good point.

So how do you feel about the way some young girls dress or about what you’re seeing in the stores?  Do you think she has a point?

 

In Honor of SAHWMs

by Filed Under: Family Life, Opinion

I learned the meaning of a new acronym. Anna at In Honor Of Design used it in one of her posts.

SAHWM means “stay at home working mother.” I have three in my family–two daughters and a daughter-in-law; and they seem to have it no easier than I did. All three either have businesses that they operate out of their homes, or they are bloggers. One is both. All three struggle to balance their child rearing, work, and housekeeping.

IMG_6415.JPG

My Daughters and Daughter-in-Law

By the way I was not a SAHWM most of my child rearing days; though, I did do it for three years with my first child, Jamie.  She is in the picture above on top. I owned a florist, and she was there day in and day out. During the first years, the florist was downtown; but I finally moved it into my home for the last year and a half.

My days were at least ten hour days, as florist work is long and demanding. I finally sold the florist and took a full time job just to get back to regular hours and to make more money. We wanted to vacation and belong to the country club and play golf and tennis, so I felt I had to go to work.

I worked at the end of a 30-minute commute one way. The hours were 7.5 a day, but I made a good salary. I had sick leave and vacation leave and other good benefits. I made enough to keep the kids in day care and to enjoy those precious kid-free hours.  Back home it had been lots of arguing, crying, and general house wrecking. I picked up the kids and cooked dinner as soon as I walked in the door. I did my cleaning at night after the kids went to bed and got up an hour before anyone else to exercise and have a few minutes of peace to enjoy my breakfast. I lived on about six to seven hours of sleep a night for many years.

IMG_6403.JPG

Me and My Girls

My commute was almost a meditation. I remember the solitude of my car. There was a road halfway that held significance. If I was going from work to home, I realized that I had left the hassles of work behind by the time I reached this road. The opposite was the same. The pressures of home seemed to melt away going the opposite direction.

Finally, my kids entered those special years of teenage puberty; and I decided that I needed to be home more, so I began working jobs that allowed me to work from home. I was again a SAHWM. As they got older and began driving I went back to college, eventually getting my Ph.D.

So as you can see, I was the flip side of the SAHWM for most of my kids’ years at home, I was a AFHWM, an “away from home working mother.”

Our commonality is that all of us are still WMs.  Working mothers.

I believe, though, that my mother may have had it the best. I grew up next to my grandmother, who was a wonderful role model and provider. My mom went to work full-time when I was about 3-4 years old, but I never went to day care. I had my grandmother to watch after me.

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My Grandmother and me

She home schooled me. I can still remember the blackboard on her sleeping porch. She taught me my numbers, my abc’s, and how to tie my shoes before I ever got to kindergarten. She taught me etiquette and how to play in a dress without ever showing my panties. I’m sure I slipped up, but not without embarrassment if I knew it.

Yes, she even taught me guilt, something that I resented when I was younger because I thought it held me back. Now, though, I welcome it as a comfortable barometer–a good part of growing old.

I never resented Mom’s work. We grew up knowing that her salary paid for vacations, dancing and piano lessons, cheerleading uniforms, 4-H camp, and much more.

IMG_6400.JPG       My sister, Mom and me

So you see, I had the best of both worlds–two moms. Grandmother was my SAHWM, and mom was my AFHWM. Still, both of them were simply working mothers.