There Is No Wealth But Life

Self-perception and Goals

By Rae June 8, 2010 Goals, Uncategorized 8 Comments

Two months ago I decided to see how long it would take me to run a mile. I have always been more of a slow and steady kinda girl. In the past I would run 5-6 miles on week days and twice as much on weekends, but I have never gotten below a 7 minute mile. And then the endo got really bad and I stopped walking, let alone running, and gained quite a bit of weight.

Over the past few months I have sloooooowly returned to “running” and still prefer several miles at a slow pace to any attempt at really running. But I needed to know what I could actually do, and to push myself to really run more regularly.

I timed myself for a mile. I told myself that it didn’t matter how out of shape I was, I really, really had to run the mile in less than 10 minutes. I simply had to, or I was never going to be fit again.

So I ran. I did not let myself go too fast because it was important that I actually run the whole way, but I tried so very hard to finish the mile in less than 10 minutes.

I was so out of breath at the end that I barely noticed the time, but a few seconds after I stopped I looked down to see 7:55. Huh?

Apparently I had been running 10 minute miles for months, but still saw myself as nowhere near able to run. So I did not push myself. And when it came to setting goals, I kept them quite small. 3 miles in 25 minutes? Impossible.

Or not.

It does not really matter that I underestimated myself in terms of running. The real problem is that I tend to do this in just about every area of my life. And it is difficult to set appropriate goals without an accurate assessment of one’s own abilities.

Last October I took down the page that had my 101 in 1001 list because it was depressing. The list did not seem impossible to accomplish, it seemed pointless. It was the careful calculation of underestimation. The first item on the list is “run a half marathon.” Great, right? Except that what I should have put was “run a marathon.” Two and a half years is plenty of time to train. But I did not know for certain that I could complete a marathon. And while I’ve never run a half-marathon before, there was that one hot Sunday afternoon in July where I would have run 15 miles had I not walked the last 3 because I had no water. So a half-marathon was reasonable. And boring.

While it is great to have realistic goals, it is not great to have goals that are so realistic that they are mere mile-markers rather than actual goals. What is the point of having a list of things to accomplish if I do not even care about achieving the goals because they are based on a low estimation of my abilities?

So I am reviving my 101 in 1001 list because it is good to have goals, but I am also copying Kathleen and editing the list. I do not just want to have a list of items to cross off, I want to have goals which reflect lofty dreams combined with  realistic self-assessment.

How do you set appropriate goals for yourself? For those of you more tempted to underestimate than overestimate yourself, what tricks have you found to push yourself to your full potential?

Innocence and Experience

By Rae June 7, 2010 The Feminine 4 Comments

When I first thought of asking others to join me in writing posts about the choice to be a stay at home mother (or not) I made a conscious choice to ask a few women who were in a similar stage of life. I knew that these women in particular would most likely have something to write and a desire to share their thoughts, that they would have a little time to do so, and that they would balance out my perspective. I also thought about the fact that while we most often focus on experience, there is still something keenly interesting about innocence.

But I could not have been more delighted when certain women with experience joined in the conversation. There is something to be said for shedding innocence for the beautiful brokenness of experience. I loved the way that Claire highlighted this in a recent comment:

Mostly, when I think about my own expectations, happiness and disappointments, I am struck again by how parenthood–and perhaps specifically motherhood, although I don’t know—is a vocation of particular weakness. I mean that it is so very ordinary, and yet it involves so much daily heroism, and that it is entirely overwhelming and exhausting to the point where no single individual could ever perform at their best ALL the time, and that it causes you to want to be your best and also just curl into a tiny ball and hide…

Some of the weakness that are exposed are a result of failure or personal inadequacies, and others a natural part of living in a body that is so very limited. Infertility, miscarriage, pregnancy, recovery–these are things that enrich women’s lives but that women rarely really control. And all the “issues” involved with those only begin to come to the surface once they have bound themselves to a man, because they only exist in relationship…

Reality changes things. Relationships change things. And somehow, some way, we must find the beauty in or through what may feel like endless exhausting failures.

What I most appreciated about Claire’s comment was the way she honed in on what exactly it is that one needs to be happy. Sometimes change is necessary for happiness, but often I find that my parents’ admonition holds true: if you’re not happy with what you have now, it is unlikely that you will be happy when you get what it is you think you want.

I guess one of the main things I have realized in my own journey of having to adjust my expectations of what motherhood/marriage would be like is this: I need to uncover the ROOT of my hopes and dreams. I am not alone in this, I know. It is not really that I thought I would have a career that now I may not have ( I am young and I may very well go back to school at some point). It is the sense of being wronged that I felt that first year of staying at home with an inconsolable infant that is what I need to address: why does that make me unhappy? Did I really need to be in school (and eventually have that job) to be happy or did I need parenthood to be easier so that I could feel more competent?

In short: what are the conditions on my happiness that I still hold on to? Given that life is full of small and big upsets, can I use them to uncover what my real priorities can and should be?

The truth is that when I examine my life’s goals–where I would like to be at the end of it, what I would hope to have learned– these are already being met now, although in a way completely different from the route I would have taken to achieve them. And this path is much harder because it is so boring, and so ordinary. Service to the most helpless and “poor” in society? Check. A chance to live each day contemplating the intersection of the divine and the human and meditating on the life of Christ? Right here. Learning about love and gift and selflessness and diving headlong into it, even though it exposes my deepest fears and inadequacies? It’s all here, if I choose to acknowledge it.

And that, my friends, is a voice of experience rather than innocence.

Online Identity

By Rae June 4, 2010 Life 29 Comments

You have one identity. The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly… Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity. – Mark Zuckerberg

I believe that Mr. Facebook’s views are shared by two groups of people: Those for whom Silicon Valley is “the real world” and those who are completely socially inept. We may each have one identity (though I think not) but in order to properly relate to others we should reveal a different side of that identity to different people at different times.

It is not a sign of integrity to share the same conversations with your boss that you do with your best friend. It is not a sign of integrity to wear a bikini to church. It is not a sign of integrity to tell your grandfather’s best friend exactly what it is you like most about using cycle beads rather than the Marquette Model.

Some of us (hello, Josh) may be happy for Google to know everything about us in order to make our lives a bit easier. But who wants Google to tell one’s mother that one is getting back together with one’s ex? Letting Google or Facebook share one’s entire life with the world isn’t about integrity, it is about social insensitivity.

Since the start of this blog I have struggled to combine my identities. And it has not worked. For a while I worked to keep my Catholicism from overwhelming everything else. I soon got bored. Then I flooded both the design and content with Catholicism, and it was far too much. I realized that I would never start out a conversation with an acquaintance by telling them that I go to mass every day, so why should I greet random blog readers with endless pictures of the Blessed Mother?

So I decided to separate out most of my heavily Catholic content. And I could not be happier. If you’d like to read more of my crazy Catholic posts you can find them at Catholic No Wealth But Life.

Zuckerberg would say that I am showing a lack of integrity. I say that this makes the blogworld feel just a bit more like the real world, and I like it.

Eternally Thankful

By Rae June 2, 2010 The Feminine 18 Comments

Guest post by Sarah Joy. I often joke about “guest posting” in the comment section of blogs, and finally found an excuse to turn someone else’s comment into a guest post! Thank you, Sarah Joy!

I was never supposed to have children. The doctors said so.

After being told this for many years, I retaliated with the thought that I didn’t want them anyway.

Then, one day, two lines appeared.

I found out I was pregnant in the midst of big deadlines at work at the bank. I didn’t even tell my husband I had bought the test. Why should I? It would be negative anyway.

I took it after work, still wearing my snappy navy dress suit and classic leather heels.

My expensive woolen executive armor didn’t shield me from the truth in the urine.

I shrieked in disbelief. I stormed out of the bathroom, waving the plastic encased stick it in the air as if it was a piece of overlooked contraband I had found, like a lacy pair of panties wedged between couch cushions. I wanted answers.

I was angry.

My husband, the bouncer-framed German-Italian, whose boys obviously can swim quite well, laughed in a way that patted me on the head.

“What am I going to do about this?” I said spitting mad.

“You’re going to have a baby…” he said confidently; matter-of-factly.

I realized I wasn’t angry. I was scared — for the first time in my life — of a baby.

My tough exterior broke and I threw myself into my husband’s strong arms. I cried until my black mascara smudged onto his gray t-shirt. He ran his fingers through my red hair, ignoring that it had been tied in a neat knot. I was an undone mess.

“…and I’m going to take care of you,” he whispered in my ear gently, holding me close.

Nothing could have prepared me for motherhood. I had plans on top of plans for my life, and they did not involve children.

God’s plans were bigger than mine, though.

Within a few short years, He gave me five children — more than the number of hands that my husband and I have combined. It takes a lot to humble a hard-ass soul like mine, but I was defeated by children.

Parenting is not easy. It challenges the heart in ways that cannot be fathomed. It is not what we expect or even what we think it will be. Books, videos, and even the testimonials of friends cannot prepare us for the change that takes place in us when we cross the bridge into motherhood.

When a child who is part of you becomes your world, and you realize that there is nothing you wouldn’t do for them, even give up your life for them, you cannot help but change. We change when things closest to our heart are at stake.

For me? Becoming a mother was one of the best things that ever happened to me. My children have taught me much about life, love, and about myself.

I am eternally thankful.

You can follow Sarah Joy on Twitter @mrsalbrecht

Anna Karenina

By Rae June 1, 2010 Books 17 Comments

Have you ever read Anna Karenina?

I would love as many honest answers as possible, but must warn you that if you say “yes” I might just pressure you into allowing me to post your thoughts on the book.

I first read Anna Karenina 7 years ago and fell in love. Now I am thinking of re-reading the book and dedicating the month of August to posting about it. Some posts may have titles such as “Contraception,” “Financial Organization,” or “Gardening,” but all will in some way be tied back to Anna Karenina.

You certainly don’t have to read my posts, but why would you think that it will be boring? You wouldn’t think that if you’d read much Tolstoy! So tell me, have you read Anna Karenina? If not, why not? If so, what did you think of it?

I am thankful 5/30/10

By Rae May 30, 2010 Gratitude 2 Comments

For a gathering of siblings and spouses. And the fact that we can have fun together, despite our differences.

For a delicious introduction to sangria, thanks to my brothers’ ingenuity. I did not drink at all before I was 21, and I’ve gotten a rather slow start with trips to the liquor store dedicated to buying vodka for vanilla.

For the Trinity. Yes, I’m rather stuck on this mysterious approach to God and can’t imagine trying to be a Christian without it.

For perfect spring days.

What I Want

By Rae May 28, 2010 The Feminine 12 Comments

When I say that I do not want to be a stay at home mother, it is because I want something else. Watch the clip below to see an example of the sort of life I would love to have for my children. I am not attracted by the particular sort of work done by the parents, but I love watching their shared involvement in raising their children well and the woman’s lesson in accepting her husband’s parenting style.

I want to be open to living life well with all of its surprises. At this point I do not want to ever be a stay at home mother for more than a few months at a time. But I am well aware that reality changes things and the future is full of surprises. I know parents whose lives and goals have been turned upside down by the birth of a perfectly average baby. I know adopted children who have needed their parents to take a sabbatical to help them adjust to their new family. I know children with special needs who have needed 24hours of focused parenting every day. I want to happily adjust to whatever it is that I end up with in life, whether that is children whose needs preclude other work, or an entirely childless life.

I want my children to be fully parented by both myself and my husband. One of the things that most attracted me to Josh was his love of children. In my mind, children are an essential part of marriage. I did not want to have a spouse who would support me in parenting, I wanted someone who would share it with me completely.

At first I would not even consider a relationship with Josh because he is generally a pretty conservative guy and I had no interest in being a SAHM of a huge family. But it turned out that Josh not only agreed with me philosophically and theologically, he also had career goals and techie skills which meshed with the ideal of shared parenting.

I want to support my husband in achieving his dreams. I encounter many mothers who love writing and take advantage of their husbands’ steady incomes in order to develop both their writing ability and their connections. This is great, and I suspect that it allows them to be better mothers than they would be if they spent every waking moment focused entirely on their children.

In our house though, the dream of being a published author belongs to Josh, not to me. If I work, then Josh will not only be able to choose clients based upon the appeal of the project rather than the money, he will also have time to write and do all the work involved with getting published. It is likely that Josh will also pursue further education based upon interest rather than income-earning potential, and perhaps become a Deacon well before the typical retirement age. These thing all seem crucial to Josh living the fullest life possible, but very few of them would work out if I did not have a career outside of our home.

I want to have children at home for many years. Some people assert that being a stay at home mother is a very short season in life. I know one couple who plan to have 6 children in 10 years, homeschool, and have the children grown and out of the house before the parents are 50. Many other families have 2 or 3 children close in age and the mother stays home full time only until the youngest begins school.

Josh and I are in our mid-twenties and we hope to be blessed with a child sooner rather than later. But we also hope to continue to be blessed with children for quite a while. It is quite reasonable to expect that when I am 50 there will still be HIV+ orphans in desperate need of good parents and reliable medication.

Josh is quite happy to think of still having children in our home at the point when his friends are retiring. So if life turns out according to plan (ha!) then we will have young children and teens in our home for quite a while. Given the choice, we would much rather be able to afford more children with me working rather than fewer children with me being a SAHM. It is a personal call, and the one that seems best to us at this point.

I want to be away from my children enough to be fully alive when I am with them. I have seen how my mother is better able to care for my younger siblings now that she has more time away from her children, and I want to start off with the advantage that took her 20+ years to learn. I watched my sisters as they were really at home virtually all of the time when their children were babies. And while they loved their children, they were miserable. I believe that it will be better for my children to have me happy and healthy and with them most of the time then to have me forcing myself through the motions of motherhood all of the time.

And I want to live life as fully as possible by giving as much of myself as possible. I do not feel that I have something special to contribute to society. But I know that women in general make “an indispensable contribution to the growth of a culture” in the public workforce, and I cannot justify thinking that I do not need to contribute at all simply because I do not have some particularly brilliant talent to share.

What do you want? If you are already a parent, how has reality changed your plans and dreams?

Partial Amputations

By Rae May 26, 2010 The Feminine 14 Comments

Guest Post by Kathleen. Kathleen blogs at Kathleenbasi.com and is a perfect example of the old saying that “if you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.” I am quite excited that she made time for a post about life as a hybrid mom!

Fifteen minutes was all I had. But it was a good, hard fifteen minutes—flaming through the same six notes twenty times in a row, surfing ledger lines that drive my piano-playing husband crazy. Again and again, a dozen times, two dozen, training the synapses to fire in the right sequence in a relaxed fashion, and allow me to nail the finale.

It wasn’t enough time to do it properly. My fingers were stiff, more accustomed to computer keyboards than delicate silver flute keys. But at 9:30 p.m.—bedtime for a mommy who gets up at 5:30—I ran the cheesecloth through my flute and put it away, knowing I had done everything I could in the time I had.

Woman playing flute, close up of hands
I’m a stay-at-home mom…sort of. Actually, it would be more accurate to say I’m a “hybrid mom.” In fact, I think I’m the woman who’s trying to have it all. You can see it in the bio I use these days:

Kathleen Basi is a stay-at-home mom, freelance writer, flute and voice teacher, composer, choir director, natural family planning teacher, scrapbooker, sometime-chef and budding disability rights activist. She puts her juggling skills on display at www.kathleenbasi.com.

Yes, it is every bit as chaotic as it sounds. I live my life wobbling on a teeter totter with too many ends to count. I have too many passions, too many loves, and too many responsibilities to choose one. And so I choose them all—but that means that none of them will ever receive my full attention.

I used to be a darned good flute player. I still am a darned good flute player, actually, but every time I pick up my instrument—the one to which I devoted my entire life from seventh grade through a master’s degree—I realize how much I have lost.

Last weekend, I rehearsed with three college friends, flutists all—women I hardly see anymore. One is a full-time flute teacher, and darned good at it. One is a respiratory therapist pursuing her Master’s. One manages a local fitness center. Standing in that circle, it was hard not to feel some regret at having lost the focus I once had. But something had to give, and for now, the flute is it.

In many ways I think that the path I have chosen is the hardest of all options. I will forever be unable to focus on one thing; I will forever be frustrated because I can’t do anything to its fullest extent. Everything and everyone in my life—kids, husband, editors, inner muse—will demand my attention, and I will constantly have to amputate parts of one persona in order to attend to another. I will never reach equilibrium; life for me will always be a balancing act as I try to navigate the middle of the stream, so I don’t crush my family on the rocks of my own interests.

And yet, I wouldn’t have it any other way. The very thing that is so hard about it is also what is so wonderful:

I have it all.

I have a career without the pressure of having to make ends meet. I have a job I love, yet I have my kids with me. I get to share the moments, cute, poignant, triumphant, because even though I’m working, I’m with them.

For me, hybrid motherhood is the best of all possible worlds, and if the price I pay is amputating parts of my interests, then so be it. This is my life, and I love it.

Bring it on.

Go to kathleenbasi.com to find more of Kathleen’s writing!

Why I Want to Be a Stay At Home Mom

By Rae May 24, 2010 The Feminine 7 Comments

Guest post by Sarah. Sarah blogs at Fumbling Toward Grace and her “Musings and Mutterings on Life as A Catholic Woman” really are some of the most Catholic that I have encountered online. I hope that you enjoy this post as much as I did.

When I was a little girl, I used to play “housewife”. This involved me making breakfasts, dinners, and snacks at my play-school kitchen for the imaginary members of my “family”. Then I would “drive” to the grocery store and shop for my “family”. I would make the beds and dust in my imaginary house. My favorite toys as a child were always my baby dolls. That’s why I want to be a stay-at-home mom. Just kidding!

I also pretended I was a jazz musician, a ballerina, a deep-sea diver, and a lion tamer when I was a child. That doesn’t mean I’m going to leave Atticus and join the circus with my saxophone any more than playing “housewife” as a child is a reason for wanting to be a stay-at-home mom. It’s a cute story though.

I haven’t always thought I wanted to be a mom (a story for another post!), but I have always basically thought that if I *did* have children, I would be home with them, at least from infancy to school age. That’s basically still where I stand.

One of the really frustrating (read: God molding me into who He wants me to be) things about struggling with sub-fertility is that you have to re-evaluate your plans. When Atticus and I were first married, and I got pregnant right away, we decided I’d be a stay-at-home mom. Then the miscarriage. Then the fact that it’s been over a year and we still don’t know for sure when we’ll be parents again. Part of the reason that I didn’t look harder for a full-time job was because I had no idea it would take this long to get pregnant again. I didn’t (and still don’t) see the point in spending many, many precious hours looking for a full-time career type job, when I was so hopeful that I’d be getting pregnant any cycle now. Then I’d have to go through all that only to quit my new-found job, because I want to be a stay-at-home-mom. I know I haven’t gotten to explaining why just yet, but it’s helpful, I think, to put my story in context. Eventually I got a part-time job at the public library that any college kid could do, but I didn’t want full-time, and I wouldn’t feel bad quitting at the library after only a few months if I got pregnant.

There are people who make arguments from Scripture, or who try to blame all of society’s problems on the fact that fewer women stay-at-home anymore. While I’m sure that those arguments have some valid points, I think that ultimately they are unhelpful in aiding individual families in deciding what the parenting/working relationship should be for them. I think Catholic social teaching does have something helpful to contribute, namely the principle of Subsidiarity. What this means, is that prudential decisions ought to be made on the lowest level possible. In other words, within the parameters of what is moral, decisions about parenting and work ought to be made by individual families. Each family will know it’s situation better than anyone else will.

Personalities and problems ought to be taken into account by each family. If Mom is a surgeon and Dad is a mechanic, that might mean one thing. If Mom is an alcoholic or has severe depression, it might not be in the family’s best interest for her to be home alone all day with young children. All I’m saying is that by talking about why I want to be a stay-at-home-mom, I’m not talking about why you should want to be a stay-at-home-mom. You’ll never hear me say in absolute terms that the children of stay-at-home-moms do better in life than the children of working moms. The three people I know who probably had the most idyllic childhoods I’ve heard, and who are very successful today are my husband and his two sisters. My mother-in-law (who is one of the most devoted moms I’ve ever met!) worked at least part-time through just about all of their childhoods.

Though I do I want to be a stay-at-home-mom when we have children, I am open to God presenting me with another plan. Motherhood is the vocation. It does not mean you, me, or anyone else *has* to be a stay-at-home-mom in order to be living a vocation to motherhood. A woman is a mother when she gives birth to a child and knows that she would lay down her life for her child, whether that means by wiping snotty noses, pushing the swing again and reading the same picture book a million times, or whether that means tearing her heart out of her chest every day when she leaves for work, because that’s what her family needs.

Often, I think there’s a temptation for working moms and stay-at-home-moms to resent each other because they think that others are judging them. But it seems to me that we’re usually so busy judging ourselves about our choices, that we don’t have much energy left for judging others. Of course, some people will judge the women who make different choices as a way of validating their own.

This makes me think of an episode of Sex and the City which I saw a long time ago (I’m not much of a fan now, but I do think the show provides a very interesting social commentary), in which Charlotte has married her first husband Trey, and quit her job at an art gallery in order to focus on being a wife and trying to get pregnant. The other girls (all of them unmarried and in high-powered careers at this point) think this is a bad idea, and at least one of them tries to talk her our of it. I just remember Charlotte getting really flustered and shouting “I choose my choice!” over and over again. I think that’s what many of us involved in this “mommy war” are doing. Standing on sides of an imaginary line shouting “I choose my choice! How dare you choose yours!” When in reality, it seems like we should be standing together, asking an unsympathetic, consumer driven culture how we can make it better for all Moms (and families!) to really choose their choice.

Now I’ve said that I’m not necessarily more in favor of either stay-at-home or working mom, but I do think that it’s probably best for most families (treading lightly here!) for one parent to only work part-time (if possible). It doesn’t necessarily have to be the mom though. In our case Atticus *could* stay home or work part-time, and I do think he would do a great job as primary caregiver to children. On a practical level though, for us it would not make much sense. I have a background in non-profit management, which as I’m sure you can imagine is thriving in our economy (ha!). Atticus is a lawyer with a job and good health insurance. Yes, he works for the government and not a big firm (which I’m grateful for, since I actually get to see him at night!), so the salary is not as high as some, but it is more than adequate to support a small family, and with stricter budgeting on (mostly!) my part, could support a large family as well. For us, it just makes sense for him to work full-time.

Ultimately, I want to be a stay-at-home mom because I think I was made to do it. I want to be the one who sees my child’s first steps and hears her first words. I want to make the meals, choose the healthy food that will nourish my family. I want to keep a peaceful, warm, inviting home for my husband to return to at the end of the day. I want Atticus and I to be the first people to tell our children about God and the world. I want for my children that I will drop them off and pick them up from school — maybe even volunteer at their school. I want to show my children how to be involved in the community by making the time to volunteer and participate in community and church activities. I want to kiss the boo-boos, read the picture books, even change the diapers. I want Atticus and I to be the first faces of love to our child, and I think, for our family, that can best be achieved with me at home. It’s as simple (and complicated) as all that.

Check out more of Sarah’s writing at fumblingtowardgrace!

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox

Join other followers