I’ve seen the truth of a very wise thing my moth- er-in-law told me when I was a young bride. She worked in the family business, but her office was in the garage attached to their house, so she was available at any time for my husband all through his growing-up years. She told me how thankful she was for that option and that it was non negotiable for her, even when— especially when—her only child was an adolescent. “People say your kids don’t need you as much when they’re bigger. But their problems are bigger, too.” I wanted my husband and children to be able to do well in work and school and at their passions. I wanted them to be able to love well. I wanted them to be able to serve well. I wanted them to be able to pursue faith well. I wanted them to pour out well onto other people and onto the things that mattered to them. But in order for them to pour out anything good, they had to be filled up with something good. That kind of filling up takes time and work and atten - tion, and I knew I, personally, needed to focus on mostly doing just that. My children have told me, “I’m so glad I have a mom I can count on to make me feel better when I’m upset.” I’m grateful they can say that, because it didn’t just happen all at once. It happened over the course of hundred moments spread out over what’s now been more than two decades of on-the-job training as a mother. There are lots of different ways that training can happen. But this is the way it happened for me. That’s why I stayed home. That’s why, given the chance, I still would.
As tweens and teens, they didn’t need their knees bandaged or their diapers changed anymore. Which was fabulous. But they often needed their hearts healed or their minds redirected. Which was hard and important. My brother, who is many years behind me in the parenting game, once asked, “Now that you’re this far along, if you had to choose when you would be home for your girls, what age would you choose?” “Now,” I told him. “Absolutely now.”
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JANUARY 2021 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • JANUARY 2021
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