A Roundabout Way of Thanking Mom on Mother's Day
I have often called myself the least ambitious woman in the world, mostly because I have not been drawn with any real passion to enter the workforce and pursue a career. I know women who have brilliant, high-powered and high paid careers who discuss with ease ideas and procedures unfamiliar to me. I know women who work to provide the basic necessities of their lives and who often don’t care much for the work they do; in it for the essential paycheck. I watch these women juggle work and home and family, and am in awe of what they accomplish. I have worked in a variety of jobs, some more enriching than others and none involving skills worthy of an impressive salary. Most of my life I have relied on my parents and my husband for the substance of my support. I’m okay with this even if it’s made me the least ambitious woman in the world – well, sort of. Maybe this story will explain.
I was invited to a bridal shower in the summer of 2000. I hate bridal showers because of the silly games and sillier conversation, but I loved this young woman and had served as her leader for years in our church’s youth group. I wouldn’t have missed her shower for the world. Someone asked her about her plans for the future, and Emily went on for several minutes, explaining just where they would live, where they’d go to school and then where they’d work, when they would start their family, and how everything was going to be for the next ten years or so. One of the women there, in her mid-fifties, laughed and congratulated Emily for having it all figured out. Someone else joined the laughter and then commented, “But didn’t we all have our lives planned out when we were her age?” I turned to my friend beside me and said with a question in my voice, “Y’know, I don’t know if I did or not. I don’t remember!” See what I mean? The least ambitious woman in the world.
I went home that day and immediately sought out John. “Did I have big plans when we were dating? Big dreams for my future?” He looked at me in confusion, wondering if there was a catch to the questions. I impatiently explained the scene at the shower and repeated my question. “Well, sure you did” was his response. “Okay,” I challenged him. “What were they?” I should note here that John has always been my biggest fan. That’s why I married him. He tells me daily that I’m beautiful and brilliant, and he believes I can do anything at all, except make a lay-up. I also married him because he takes me seriously and listens to me. He thought for a minute, and then he said, “Well, you always talked about making a home that was safe and happy.” And suddenly it all came flooding back to me. I had forgotten. He was right. Even when I was very small, I remember, clearly now, that my dream was to create a home someday where the world couldn’t intrude, where everyone was safe and happy, and where no one was sad or afraid. The wording sounds childish, but I can still identify the passion of that desire – it still swells within me as I think about it.
I was a little girl during the 60’s in a college town in central Missouri. I remember 1968 as a particularly ugly year. I used to hide when my dad watched Walter Cronkite. I hated the news, not because it was boring, but because it was terrifying. I hated the war, but was confused at why people were so angry at the soldiers – why people spoke so hatefully about each other. I didn’t understand racism or the cold war. I wanted to make a place for my family – my own children, some day – to live where they could be protected from all these ugly elements. It literally was my dream.
Since the bridal-shower episode, I call myself un-ambitious less often now. I was reminded that ambition, just like the term career, does not necessarily have to be attached to fame and salary. I am actually tremendously ambitious – my goals have flown in the face of society’s values. I have swum against the tide of pop-culture and political correctness. I have clung with tenacity to the idea that one man and one woman can commit to each other for life, and together build something permanent within the walls of their own home. I have made sacrifices for my dream, giving up comforts and pleasures we couldn’t afford on one salary, and sometimes falling prey to the judgments of those who didn’t share my viewpoint.
Let’s be honest; our society today does not consider motherhood and homemaking truly a ‘career,’ although plenty of politically correct lip service is paid. As a matter of fact, the Strong Interest Survey (used in career counseling across the country) even removed ‘housewife’ (a particularly heinous term, agreed), along with ‘funeral director,’ from their option lists as careers so abysmal in appeal that they didn’t want to depress their clients into self-destructive behaviors by recommending them. My choice to be a stay-at-home mom/domestic engineer/ homemaker was conscious, purposeful, difficult, and had nothing to do whatsoever with any kind of innate goodness or virtue on my part. It was simply the only way I knew to achieve what I hungered for most in life – a safe haven for my family.
When my mother passed away, I helped dad go through her things, and I found a stack of music she had written long before I was born. I wasn’t familiar with any of the songs, but the words of one startled me:
In A Safe Place
by Margaret McGregor Neuffer
Each evening as the sun goes down and sets behind the distant hill,
I draw my children close to me and light the lamp beside the sill.
The room is filled with golden shades, with shades of warm and glow;
And then I know, yes, then I know we are in a safe, safe place.
The day dawn breaks; we kneel in prayer to thank the Lord for our nights’ rest.
I look around the cozy room to count the souls that I love best,
Contentment swirls and captures me:
The tears well up inside and then I see, yes, then I see
We are in a safe, safe place
In this wicked day of Satan’s reign, where some around us fall and die;
I look about my heav’n on earth, a place celestial from on high.
My bursting heart shouts forth a song, shouts forth a song,
We’re in a safe, safe place
We watch the storm as it beats down and sweeps across the crying land.
It’s in this home with love so pure, protected by God’s patient hand,
That we can rest away from fear, can rest away from fear,
For he is always near, He is near in our safe place.
These lyrics, written long before that fateful bridal shower, and discovered more than a year afterwards, caused me to wonder if, in my earliest days, before memories could take on solid form, perhaps she sang this song to me.
I was invited to a bridal shower in the summer of 2000. I hate bridal showers because of the silly games and sillier conversation, but I loved this young woman and had served as her leader for years in our church’s youth group. I wouldn’t have missed her shower for the world. Someone asked her about her plans for the future, and Emily went on for several minutes, explaining just where they would live, where they’d go to school and then where they’d work, when they would start their family, and how everything was going to be for the next ten years or so. One of the women there, in her mid-fifties, laughed and congratulated Emily for having it all figured out. Someone else joined the laughter and then commented, “But didn’t we all have our lives planned out when we were her age?” I turned to my friend beside me and said with a question in my voice, “Y’know, I don’t know if I did or not. I don’t remember!” See what I mean? The least ambitious woman in the world.
I went home that day and immediately sought out John. “Did I have big plans when we were dating? Big dreams for my future?” He looked at me in confusion, wondering if there was a catch to the questions. I impatiently explained the scene at the shower and repeated my question. “Well, sure you did” was his response. “Okay,” I challenged him. “What were they?” I should note here that John has always been my biggest fan. That’s why I married him. He tells me daily that I’m beautiful and brilliant, and he believes I can do anything at all, except make a lay-up. I also married him because he takes me seriously and listens to me. He thought for a minute, and then he said, “Well, you always talked about making a home that was safe and happy.” And suddenly it all came flooding back to me. I had forgotten. He was right. Even when I was very small, I remember, clearly now, that my dream was to create a home someday where the world couldn’t intrude, where everyone was safe and happy, and where no one was sad or afraid. The wording sounds childish, but I can still identify the passion of that desire – it still swells within me as I think about it.
I was a little girl during the 60’s in a college town in central Missouri. I remember 1968 as a particularly ugly year. I used to hide when my dad watched Walter Cronkite. I hated the news, not because it was boring, but because it was terrifying. I hated the war, but was confused at why people were so angry at the soldiers – why people spoke so hatefully about each other. I didn’t understand racism or the cold war. I wanted to make a place for my family – my own children, some day – to live where they could be protected from all these ugly elements. It literally was my dream.
Since the bridal-shower episode, I call myself un-ambitious less often now. I was reminded that ambition, just like the term career, does not necessarily have to be attached to fame and salary. I am actually tremendously ambitious – my goals have flown in the face of society’s values. I have swum against the tide of pop-culture and political correctness. I have clung with tenacity to the idea that one man and one woman can commit to each other for life, and together build something permanent within the walls of their own home. I have made sacrifices for my dream, giving up comforts and pleasures we couldn’t afford on one salary, and sometimes falling prey to the judgments of those who didn’t share my viewpoint.
Let’s be honest; our society today does not consider motherhood and homemaking truly a ‘career,’ although plenty of politically correct lip service is paid. As a matter of fact, the Strong Interest Survey (used in career counseling across the country) even removed ‘housewife’ (a particularly heinous term, agreed), along with ‘funeral director,’ from their option lists as careers so abysmal in appeal that they didn’t want to depress their clients into self-destructive behaviors by recommending them. My choice to be a stay-at-home mom/domestic engineer/ homemaker was conscious, purposeful, difficult, and had nothing to do whatsoever with any kind of innate goodness or virtue on my part. It was simply the only way I knew to achieve what I hungered for most in life – a safe haven for my family.
When my mother passed away, I helped dad go through her things, and I found a stack of music she had written long before I was born. I wasn’t familiar with any of the songs, but the words of one startled me:
In A Safe Place
by Margaret McGregor Neuffer
Each evening as the sun goes down and sets behind the distant hill,
I draw my children close to me and light the lamp beside the sill.
The room is filled with golden shades, with shades of warm and glow;
And then I know, yes, then I know we are in a safe, safe place.
The day dawn breaks; we kneel in prayer to thank the Lord for our nights’ rest.
I look around the cozy room to count the souls that I love best,
Contentment swirls and captures me:
The tears well up inside and then I see, yes, then I see
We are in a safe, safe place
In this wicked day of Satan’s reign, where some around us fall and die;
I look about my heav’n on earth, a place celestial from on high.
My bursting heart shouts forth a song, shouts forth a song,
We’re in a safe, safe place
We watch the storm as it beats down and sweeps across the crying land.
It’s in this home with love so pure, protected by God’s patient hand,
That we can rest away from fear, can rest away from fear,
For he is always near, He is near in our safe place.
These lyrics, written long before that fateful bridal shower, and discovered more than a year afterwards, caused me to wonder if, in my earliest days, before memories could take on solid form, perhaps she sang this song to me.
Brilliant, as always!
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