Militant Stay at Home Motherhood

When I was growing up my mother worked part time. No one ever told me, until I was a teenager that I could not do something because I was a girl. My mother unintentionally raised a feminist. I really hate the word feminist. It seems to imply female superiority. I do understand that basically it just seeks female equality and was coined in a time when women were the down trodden masses while being simultaneously put on a pedestal and told they had the minds of kids with nice tits. Still I dislike the word.


When I was in college I was having a conversation with a girl in a campus Christian group called Ki Alpha. She was engaged to be married, I think. I was talking about my family and chose my words incorrectly. I said: "My mother is just a stay at home mother." (At the time she was not being licensed for dentistry in the US). The girl became very upset with me and felt like I was belittling stay at home mother hood. She explained to me, in a way I recall as hostile that she was intending to be a stay at home mother and how that was in her opinion the greatest job a woman could have. I explained to her that I meant no disrespect and my mother was a great stay at home mother and all that. That it was a perfectly respectable life choice. I never spoke to her personally again.

Since then I have been a stay at home mother for many years by default. For her it was a choice. Raising kids was going to be her career, her goal in life. She got a college education to raise her kids, that is fine. For me it was not a choice. I never dreamed of being a stay at home mom. In fact I was never really was sure I wanted kids.

I have thought since my conversation what got her so upset with the little, miss chosen word just. Many stay at home moms are always on the defensive about it. I wonder if it was that she had been criticizes for her plan before, maybe she thought having job instead of staying at home with the kids was unforgivably selfish for a woman or that she was not entirely confident in her choice. I will never know the answer to that.

I guess I understand her upsetness in a way because once after a Sunday school class in a Baptist church that dealt in successful marriages. It was taught by a couple who had been married a mere nine years and the husband acted like he needed to convince himself that he was the boss of his wife by saying "Christ, church, Christ, church" all the time (when he said Christ he pointed to himself and when he said church he pointed to his wife). If one is the true leader of something one does not need to posture like that, mmmkay. Their basic message was that after marriage a woman should never work and the man should be the primary, and only breadwinner and their way was the only Biblical way to do it. Needless to say I was extremely upset after this class. A girl asked me what I had thought about the class and stupidly I told her the truth. She told me that I had a problem with submission and I was too prideful. I did not reply to her.

I firmly believe in a parent's right to stay at home and care for their kids and not working. I also believe in my right to want to have a dang job. Maybe all those dear mommies and working women need to get the chips off their shoulders so I can talk about my lack of a career freely with the words I choose with out getting a tongue lashing from someone more righteous. It is so hard to trust Christians sometimes.

Decisions And Klingons at the End

The way I make decisions works for me. There is nothing wrong with the process really but I think it seems that way to other people because I announce my progress, instead of just my decisions. I think some people, including my husband see me a flighty, obsessive but unable to go through with anything. I usually think about something and start to think it is a good idea and start researching it. As I research it, super obsessively, it is all I can think about. It is all I talk about, praising its virtues and how it would be great for me, worrying about possible detriments, I even explain how I would attain it. I have after all thought of everything as I have researched it, well almost everything and will look those things up just as soon as I can. As I research, ponder and make plans I feel decided, but am not really. I am not implementing any concrete plans I am just gathering information and making said plans.

The problem in recent years has been that I have no opportunity to implement any plans. I have thought, researched, fantasized and talked until I get bored because I can not move past this and move on to some other obsession that lasts a day, week, month or more. You can see examples of this on this blog here. I announced I was going to join the U.S. Navy. I was 100% sure I would do it. You know, after I was able to. After I became legal and could. I would resign myself to become a U.S. citizen, not in a bad way but in the Biblical way that tells us to practice the good of what ever country we dwell in.

Then, circumstances happened. My husband was already out of work and we were trying to get me a green card. No work came my husband's way. Green card getting was its usual slow self. I was progressing and getting fairly close to getting it done. Still my ability to fulfill my plan, joining the U.S. Navy, was years away. The economy was getting worse, less and less job prospect for my husband on the horizon. Unemployment is nearing it's end and so is our lease as is my youth. So we made a new plan. Dump it in a pile with the old ones and say nothing will happen, I would not blame you, but it is not speculation. We are implementing it. We are taking steps we cannot untake.

We are moving back to Finland for a better life. Ah, Finland, the land of opportunity, flowing with education and health care. Majestic waves of recovering economy rippling across it, more job opportunities than Wichita Kansas. Best country in the world according to a Newsweek article http://www.newsweek.com/photo/2010/08/15/best-countries-in-the-world.html

More than that, it is home and will allow me to work with out a visa and will get my husband a work permit in about six months and a good health care to boot with fraction of the cost of the United States. It is not perfect but compared with the present state of the USA it seems darn near Utopian.

Well, that is where we are going. I haven't posted in a while due to the loss of the late nights I spent alone on the computer because I have to wake up earlier to get my son to school, well tomorrow he has no school so tonight I blog like a warrior, KAPLAH! Your comments would bring honor to my house.

The Neighbourhood Snitch

It seems as if I have become the neighborhood snitch. I keep relaying information to the leasing office about things that I feel like are of interest to them and would improve life for us and just feel like it is the right thing to do. Not to even mention the times I have called the police for fear someone might get hurt.

This comes from an innate desire to do the right thing no matter what others think. I never regret doing something just how I did it. This leads me to call the police when a neighbor is having a loud argument I fear might turn physical. I failed to do it on two occasions in the past and regretted it. I pick up worms out of puddles so they don't drown. I report to the leasing office when someone is tossing bottles in to our little forested area, I worry about them breaking and the kids and animals getting hurt. I told them I saw a prostitute being picked up in the complex. I lived next door to a brothel before and will not put up with it.

Sometimes I wonder if I am just being a busy body. I told the office a few weeks ago that a little boy had broken a small window with a rock. His mother did not care so she was not going to tell them. Was that busy bodying? I guess it was. Still, I did nothing I would not do for myself. Had my son broken the window, I would have told them and made arrangements to pay for it. It is only fair. I think I have not crossed the like but I am getting very close to being that little kid who tattles on other kids about stuff they were not even involved in, or perhaps I have crossed the line.

I am thinking more carefully about how I go about doing what I perceive to be the right thing. I have hurt people and caused things to happen that should not have. I have let other people bully me into doing things I should not have.

When I was in college some evil fire and brimstone street preachers came to OU. They called every passing student a whore or a whore monger and said all homosexuals were evil and an abomination in the site of God. I thought they were terribly hateful and offensive. Someone stole a briefcase and a sign just out of spite. Not that they did not deserve it. They were horrible. I still did not think that was right. Vigilante justice and giving other people punishments we think they deserve just is not right. I saw that some of my dorm mates had stolen the sign, not the briefcase but the sign. I went and told the preachers I knew where their sign was and would get it back for them. I was going to go and talk to the boy who had stolen it and ask him to give it to me so I could return it. That was the plan but unfortunately I was still a little girl and much more manipulatable and intimidatable by authority figures. He bullied me into telling him where the sign was. I did not tell him who had it. I sent this horrible mean person to bully and yell at my neighbours. I was filled with guilt and shame. I had allowed him to intimidate me into doing a wrong in my quest to do what I perceived was the right thing. I was too ashamed to look at my dorm mate (he was coincidentally gay) who had taken the poster in the eye again. I avoided him and probably made everything worse. I was just so ashamed of myself.

I am always afraid of doing this but I do not let that stop me. I try to do the right thing no matter what but I am always conscious of how I should do it. What would be the right way. For example, when my neighbours smoke weed in their bathroom it is as if they smoke it in ours, there is an insulation problem between the two bathrooms. If they do it again I will not go to the police or the office or anything that tately, I will tape a sealed envelope on their door respectfully explaining that I really do not care if they smoke weed in their bathroom but I do care when it smells like they are smoking it in our bathroom. I will ask them respectfully to refrain from this and if they can I can refrain from telling anyone about it.

I guess all this ultimately stems from my poor social skills and belief in rules. Sure some rules are wrong and need to be changed but unless a rule is outright immoral, not just flawed, it should be followed until it is changed through the proper channels. Otherwise society would slide into chaos and we would screw each other over so much that we would lose our humanity. I do not believe in anarchy.

Pacifism and Concientious Objections

So I started thinking about my stance on war, violence and the like recently. My opinions have not changed but I have defined my position more clearly. My husband lost his job. He worked there for about a year and a half. The pay was better than any other job he has had during our entire marriage. He enjoyed it, gained satisfaction from it, was well liked and good at it, but he lost it. Now we are left in a jam with bleak prospects of finding him a job as good or better. We have been barely getting by and that was good, considering we have been homeless before. I cannot get a job because I do not have a green card and no work permit yet. A remote, yet unexplored possibility occurred to us. Marcus should reenlist in the navy. It is by no means a sure thing because he needs a special waver due to asthma. I am not going to get too into any of this because that is not what this blog entry is about, just giving some background about what led to this.

I have always thought of myself as a pacifist, knowing all along that that is not the term for me. Sometimes your brain gets stuck on a word to describe something with that you know is not accurate. I knew this but did not give it much thought. I was never really able to articulate my thoughts on the matter to many people because my convictions on war and peace are motivated by my faith but so many people around me did not agree and I feared judgment.

I come from a long line (well, two generations) of conscientious objectors. My father and grand father both served in the military, as dictated by Finnish law, my grandfather actually in a time of war. They served faithfully and did their duty, neither killed any one and had it come down to it they would not have. My father was never trained how to shoot a gun, use a grenade or anything of the like during training. My grandfather went through The War (in Finland we did not have WWI and II, just one war that affected us) in the front lines, of nearly the front lines with out carrying a gun and with the explicit knowledge that he would not so much as think about shooting a Russian, or anyone else, if it came down to it.

While I think war is a horrible barbaric thing I am not a pacifist. I would never dream of fighting in a war and killing people just because my government had a problem with their government. At the same time I see no problem with my father following the laws of Finland, putting on a uniform and serving as a mail carrier. The United States military has no such provisions for conscientious objectors as Finland does because it lacks mandatory service. In times of mandatory service the United States has been known to make such accommodations. I am a Quaker and we are traditionally pacifists but the way Quakerism is set up it leaves the specifics of things like this up to the individuals conscience. There are many people in my church who would be horrified with any person of the faith serving in the military and many with service records. The pastor does not comment on this issue much from the pulpit. Many of us attend a peace picnic on Memorial Day.

I am not really going anywhere deep and specific with any of this. I just wanted to share about my thought on this issue. I do not think violence or war is the answer to anything and saying God is on the side of bloodshed seems just wrong. God is on the side of peace but that is no reason to demonize the military. It is a career choice and what an individual makes of it. My husband would never choose a job involving killing, not that the navy has many of those. He will do a job any conscientious objector would be fine with doing, but he will choose to do it because that will be a way to support us. If God does not want my husband to be a part of the military he will prevent it and give us another choice.