My good friend, Amy, wrote a letter to the mama who is freaking out that she isn’t doing enough. It is SO good — especially in light of what we’ve been talking about around here recently.
While I think earning an income from home can be a wonderful thing, I don’t ever want it to be done at the expense of the more important — the people who live in your home, your health, your marriage.
Here’s a snippet of her amazing post:
Dear Mama,
You are doing enough.
YOU ARE enough.
Making money from home amid the already full everyday is an amazing opportunity. I know, because I’m doing it and I have been on various monetary levels with a few different streams of income since I left my teaching job 11 years and 4 children ago. It is a gift to be able to work from home, full or part-time, contributing to the family income.
The trick is to make sure that gift doesn’t turn into a burden. A longing for more. A taunting, insisting that you could do more and be more without the weight of what’s right in front of you. If only…
It is so hard to be momma. We all feel like we are failing, and truth be told, sometimes we are. However, none of us are failing as much as we think we are.
When we made the decision for me to work from home part-time we looked at our budget and came up with a number for the month. That is the income we plan on me making each month. That’s it. I need to constantly remind myself that that is enough. I don’t need to break my back, drive myself to exhaustion, or ignore playing with my baby because of work. Whatever I accomplish in a day is enough if at the end of the day there is peace and joy in my home. It’s too easy to ignore the value of playtime on the floor, getting dishes done, putting a meal on the table, or being at the door with a hug for a weary husband.
Yes, yes, yes, and yes!!
I plan to click over and read this , but I also wanted to just say that I liked what you said here, Crystal.
This is part of a larger mindset in our culture that says being a wife, mom and homemaker (and even homeschooler) doesn’t count as actually contributing anything at all to the world. I have to fight the sense that I am a total loser because I am not earning money… and God knows we could use it. Yet I can’t deny my priorities, and while I would love to be a “money making mom” there’s just no way I have the margin to do anything other than what’s on my plate, which I feel I am barely keeping up with. It’s a sacrifice, and it especially hard feeling like all this (unpaid) work I’m doing is seen as basically worthless in the eyes of the world. Unto the Lord, right?
I am sorry you are struggling. There is so much value in what you do. Don’t let the voices of our culture influence your thought. …The things of earth will go strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace…
Thank you, Sarah! It can be rough. My family asks when I’m going to get a real job. We are not in a good place financially at all. But God is good and he provides our needs, even when others would not want our standard of living… and sometimes I don’t either. But what do you do when God calls you to do something?
You have given a great reminder.
I think we all have different callings, roles, seasons, and capacities and I am LOVING that one of the conversations coming as a result of my book is that women are saying, “I’m not called to be a money-making mom right now!” That makes me so happy because I think it’s important to figure out what is best for ourselves, our kids, our marriages, and our families and then guiltlessly do that!
I needed to read that. I have caught myself a lot lately justifying time on my website as an investment in my kids future. That is true, but there is no substitute for the “now” with my kids. Thank you!