Two articles that in my opinion make the case for being a stay at home mother.
Having a baby ‘costs two months sleep a year’
I was at a baby shower recently and the host asked all of us who were guests to write a little piece of advice for the new mom who was expecting her first baby. Most of the experienced mothers talked about sleep. Tips on maximizing sleep during the early post partum days. And how crucial it is to sleep when the baby sleeps rather than getting all lost in cleaning the house or entertaining extended family members who may stop by for a week or two to spend time with the new baby. It was all great advice for a new mother.
I was watching one of those horrific baby stories on discovery a couple months ago and the woman who had welcomed the film crew into her life and her home during the final days of her pregnancy and new baby time was an OB who had all of these ideals about natural childbirth, breastfeeding, cloth diapers, and planned to go back to work at 4 weeks post partum. This poor woman had a c-section, stopped using the cloth diapers the first day because it was just too hard (this episode brought to you by Pampers) and by day five her little son was hospitalized because he was dehydrated and losing weight.
Poor momma was so consumed with welcoming her friends into her home to meet the babe, entertaining and looking good for the camera crew, and getting her life under control: you know, get the baby sleeping through the night, breastmilk established, and her body back to its original size two by one month post partum so she could go back to work “educating” other women on how to have a healthy baby that someone dear and precious sort of got lost in the shuffle…. her little boy, who was not getting enough fluids and had to be hospitalized.
It was a sad commentary on mothering today.
I wish women who desire to be mothers would just embrace the whole thing. It would make things so much better for our society if women would devote themselves to their children and husbands and just let the whole “having it all” thing go. I know trends are moving that way, and I applaud the women of today for the focus they all seem to be articulating in terms of being home for the babies.
I also read this article that talked about the new government studies that claim mom is better than pre school for toddlers.
New research agrees: Moms do it better
I spend most of my waking moments with our four year old and I can honestly say, about 50% of the time he annoys me. So many questions, so busy messing up my house. GO Go Go all day long. Today he is just this tasmanian devilish ball of energy. We are on spring break so everyone is home and yesterday his dad took him to the Denver Zoo all day long. He had a great time at the zoo, but today, with six inches of snow on the ground, he is bored and even though it is 11 am in the morning, he has already gotten into three fights with his brothers, and trashed the bedroom by pulling all of the board games out of the closet and dumping them around his bedroom and mine.
It is not easy mothering a four year old child. Yet I would not dream of putting him in a pre school or a day care. This is the year I believe he needs me most. To teach him manners and good habits of health. Proper eating and bathing, as well as how to be kind even when he feels like whacking someone in the head with a shovel. The goal is to civilize him before he goes to school and hopefully we are on track to do that. World net Daily has some strong views about home school and the writer of that article articulates them in her piece. I have not given up on public schools yet, but I pray that our children are good examples to their peers, and the time and energy invested in them by doing preschool and some elementary school at home has put them in a better position to be kind rather than engage in the mean and bullying behaviors of some of the children they attend school with every day.
I remember those years when I felt that five hours of sleep was a “good” night. And not necessarily all at once either. I was happy if I managed to get two hours before three am and three hours after three am. My daily nap, which is still an ingrained mommy habit, was crucial to my sanity, and I scheduled that one to three afternoon space as my sacred time to recharge my batteries before the afternoon rush of homework, supper, bedtime, and what I call my second shift. That nap is still the most important focused time of my day. It keeps me going because even when children are grown up, you still have late night stuff – the teenager who needs to talk, or the 18 year old who comes in late after a party, or the ten year old who has a fever, or the 12 year old who got freaked out watching 24 and needs to sleep on Mom and Dads floor.
Parenting doesn’t stop at 10 PM and then resume at 6 AM after a restfull nights sleep. It is a 24 hour a day full time job, and women need to be wise in making the choices that will enable them to stay healthy and do the work at hand.
Jenny Hatch
Author Jenny Marie Hatch
NRO: Romney Fan Club
Healthy Families Make A Healthy World!
Michelle Malkin: threats in the Blogosphere
Michelle Has a message for the technoblogging elites: Go Here (Strong Language alert)
These past ten months I have had to seriously think about this topic of threats and being harmed by what I say. I have also had to question how much of our life I put on this blog, and how much of my time will be devoted to blogging endeavors.
I decided long ago that I would not take counsel from my fears, in any sphere of my life. And have attempted to walk the talk each day fearless of what life might send my way in terms of being attacked for my lifestyle, political views, and activism.
Malkin has some good insights, and I completely agree with her that we have to be fearless.
She Said:
“My response to this and other endless slurs and threats–most empty, some serious–has been two-fold:
1) Report the serious threats to law enforcement.
2) Keep blogging.
As I have said before: “There is a time to be tolerant and there is a time to draw lines. If you don’t draw those lines, bullies will be emboldened.”
That is my unsolicited advice to those now cowering in the face of anonymous commenters and assorted nutballs who will never go away.
Keep blogging. Don’t cut and run.”
I agree with her in theory, but after you have been attacked, sometimes it is important to just take a break, simply because you are ill and need to physically heal, and also need some space to recharge your freedom loving batteries. It might also be important to take stock of your life and decide if this is the cause that you are willing to put it all on the line for. Knowing deep in your heart that at any time and in any place you could be murdered or maimed for your political views.
Last week before the Gathering of Eagles event, I had some nightmares. My subconcious was dealing with my fears in a very real way during my dreams, and I felt some panic and fear. I also wondered if this was going to be a solo demonstration, and if I would be physically attacked by those on the other side. I figured even if I was hit I would probably live and would only die if I was shot by someone up on the hill. No Fear, No Fear….
On the thursday before the rally my visiting teachers came to visit, and I shared with them some of what I was planning to do with the Gathering of Eagles, and mentioned that I was having nightmares etc and then asked if they would pray for me. I joked that I was not afraid of getting hurt, just as long as I did not get shot. Ben was playing with the two little daughters of my friend and I did not realize that he was listening to our conversation. When I walked in the door after the anti war rally the first thing he said to me in a tone of excited exclamation was “You did not get shot!”. I wondered then how much my little guy had worried for his mom.
When Dale Lanham and I walked in the door after the bake sale, Paul jokingly said “you didn’t get shot! or arrested!!” He was only half joking. He had been really concerned that if we got too in your face with the Daily Camera people, they might call the police.
Here is a picture of me shortly after some toxic chemical was thrown in my face. I have struggled with my health for months since this attack. I reported it to the police, but they did not believe my story, and could not comprehend why someone would want to kill a blogging mother. I have released myself from the need to get justice around this attack, but it did change my life and my outlook on Freedom.
When one is attacked for political reasons, it can be truly devastating. You may feel guilt for putting your children in an unsafe situation, and you might feel damaged emotionally, because the bottom line is that it just feels terrible to be hurt for your beliefs.
That being said, after the attack, a freedom of expression and life comes into ones heart. At least for me, life after attack has felt liberating. I have absolutely no fear of death. I walked to deaths door, knocked on it, I think Jesus even opened the door, told me it was not my time, and I walked back into life completely changed. I also had a near death experience after the birth of my fourth child, and while similar elements were involved in terms of a change in perspective, life after the attack was the most liberating for me as a blogger.
It recharged my liberty loving batteries. It filled me with a purpose and a focus that has never waned. I feel absolutely fearless. I should qualify that by saying that in my concious moments I feel fearless, in my subconcious some fear has shown up in my dreams, as my mind has tried to reconcile things.
Life after attack has motivated me to make some changes in our day to day life. I bought the puppy I had been promising my children. I enjoy sunsets, sunrises, and flowers much more, and if I feel like dancing or singing, I do it.
I cut people out of my life who were making me ill just being in contact with them, and I invited others into my life who brought joy to my heart.
I joined a choir and I am enjoying performance again.
I have absolute faith and confidence that if my life is in the balance again, because of another attack, that Heavenly Father will preserve my life and protect me from evil. And I trust that if it is my time to die, that I will be welcomed home safely into the arms of my Savior.
It sounds like the blogger Michelle wrote about has decided that she cannot live with those fears of being attacked. I wish I had the ability to communicate to her that when you are attacked for your heart felt views, it can be the life changing, empowerment moment that gives you the courage to live one more day, year, lifetime, to its fullest.
I know my words sometimes convey this grandiose, majestic, over the top view of life, politics, freedom, and slavery. But it is difficult for me to harness my words, pull them back into a restrained elitist moderated voice. I have decided that the granduer of this cause of freedom is no delusion. I spend quality time talking to the Master of the Universe every day. I know he is listening. Some days, during quiet moments of prayer, in conversation with my Father in Heaven, the very specific guidance I have felt from his Holy Spirit showing me in word pictures what to write, what to say, what to do, has let me know in a very real and specific way that He is interested in what I am doing with this blog.
When one feels that the work they are doing every day is blessed by Heaven, that God himself takes an interest in what is said, what is written, and what is done, then yeah, one can understand why satanic forces, people, and ideas would have a major problem with one freedom loving momma in Colorado.
And, yes, Michelle Malkin is profoundly right that we bloggers cannot allow threats, real or imagined to compel us to stop. Peace through strength is my mantra. Some very evil forces in our world need to be confronted again and again and again, boldly, in full view of the public, and fearlessly by those who love freedom.
If we don’t do it, who will?
Jenny Hatch
Healthy Families Make A Healthy World!
Patriot Post
Patriot Post
EDITORIAL EXEGESIS
“’A Triumph for Pelosi.’ That’s how the Associated Press described [Friday’s] vote by the House to demand a U.S. retreat from Iraq, and in the perverse calculus of Capitol Hill we suppose it was. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has demonstrated she can pile on enough pork to bribe enough Democrats to cobble together a bare, partisan majority to ”send a message“ that has no chance of becoming law. Congratulations. ‘Today is an historic day,’ Ms. Pelosi said on the House floor. ‘The new Congress will vote to end the war in Iraq.’ But of course the bill does nothing of the sort. If she truly wanted to end the war, the Speaker and her fellow Democrats could simply have used their power of the purse to refuse to fund it. But that would have meant taking some responsibility for what happens in Iraq, which is the last thing Democrats want to do. So they have passed a bill that funds the war while claiming it ends the war.
The bill’s ‘benchmarks’ and deadlines certainly have nothing to do with achieving victory in Iraq, or assisting General David Petraeus’s campaign to secure Baghdad. They are all about the war inside the Democratic Caucus. On the one hand, they appease the antiwar left by pretending to declare the war illegal if certain goals aren’t met by Iraqis or U.S. forces. But on the other, they allow ‘moderates’ from swing districts to claim they are nonetheless ‘supporting the troops.’ Acts of Congress don’t get much more cynical than that.” —The Wall Street Journal”
Jenny Hatch
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Healthy Families Make A Healthy World!
NRO: Thomas Sowell: Dangerous Demagoguery
Dangerous Demagoguery
Sowell nails it once again…
“Unfortunately for the congressional Democrats, their left-wing supporters have taken the antiwar rhetoric of Pelosi, Murtha, et al., at face value and consider it a betrayal that they talk the talk but will not walk the walk.
It has been painfully clear that Speaker Pelosi was serious only about scoring political points. Her big grin when she won a narrow vote for a non-binding resolution was grotesque against the background of a life-and-death issue.
You don’t grin over a political ploy that you have pulled when men’s lives are at stake.
It is not just congressional politicians who are so preoccupied with scoring points against the administration that they show no sign of concern for what the actual consequences of their words or actions will be for troops in the field, nations in the Middle East, or the global war on terror.
…..The demagoguery of the Democrats has already put them in the position where a successful conclusion of the Iraq war before the 2008 elections can be a political disaster for them.
If the recent increase in the number of troops in Iraq, and their freer hand in dealing with the terrorists there, reduces the level of violence enough to stabilize Iraq enough for American troops to start coming home before the 2008 elections, the Democrats will have lost their gamble.
Only an American defeat in Iraq can ensure the Democrats’ political victory next year. Their only strategy is to sabotage the chances for a military victory in Iraq without being held responsible for a defeat.
That is the corner that they have painted themselves into with their demagoguery that even their own supporters see through.”
