I'm a professional, I have too much education and worked my tail off to prove it, but then life happened and I ended up at home raising a family, helping keep a church alive and thriving, writing too much, and baking too many desserts. When I was a kid in daycare, daycare was weird and a last resort and socially questionable. When I have kids, not having your kids in daycare is looked at askance, as if I'm socially depriving them or shipwrecking my own personal life. I get questioned by people who never utilize my services, save perhaps once in five years, why I'm not working full time and depriving them of the convenience of interrupting Christmas or so they can get something minor done when it is convenient to them. Then the pandemic happened and everyone is bemoaning all these poor women 'trapped' at home with their own children, how dreadful! Congratulations are due to the Great Enemy of Humanity for his propaganda campaign that has transformed the heart of human society and culture into drudgery, toil and tedium. But this gal says it much better, and far more graciously.
I worked so hard at my career, but it failed, it left me in debt and burned out with no knowledge of myself and no social life, just a phone that might ring at any hour and nothing else. I don't get paid now, at least not much, but my kids, my husband, and I, have a life, a happy, peaceful, fun life. It's nice to set my own hours, not to start when the phone rings, and be my own boss. And to be able to be there for other people when they need someone. This is freedom, not slavery. And the lives that I am touching will touch countless others for years to come. That's a better legacy I can leave my kids than just money in the bank, though that's nice too! So for most of the problems in our modern west, reestablishing stable, happy, healthy homes is vital, if only we will embrace it. We all set off into the world looking for the one place we leave behind: Home.
