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Thanks For Believing In Yourself

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010 by Alyice

The other day my daughter and I were talking about careers, what she wanted to be when she grew up, and who she was right now.

She says, “I am a writer, but I am not sure what I want to make as my career.”

I giggle and say, “So you’re a writer, huh?”

She replies, “Yes! I write stories. Good ones.”

You’ve got to love that self-confidence!

“Yes, yes you do,” I say.

And it’s true. She is an amazing storyteller. She spends a good one to three hours a day writing her stories—now if she would just gain the patience to write more than the climatic points. (And she does this despite her problems with reading and spelling.)

Me, I am a paid freelance writer. I have been writing, on and off, for ten years. And I still don’t have the confidence she portrays at such a young age.

It’s strange how a child’s upbringing can play a huge part in their identities and how they see themselves.

My husband and I have worked hard to provide a nurturing environment for our kids—an environment that is vastly different from our own childhoods.

There have been times when we’ve wondered if we did too much for our kids, and felt bad for not being able to give them all the things we dreamed of giving them.

There have been times when we’ve worried about being too soft, and wondered if “putting the fear of God” in them wouldn’t be a better way of raising them.

There have been times when we thought that our rules were too lax in some areas and too strict in others.

There have been times when we feared that we were too open and honest with them, and that perhaps we should’ve sheltered them from certain things more.

But in the end, how we raised them, and how we treated them, all came down to wanting them to know that they aren’t just loved because they have our blood, but that they are loved for the individuals that they are.

It’s now been 19 1/2 years since we gave birth to our first child and if there is anything we have taken away from those years, it’s this: When you love a child enough to discipline that child fairly and still be able to show a softer side of yourself, you raise an individual that isn’t afraid to take risks, an individual that believes in himself, an individual that is willing to work hard, and an individual that follows your rules, not out of fear, but out of respect.

Whether my daughter will become a paid freelance writer, a novelist, or just a hobby writer is totally up to her. The key here is that she already calls herself a writer; that she has the self-confidence to believe in herself enough to follow her heart’s desire at this very moment in her life. And that she likes herself enough to not worry about what anyone else thinks of her, her talents, or her dreams.

Right now, right this moment, she defines herself as a writer. Not a student, not a sophomore, not a child, not a sister—but a writer.

It is my hope, no our hope, that she will always have the confidence and belief in herself to follow her heart’s desire. That she will always know that anything she dreams of becoming is possible as long as she has the faith, the will, and the determination to make it happen.

So if there is anything I am grateful for right now, at this moment, it’s knowing that despite our flaws and failed good intentions, my husband and I were still able to give our children what matters most—security, love, and the nurturing necessary to help them become confident in who they are as individuals.

Give thanks…

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Thanks For Being A Good Worker

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010 by Alyice

When my son came home from college this summer, he informed me that he wanted a job. He wanted to put away the money he earned so that he had spending money when he returned to college in the fall.

Smart idea, I thought to myself. But secretly I wondered if we prepared him enough for the real world.

I refused to let him get a job in high school because I wanted him to enjoy the whole high school experience and concentrate on getting good grades. Besides, I felt he’d have his whole life to work a job.

That’s not to say he had it easy—though some may argue differently. He was required to help out around the house, to keep his room orderly, to mow the lawn in the summer and shovel the snow in the winter, to keep up his grades (straight As), to choose an extra-curricular activity and stick with it (even if he decided he didn’t like it after the first few weeks), to help taxi and keep a watchful eye on his younger sister, and to be respectful towards others.

Still, I wondered if it would’ve been better to let him have that job he wanted in twelfth grade.

Then it happened. He got a job!

The first two weeks were difficult for him. Though he was happy to have a job, he was used to sleeping in during the summer and staying up late and now he had to give up his summer for what was considered menial, laborious work. And for money he wasn’t even going to be able to spend.

By the third week he had adjusted to the schedule nicely and discovered that there were three types of workers: people who only worked when seen, people who did their jobs but took their sweet time about it, and people who, like his dad, believed in doing an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.

It’s now the fourth week and he has come to the conclusion that if you are going to have to work for a living, you should do something you love—or at least like immensely.

As for worrying whether I made the right decision to prevent him from working a traditional job during high school. I believe I did.

He’s done beautifully transitioning into the position. He arrives at work on time—actually a few minutes early. He has his father’s work ethics and puts in an honest day’s work, and he’s looking at this experience as a learning opportunity.

As to how I know all this. Well you see, though he got the job on his own merits, he works at the same company as his dad. And his boss has been very impressed, so impressed that the other day my son’s boss pulled my husband aside to let him know that he raised a “good worker”.

So today, as I think about all this, I cannot help but feel extremely grateful for having the foresight to insist that he enjoy his childhood to the fullest.

And I am extremely grateful that my husband had the foresight to insist that while our son was enjoying his childhood, that he also be given responsibilities and not be treated like a “mamma’s boy”.

Give thanks…

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Thankful To Be A WAHM-SAHM

Monday, April 19th, 2010 by Alyice

I posted this on my company blog last week, but I wanted to share it here, too, because I truly believe it fits right there with the rest of my “Gratitude Posts“.

“Do you have any regrets with your decision to put your career last as you raised your children, now that they are older and need you less?” That’s a question I was asked recently by one of my peers.

My quick response was, “I’ve never regretted my decision to put my kids first, but I have regretted allowing others to influence how I felt about my decision.”

My son will be, dare I say it, 20 years old next year. My daughter will be 16.

From the day I gave birth to these two magnificent creatures, I knew I wanted to stay home with them. I knew I did not want to miss one single moment of their lives. I wanted to watch them take their first steps. I wanted to hear them speak their first words. I wanted to teach them to love and respect each other and to be the best siblings they could possibly be to each other. I wanted a close-knit family and I couldn’t see it happening if I was focusing on “me, myself, and I”.

That’s not to say that working outside of the home makes someone less of a mother. I don’t believe that to be true for one instant.

I do, however, believe, that it would have been a BAD decision for ME. I multi-task with the best of them, but I also have this tremendous flaw in which wherever I put my heart, that’s where all my energy goes. And I knew deep down, that if I focused on the career of my dreams—say as a lawyer for a corporation, or an editor at a big magazine, or a big-wig artist—I would NOT have given my children the attention or the time they deserved.

I suppose the fact that my single mother worked three jobs when I was in elementary school and missed a lot of my school functions, including my 6th grade graduation, had a lot to do with my decision. But I also believe that for me, there simply was no choice.

Before I became pregnant with my second child, I had gone back to work (full time) for nearly a year. During that year, I fought with myself daily about my decision to work and leave my son in the care of someone else. Some days the guilt was too much to bare. Other days, I thrived at my job and envisioned myself climbing the corporate ladder. I even got the okay to return to school for a law degree, in which the company offered to pay.

But God must have knew my heart and the struggles I faced because when that opportunity arrived, I discovered I was pregnant. In that instance I knew where I belonged—home with my kids. Nine months later I said good-bye to what was to potentially be the best job offer a gal could ever receive and hello to a simpler, more fulfilling life.

So do I regret staying home with my kids? Do I regret working from home to find some way of fulfilling my own needs? Do I regret not being farther along in my career or not being as successful as some thought I should be by now? Not really.

What I do regret, however, is the internal conflicts I’ve allowed myself to experience when certain people I deemed influential in my life made it known that they were not impressed with the path I chose, or implied that I was a failure because I did not reach a certain income level or because I was not a household name with x employees.

I regret wasting time feeling less than because someone else thought my ideals weren’t good enough. I regret allowing my self-esteem to drop, on occasions, because I valued what someone else thought about me more than I valued what I thought about myself.

But I do not regret my decision to be a stay-at-home mom who works from home. I think I got the best of both worlds. I really do.

When my kids were little, and all they wanted was to hang out with mom and dad, I got to be there. When my husband worked and couldn’t make an event, it killed him inside. And yet, it eased his mind and his heart to know that at least one of us was there for our kids.

I loved watching my children interact with each other, I loved hearing them laugh when they wrestled with their dad, and I enjoyed teaching them and helping them with their homework and crafting with them. I looked forward to our days together and our nights and week-ends as a family who spent quality time together.

Two years ago, I began to experience the empty nest syndrome. Before my son even moved out of the house and headed off to college, he was already separating from me. At the same time, my daughter was pushing me away to find herself.

At that time, I felt lost and empty and confused and hurt and yes, I wondered if I made the right decision all those years ago.

But a dear friend reminded me that teenagers go through this. They push their parents away so that they can find their own identities, but eventually they come around again. She reminded me that even though they pushed me away, it was important that I was still readily available to them; that—as my sister-in-law said many years ago—it is during their teen years, when peer pressure is the strongest and their desire to be all grown up is the deepest, that I be there for them.

Today, I’ve adjusted to the fact that my kids are growing up and needing me less. I’ve adjusted to the fact that I can now begin to develop a career that requires more of me because they need less of me. And I have to say that looking back, I feel very BLESSED to have been one of the lucky ones who got to stay home with my children, to have gotten the opportunity to watch them grow up on a more personal level, and to have bonded with them in a way I am not certain I would have had the opportunity to do had I been working outside of the home.

So no, I have no regrets. Unless you count the fact that I wish they’d never grow up!

Give thanks…

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I'm a freelance writer, mixed media artist, SMVA, and the owner of The Dabbling Mum.

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