I wrote this blog post in a Word document several months ago and I guess I never posted it. I believe in it's better late than never, so here it is!
The school year has come to an end. The kids are now all home for the summer and the house is a LOT more chaotic all day long than it was just a week ago. It is always an adjustment when school gets out in the summer, but by the time summer is coming to a close I never want the kids to go back to school because I love having them home with me.
My home school year with Olivia has ended. I am sincerely mourning the end because it has been such a wonderful year. I have truly loved having her home with Avery and me all day every day. The best result we realized was also our primary goal: to strengthen our relationship. Having all that time together with only the distraction of one other child made it so much easier for me to meet her needs. And when her needs for attention and one-on-one time are met she is a truly delightful child. I am so sad to send her back to school next year and will have to try especially hard to keep our relationship strong.
Being with just Olivia and Avery during the day is a walk in the park compared to when all of my children are home in the afternoon and evening. It has become quite poignant to me that having 4 children is significantly harder than having 2. Now this may seem obvious to some, but it seems that some people don't realize that it is much harder to be a good mom as you add additional children. As I think about this it also occurs to me that I really have NO idea what it must be like for people who have more than 4 children. (Mom, how did you do it????)
Now don't get me wrong....being a mom is the very best thing I've ever done in my life and I LOVE it more than any other thing I could be doing. I wouldn't trade my role for anything and I LOVE having 4 kids. However, it is really hard work.
Recently someone I know who works full time but is not married and has no children said something to the effect of how busy she is and that I (and the other stay-at-home-moms that were in the room) probably have more time than she does to get things done. I wanted to laugh in her face. It just shows her naivety because she simply cannot comprehend the unrelenting and constant work that it is to be a wife and the mother of multiple children.
Let's explore just one aspect of being "the mom". I like to get my laundry done on one day each week. I make sure we have enough clothes that I can usually save most of the laundry for Mondays. However, now that I am providing laundry services for 7 people (my family plus my dad lives with us) it takes literally an entire day to do the laundry. Luckily I can do other things in between loads but I have to change the laundry continually throughout the day without taking much time between the end of one load and the beginning of the next in order to get it all clean, folded and distributed by the time I go to bed on Monday night. And if I am gone for a couple of hours during the day it runs into Tuesday. And laundry is just one example. Consider also the number of dishes we go through every day and how much messier a house with 7 people gets in just a short time and the taking care of each child's individual needs for attention and homework help and running them to the places they need to be and helping them learn to work and teaching them to be good people and on and on....
Now it is true that when one has multiple children the older ones can help out with the younger ones and this does offset the workload to some degree. And I have children who are great workers and help out a ton with house and yard work.
When other things (besides number of children) are taken into account such as having children with special needs or having to work outside the home in addition to being the mom or demanding callings or community involvement or any of the innumerable other things that make each of our situations unique it is critical that we remember that we don't know what it's like to be in each other's shoes.
