I bet some of you caught the title “traditional mom” and thought “what does that mean?” Good question these days, isn’t it?
Is it a stay at home mom working hard (and boy do they!) to raise two-and-a-half children, meeting all the demands of mom, wife, chauffeur, housekeeper, and gourmet cook?
Is it a corporate executive filling every waking moment with work or family obligations, wondering where the hours will come from to meet the next deadline while not missing a minute of her youngest’s soccer season?
Is it a single mom balancing work and the needs of her young kids while taking classes to complete a degree or graduate program?
Although as recently as just a few decades ago the answer was predominately the first, today’s reality is that, in any given community, we’re likely to see at least an equal smattering of all three, if not the latter two outnumbering the first.
What’s a “traditional mom” then?
My proposition is that she’s a woman who loves her family and desires to raise her kids with values, ambitions, and dreams. And we’re always thinking about what we can do to instill in our children those values, ambitions, and dreams, all the while managing the various other obligations we have.
Our family lives are stretched pretty thin these days with work, school, church, scouts, sports–multiplied by a parent or two and exponentially increased for each child involved. But I know that for me, as a busy working Christian mom (and I think I’m pretty “traditional” these days), I want more than anything to have my kids grow up with a sense of belonging … to look back and have memories of the cool things we did together and the important faith and life lessons they learned (even if they didn’t realize they were learning anything at the time).
I, for one, plan to learn as much as I can to find ways to make these desires a reality in my family life – and actually implement them!
I’d love to share this journey and my findings with you … I hope you’ll find some ideas that work for your family, too!
Until then.
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