I just got a call from a my alumni school. One of the
questions they asked was whether or not I am employed. My answer was no.
Technically, I own my own “business” and I have a unique product but haven’t
pushed it in the recent year or two since I have other priorities. I
contemplated calling back after I hung up to change my position on employment,
because I am not a waste of my degree.
Recently there has been so much discussion about women, their
rights and roles and their limitations in the workforce and even in
my church.
I feel it important as a mother and as a leader of the young women in my church
to understand these varying viewpoints, whether or not I agree with them. When
the call from the school where I received my Associate Degree came I was in the
middle of reading a few articles and blog posts on the subject.
There are many reasons I do this. One is to be understanding;
another is to not teach in the old way with the old stigma and the old ideas.
Is there something wrong with the old way? Well, I firmly believe God’s way is
right. Right now our loving Heavenly Father has given us a “new” way to teach
and I'm doing my best at it. The “old” way certainly
has its issues introduced by what I assume are well meaning individuals who can’t
possibly foresee all the ways their good intentions will be misconstrued and
torn apart or what the individual will internalize it as. My blog has gone relatively
quiet lately because I see so many good blog posts, well written, well thought
out get completely decimated my commentators who are cruel and often do not try
to understand the author or their position at all. Bloggers simply share their world,
their thoughts as they are. Generally speaking a Blog will never and can never
cover all the angles and it shouldn’t try to. I am not great at putting my
thoughts down and so I often keep them to myself, because I love a variety of
people with a variety of views and ways of living and don’t want rifts, but I
quietly try to understand them and know better how to approach them when those
things we don’t see eye to eye on come up. I’m passionate about what I believe.
Most people are.
So while I was trying to find a piece of information for the
phone call I asked the questioner, “What is the purpose of keeping up with the
Alumni?” “To see how Alumni are using their degrees.” So then I asked the
pointed question, “Am I a waste of my degree?” Remember I just told her that I
was unemployed. The young woman answered correctly in the negative. I let her
know I do not feel that I have wasted my degree either, but that that view was
certainly narrowing in the world around me.
After my Associates degree from BYU-Idaho I went to BYU in
Provo and received my Bachelor’s degree. I do freelance graphic design here and
there, more frequently when my children were less and younger and took naps.
Now we spend hours on homework and cuddling, reading and practicing letter
forms, painting masterpieces and building with ceramic clay, we spend time
playing in the tree house and making chalk masterpieces on the driveway, and
dragging a red wagon laden with heavy little bodies up the slope to the road
just because it’s the shortest route. I spend time folding laundry and telling
the kids not to eat on the couch, dragging myself into the kitchen to attempt
to create a meal that will please a vast audience, sweeping under the table and
picking up random discarded clothing. I spend time reading the scriptures with my
children and teaching them to brush their teeth, to organize the toys and fold
laundry, I teach them to make choices and accept consequences, I teach them the
way around a kitchen and recognize a need and be willing to serve, I teach them
to pray, I teach them to change their attitude. I also sometimes yell, roll my
eyes and melt to the floor like my toddler and then I get to teach by example
to repent and forgive. I eat chocolate after they go to bed and whine about
getting up in the morning to redo everything I did yesterday. I pray.
I’m a mother who is doing the best she can to raise a few
children who will know how to handle life and work for themselves. Just like
me, sometimes they will totally suck at it. It’s a fact, but they’ll get up and
keep working at it, because that’s what their mom did and what their grandma’s
did, and their great grandmas etc. etc. all the way back to Eve. She made a
choice that bettered mankind and yes, womankind that includes you, the terms
man and mankind is not exclusive. Eve isn’t to blame, but to thank. I’m
thanking her by doing what I feel God has asked me to do; to live, to raise children,
to nurture them and to be a supportive wife. Yes, I’m married. No, my husband wouldn’t
stop me from working if that was my burning desire, or even a little desire. I
don’t home school. I am happy to send my children who I have found thrive in
the public school environment, where they can choose to live what we teach in
our home and believe me, they have a choice.
So what do I do with my degree? Sometimes I use it to make
money, remember, I do freelance. Sometimes I do it to help out a friend,
sometimes I use my degree to make something as a gift, or something I learned
in my college classes to serve someone else or to add beauty to their world.
Sometimes I advise people in things concerning my degree. Sometimes, I use my
degree to simply teach my daughter that she can draw a neck between a head and
its arms because it is there. Sometimes I use it to help my child with a
homework assignment or project or to research something that interests us
simply because we love to learn. Sometimes I even use it to help my daughter do a
project on a "feminist." GASP! Sometimes I use it to make things for my husband
that helps him in his job, and sometimes I use it to document our marriage or
show him I love him. I use it to express myself.
Does it really matter if I use it? USE it in the way the
general public thinks I should use it? No. It doesn’t. Because once you learn
something it is stored away in that magical space in your spirit. It’s a place that
sometimes my brain can’t quite access so I can’t remember how to do long
division in a pinch to help my daughter, instead I get to learn it again with
her, which gives me patience. But my spirit has it, it’s locked down solid and
when I die, all those things will be opened to me again perfectly and I’ll use
them. I’ll use them and build on them and be better for having the pittance of
a foundation my 16ish years of schooling brought me.
I am not a waste of
my degree. I am exactly what I planned to be. A mother, a wife,
a woman with experience, a woman with knowledge, a woman with talents, a woman
with testimony, a woman with a plan.
I am a woman with divine destiny.
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