I sit in a waiting room with the clipboard in my lap, filling out my family history and listing surgeries, giving dates of pregnancies and births, and answering all sorts of embarrassing questions.
It’s truly astounding how much information is necessary for a routine check-up.
As I near the end of the forms, the hardest question sneaks up on me. I freeze…
Profession:_____________________________________
I cannot think of a decent answer for that question.
Leave it blank, and I feel completely useless, as if I am rejecting my own life as unworthy of a title or purpose.
I will not do as I have in the past, write “homemaker” and then immediately feel antiquated and like I am trying way too hard.
I consider the possibility of listing all the things I do: cook, chauffeur, laundry service, blogger, nose-wiper, vitamin distributor, nurse, teacher, counselor, lullaby singer, and administrative assistant. But no, that would be pitiful.
By this point I officially hate my doctor.
I scribble the first thing that comes to mind, and then I groan internally that I can’t erase my answer.
Profession: Mom/ Homeschooler________________
Pass me an apron and a denim jumper, thank you very much. I should have gone with “homemaker”; it sounds more nuanced.
For days I walk around, a self-proclaimed “Mom/Homeschooler”, wondering why I feel like I am drowning in my own life. I am ashamed that I feel I am less than what is expected of me, but also ashamed that I am not able to be fulfilled by it and aching to understand it all myself.
Then in a conversation with a wise pastor, he unlocks the real problem I am facing:
“You’ve laid down your opportunities outside the home and have chosen to raise your children and homeschool them. In a culture where women are increasingly being held to the same standard of success as men, that is just hard.”
I can finally fully exhale for the first time in weeks.
I know of no man who was ever esteemed for leaving the marketplace and spending his life serving his children and his wife in the home. But I feel pressured to accept motherhood and wifely devotion as an honorable crown, even though so many people think of it as a copout.
In all honesty, I love what I do most days, but there is a gnawing sense that it isn’t enough. I look in the mirror and wonder if there couldn’t be more for me if I could just muster the courage to try.
As women have bravely broken through the glass ceiling of careers, we have all been ushered into a new era. And it’s just hard.
We have become Rachel and Leah, competing against one another, out-mothering each other, over-achieving at home and at work, climbing the ladder of success with mighty steps, seeking the approval of someone: a mentor, a husband, a parent, a boss, a child, or maybe even our own.
I am learning to accept that I don’t measure up to the standard that I feel western culture has assigned me.
I will never be the woman on the front of that magazine, perfectly groomed and toned, with a stellar resumé, an ideal husband, and angelically successful children.
I am just me. I am loved and accepted by God, His precious daughter, and a dead woman walking in Christ’s resurrected power.
I must choose to live outside the box of titles and professions. I have decided to wake up each day and do the tasks God has assigned to me. I will try to live honorably, with my whole heart, and for His glory.
Besides, as time passes and our culture shifts, I may find it increasingly difficult to fit into an acceptable box anyways. Frankly, I wonder what I will write on that medical form when the kids have all grown up and moved out if I don’t have an official profession.
Hopefully, by then I’ll be braver and old enough to do as I please, which means I know exactly what I will write:
Profession: Jesus Freak_____________________
Yes. That sums it all up perfectly.
