Essay

I wondered if I was cut out for motherhood, a role that seemed to demand so much that was foreign to me.

Appreciation. Everybody craves it but often we treat it as a scarce commodity, hoarding it to ourselves. It doesn’t take the mother at home long to realize how much our culture undervalues her contribution to society.

Raising children is not an evasion of the realities of the adult world; neither is it an indulgent exercise in ego gratification. But it can be a sure avenue for personal growth and development, a spiritual discipline of a unique kind.

My mother was a good mother, but she didn’t really believe in keeping house. She had grown up in a family of New York bohemians who believed that a clean house was the sign of a wasted mind. Keeping house was viewed as an exercise in futility which, ultimately, it is.

When I was a child, I didn’t know anyone who wanted to be a maid when she grew up.

... I don’t want to be a maid now any more than I wanted to be one when I was young. And I’m beginning to learn that I don’t have to be one. With a change in perspective, I can be a manager instead.

In the not-so-distant past, even mothers who were unable to hire help or did not have family living nearby were usually able to take a cheap, easy break called "Go outside and play."

A mother reflects on 'cloudy day' moods.