Here's to Us

Its been a pretty rough past couple of weeks.  Its been really hard to go back to school and leave my baby behind with someone else (even though its my sister or my mom).  However, I love my job.  I love my job so much!  I have such a passion for working with kids and especially teaching.  It has been so fun teaching about the world wars and about the moon and space and why we have seasons.   I have loved teaching math especially and watching them excel.  I just love it and I'm really good at it.  My math test scores last year were the 5th highest in the whole district for fourth grade.  I love having dance parties with them and playing capture the flag.  I love them.  It feels so nice to have worked so hard towards getting somewhere and then actually being there and loving it.  I've worked for this my whole life and now I'm here and now.... I have to give it up???


Its been a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.  The past couple weeks I have been going back and forth in my mind about whether or not I was going to teach next year.  I even told my principal that I was going to come back.  Its just so hard to give up something you love and are good at and have worked SO hard to achieve.  I feel like its not fair, especially when husband doesn't love his job but I DO and I'm the one that has to give it up.  How is that fair??  Its not.


Its not like I am not happy to stay home with my son.  I am.  I feel so blessed that we are in a situation that allows me to stay home with my son.  That is the reason I have decided to stop teaching and just be a mom.  I'm sure I will love everyday and forget all about teaching and school.  I know I will.  I would do anything for this little guy and I LOVE spending time with him more than anything else in the world.  AND I LOVE BEING A MOM.  It is honestly the best thing that has ever happened to me.  I truly am so excited to stay home and be mom but its hard to leave this chapter of my life.   



This experience has given me a greater respect for mothers.  Especially stay-at-home mothers.  I realize how hard it is to give up your previous life to take care of a precious baby and I am so grateful for it.  I am so grateful for an amazing mother who gave up so much to stay at home and raise us.  I owe everything to my mom.  Not only did she give up her life to raise me, she is now giving up her life to take care of Owen while I'm a work.  She truly is a remarkable person.  You all are.  Mothers are so selfless, giving, organized, clean, hardworking, amazing women.  You have to be.


One of my co-workers told me to read this talk while I was trying to make a decision.  It made me cry and was so fabulous.  It made me SO extremely grateful to be a mom and feel so blessed to have such an amazing son and hardworking husband who loves and supports me.  Here are some highlights.


"No more sacred word exists in secular or holy writ than that of mother."

President David O. McKay declared: "Motherhood is the greatest potential influence either for good or ill in human life. The mother's image is the first that stamps itself on the unwritten page of the young child's mind. It is her caress that first awakens a sense of security, her kiss, the first realization of affection; her sympathy and tenderness, the first assurance that there is love in the world." (Gospel Ideals, p. 452.) 

President McKay continues: "Motherhood consists of three principal attributes or qualities: namely, (1) the power to bear, (2) the ability to rear, (3) the gift to love. . . This ability and willingness properly to rear children, the gift to love, and eagerness, yes, longing to express it in soul development, make motherhood the noblest office or calling in the world. She who can paint a masterpiece or write a book that will influence millions deserves the admiration and the plaudits of mankind; but she who rears successfully a family of healthy, beautiful sons and daughters, whose influence will be felt through generations to come, . . . deserves the highest honor that man can give, and the choicest blessings of God." (Gospel Ideals, pp. 453-54.)

"In the eternal family, God established that fathers are to preside in the home. Fathers are to provide, to love, to teach, and to direct. But a mother's role is also God-ordained. Mothers are to conceive, to nourish, to love, and to train."

"The deepest joys and blessings in life are associated with family, parenthood, and sacrifice. To have those sweet spirits come into the home is worth practically any sacrifice."

Finally President Kimball counsels: "I beg of you, you who could and should be bearing and rearing a family: Wives, come home from the typewriter, the laundry, the nursing, come home from the factory, the cafe. No career approaches in importance that of wife, homemaker, mother--cooking meals, washing dishes, making beds for one's precious husband and children. Come home, wives, to your husbands. Make home a heaven for them. Come home, wives, to your children, born and unborn. Wrap the motherly cloak about you and, unembarrassed, help in a major role to create the bodies for the immortal souls who anxiously await."

"Mothers in Zion, your God-given roles are so vital to your own exaltation and to the salvation and exaltation of your family. A child needs a mother more than all the things money can buy. Spending time with your children is the greatest gift of all."

Thank you mothers.  

Happy Mother's Day.  Here's to us!