What am I doing?
Today's blog-every-day-in May challenge is, "If you couldn't answer with your job, how would you answer the question, 'what do you do'?"
That's easy for me... I don't have a job! I have been out of the workplace for 2 years, 6 months, 17 days. So what do I do? On the immigration cards you have to fill out upon entering a new country, there is always a blank for "occupation". I fill in "housewife". Trés 1950s, I know.
Surprisingly, I don't have a problem with that title. Maybe it's because I spent 15 years in the corporate world, several of those years with three children under the age of five. I've earned my stripes. And if I have enough free time now to meet friends for lunch or write a blog or stare at Facebook for hours, then I have earned that right.
I also know that I am extremely fortunate to be a full-time wife and mother. I count it as a blessing. Every day, I see women on the streets of Lagos hawking trays of food perched on their heads, with a baby wrapped tightly to their backs. They spend all day in the heat, dust and fumes from cars and the diesel generators that roar to life all over the city each time the national power supplies fail (which is often). I see these working mothers resting alongside the road, playing with their babies who are just sitting up, just toddling or still completely helpless. And I thank God that I am not one of them. That is a hard life.
I won't always be a housewife. But right here and right now, it is what I do, and I do it well. I keep a secure and happy home for my husband and children. I manage the household staff, pick up the children from school, help them with their homework, get them bathed, fed and ready for bed. In the mornings, I sit with them while they eat breakfast, and we talk about what is on their minds. I arrange play dates, plan birthday parties and help with school projects.
In my spare time, I layout the American Women's Club newsletter, serve as vice chairlady and entertainment coordinator for Small World (the largest expat fundraising event in Lagos), and wouldn't you know it, I've just started blogging again as well.
In other words, I am a housewife.
That's easy for me... I don't have a job! I have been out of the workplace for 2 years, 6 months, 17 days. So what do I do? On the immigration cards you have to fill out upon entering a new country, there is always a blank for "occupation". I fill in "housewife". Trés 1950s, I know.
Surprisingly, I don't have a problem with that title. Maybe it's because I spent 15 years in the corporate world, several of those years with three children under the age of five. I've earned my stripes. And if I have enough free time now to meet friends for lunch or write a blog or stare at Facebook for hours, then I have earned that right.
I also know that I am extremely fortunate to be a full-time wife and mother. I count it as a blessing. Every day, I see women on the streets of Lagos hawking trays of food perched on their heads, with a baby wrapped tightly to their backs. They spend all day in the heat, dust and fumes from cars and the diesel generators that roar to life all over the city each time the national power supplies fail (which is often). I see these working mothers resting alongside the road, playing with their babies who are just sitting up, just toddling or still completely helpless. And I thank God that I am not one of them. That is a hard life.
I won't always be a housewife. But right here and right now, it is what I do, and I do it well. I keep a secure and happy home for my husband and children. I manage the household staff, pick up the children from school, help them with their homework, get them bathed, fed and ready for bed. In the mornings, I sit with them while they eat breakfast, and we talk about what is on their minds. I arrange play dates, plan birthday parties and help with school projects.
In my spare time, I layout the American Women's Club newsletter, serve as vice chairlady and entertainment coordinator for Small World (the largest expat fundraising event in Lagos), and wouldn't you know it, I've just started blogging again as well.
In other words, I am a housewife.
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