Turning Points

Sometimes when you look back over your life and the decisions you've made, you can see turning points. Before that time, you were heading in one direction and then you clearly made changes to go in a new direction. Unexpected things can happen along the way, once you make that change.

When I look back, I see two clear turning points that coincided to compel us to make changes to our lives. Before them, Siegfried worked and I stayed home and took care of the children. We lived frugally but never could get ahead at all. We believed in being open to children and had six of them. We homeschooled. We lived in the country. These parameters defined the limits of our lives.

Rumbles of a change started in 2005 with the birth of the twins. Suddenly I couldn't take care of the children all by myself and my husband needed to get more involved. In 2006 I started my first Books and Brownies blog and began reclaiming myself and my interests. We weathered two bouts of unemployment. I read the book Hirkani's Daughters: Women Who Scale Modern Mountains To Combine Working and Breastfeeding by Jennifer Hicks (even though I wasn't working and wasn't planning to) and realized that, contrary to what I had thought, it was possible to be the kind of mom I wanted to be and still have a career.

All of that led up to the third bout of unemployment in early 2007, when Siegfried and I thought (we're slow on the uptake sometimes), "Maybe this whole one income thing isn't really working out. Maybe having two jobs might be a good thing." And I decided to put together a resume and start looking. I subbed a little and got two part-time jobs pretty easily, and I began to dream. So that was one turning point.

I don't remember exactly when the other turning point occurred. I'm pretty sure that I was talking to my friend who also has seven children around that same time, and I said simply, "I didn't have all these children just so they could live in poverty in the middle of nowhere." And as I look back now, that statement has guided our decisions. It definitely was a turning point, as I began to ask myself how we had ended up in that situation, and how we could get out of it.

And now we have. After seven years of hard work, we're on the verge of moving out of the countryside and into a town with plenty of opportunities. We gave up homeschooling as a lifestyle and realized that school can be great too. We both work and we both take care of the children, and it's improved our marriage. I am more understanding of him; he is more understanding of me. We have a little more money, and hopefully that will improve more once I get my PhD.

The unexpected thing, to me, was that I enjoy working. I am much happier having a career in addition to being a wife and mother. To my surprise, the children have greater opportunities with me working than if I had continued to stay home and devote myself to their education!

Congratulations to us! I don't know where we would be if we hadn't turned when the road called for it. I don't want to know, actually. I'll just continue on my merry way.