Today my wife will wake up at 6.50am, cuddle our son for about five minutes and then motivate him to get dressed and get his morning jobs done. It may not be easy. She will then get dressed herself, and then facilitate breakfast. They will have a meaningful chat at the table. There will also be frequent reminders to hurry up. Having had breakfast, there will be the completion of the morning routine, hair and teeth, then piano practice. While this is happening, there will be clothes folded and put away, and possibly a floor or two swept. There will be a prompt departure at the designated time for the slow peak-hour (but only 10-minute) car ride to school. There may be jockeying for a parking spot involved, then it’s into school itself and possibly a quick chat with the teacher (aren’t teachers wonderful people?).
Then for my wife it’s off to her own workplace—a thirty-minute drive in peak hour—and she will work a five-hour day and then return to school to pick our son up. On arriving home it’ll be a few rushed chores before my wife and son set off for his piano lesson. There’s the drive and back involved, and then it will probably be dinner preparations, unless I cook, then we will clean up, do the showering, homework, and bedtime routine. If I get stuck at my computer, and this does happen, my wife will not complain (she just gets on with it), but I do know that in doing that I’m not being a good neighbor. Once son is in bed, my wife will then do some of the family business, the banking, organizing for tomorrow, etc.
This is a normal routine for most if not all mothers. Fathers, too. I just want to note that these ‘normal’ things involve hundreds of decisions of faithfulness each and every day.
You are doing good, as Mister Rogers would say, “just the way you are.”
What each and every one of us do each day in caring for our loved ones makes for a beautiful day in our neighbourhoods.
Photo by George Hiles on Unsplash
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