Phillip Jensen on Mothering

I've been considering the thoughts of this wise man on mothering - particularly mothering and outside of the house employment.

Here's what he says.

There are 3 different types of work: the career, the job and the calling.

The career - My work is me. I'm going to advance in life through my different employment. Engineer to management to senior management to CEO.

The job - I do the work I'm doing because it puts food on the table and pays the mortgage. I just do a job. Come knock off time, I'm out of here!

The calling - I'm doing the job I'm doing because I love the job I'm doing. Advancement or money isn't the issue. I've already arrived. eg. artist.

Women can be:

1. Career women without children. These women have decided not to have kids for the sake of their careers. Children would be an interruption or distraction. [I would add, some women become career women because they are single or unable to have kids.]

2. Mothers with a career. Kids fit in around the edges of the career. PDJ points out that kids usually realise when this is the case and know they are not mum's #1 priority.

3. Mothers with a job. Mothering is the main thing, but she is required to work to bring in money to support the family.

4. Mothers by calling. The woman is looking after her family fulltime because that's what she wants to be doing. She finds joy and fulfillment (and frustration) in it and wouldn't have it any other way.

I think this is a helpful way of looking at women and work. Understanding mothering as a calling gets rid of stupid ideas that by staying at home looking after your family you are ruining your career, stifling your potential etc etc. What you've done is traded your career in for something better.

Here are my largely unformed thoughts, written down particularly badly.

I don't feel like his description of a 'calling' mum.
I feel looking after my kids is a calling, but not particularly the whole house thing. I wouldn't swap my job of mothering for anything. I want to be the one agonizing over homework and managing the kids' busy lives (even though I'm a scatterbrain and not that great at it.) But when the kids are at school and Andrew's working, my desire to be at home is approximately none. I'll get the washing on (if it desperately needs doing), sweep the floor and wash the dishes (these are essential - I don't leave them undone!), but then I'm out of there. I have no desire to rearrange the cupboards or put more pictures on the wall. I don't bake often. I'll go off to work, off to bible study, or off to a coffee shop to read and write and think.

Can I be a 'calling' mum if I also feel 'called' to other things?
Because home isn't enough for me. I want more on my plate. My kids understand that - it's who I am. I'm living the dream of being a mum (I've always wanted that) but I'm also living other dreams. I go to the gym. I do quite a lot of church stuff. I go to meetings. I go to Sydney for conferences. I work and I like it. [There's no advancement in supply teaching, it's a job in that way... but not unpleasant (actually, sometimes it is.) I think I have a great life. Almost everything I do feels like 'calling' work. Apart from housework. That's drudgery. Well, it would be if I did it.]

Just thinking the categories might not be so simple... Though I don't think that PDJ was imagining them as rigid.

Is it possible to be in category 3, a mum with a job, if that job is one you genuinely enjoy and are doing it, not only for the money, but also for the satisfaction you find in it? And what of the unpaid work - church stuff, blogging(!), hobbies? For me these are more potent distractions than a bit of paid work.

Motherhood and sacrifice
Trying to work out what's not sitting quite right with PDJ's (very good) talk. I think it might be that there's no mention of sacrifice for our kids. (Though I've heard him speak of this elsewhere.) If I'm naturally a career woman and not a 'calling' mum, I can sacrifice my career for the good of my kids. I can (and should) put my natural preferences to one side for a time (like a decade or two) to love and raise my kids as God would have me do that.

Some concluding self-talk

I'm a mum. My kids are my first priority. I will love and care for them. Work (including unpaid work) is another priority and I do it and I love doing it. I have to fiddle with my hours to fit everything in with the family, and this decade and maybe next decade it's likely that I won't work all that much. Overall, I know that this is the right decision but sometimes I feel discontent. I wish there were more hours in the day to do all the things I'd like to do, but I understand that there are not and I need to make choices. At the end of my life I will not regret time spent with my family, but will regret it if I've neglected them. In my choices I should err on the side of too little work rather than too much.