Is this all??

This is something that has been on my mind a lot lately and just putting it out there will, I hope make me feel better.

Sometimes I wonder if I am missing God's plan for me, where as sometimes I feel like I have made a lot of mistakes and finally gotten on track. What I mean by that is: up until a year ago, I had a great career, ok well not great but it paid well and it was intellectually challenging, frustrating but challenging. I hated leaving the children in day-care but I felt like I was using my abilities for good. A year ago, I quit. My son was sick and we decided that it would better for us (all of us) if I stayed home. My husband's career is very demanding time-wise and not family time friendly, we were constantly arguing whose turn it was to pick up the kids or take them to day-care, or take time off for a sick day. We also debated how hard it was for him to be on-time to pick up the kids, even when it was his 'turn'. He picked up a side-job that demanded more of his time, so I took care of the kids and house 2 mornings out of 3 and then one night on my own. Which is tiring. The worst was the time that he was home we had to spend dealing with house stuff, laundry, cleaning, shopping etc. there were not enough hours, and we both thought that it would be best if one of us was home with the children for more than 45 minutes a day.

I mistakenly thought that staying at home would be easier than going to work, and in some ways it is an was. If I over sleep the worst that happens is breakfast is late, oh well. The downside is I never leave my job. My job follows me to the bathroom and applauds the fact that I pee'd in the potty. Cute at first but it gets old.

There are a lot of times I am jealous that my husband gets to leave and take a break from the "mama's" that I get 24 hours a day. He gets to talk with people in complete sentences and even occasionally use words of greater than 2 syllables. My conversation consists mostly of "leave your brother alone" or "all done kitty"....it can be brain numbing.

As I sit and empty the dishwasher daily I wonder if this is what God wants for me; if this is what I want for myself. I am intelligent and college educated, and for heaven sakes I figured out how to change a tire!, and I do laundry, wash dishes, and change diapers all day. What am I missing.

It could be argued that by raising my children I am definalty contributing to society. I can educate them in world politics, human rights, and other things that I consider important but overlooked by the majority of people. I can raise my children to have a social and global consciousness that allows them to be citizens of the world and not just of a city or town. That has great value. However, when changing my 5th poopy diaper of the day maintainging that perspective is challenging.

Part of me is concerned because I am not provideing a feminist environment for my daughter to grow up in. She told me she did not want to be a mommy when she grew up because she did not want to clean all of the time. That made me sad. Is that all I do? Is that the example I am setting for a woman's worth? That to be a mommy is to clean?

To be a woman is to be constantly struggling, constantly fighting. Double standards, work needs, family needs, childrens needs, somewhere in there my needs, but where? How do I demonstrate the balence? How do I learn the balence without dropping someone somewhere?