Joyfully At Home: Chapter Seven - Part Two

Before I had my son, I worried about balancing the needs of an infant or a toddler when I was ill. Specifically, I worried about trying to manage when I was sick and a small mobile child was well.  That sounded like my version of hell because trying to keep up with a little one while I was nauseated sounded terrible.

Well, so far, I've been pretty lucky.   My son is an active kid, but he's fairly easy to keep occupied.  He likes playing with toys for longer periods of time than a lot of kids his age so pulling out a set of toys that he hasn't played with in a while makes him very happy.    Plus, I have a solid immune system from years of teaching so I often miss a bug that makes him sick.

What I didn't expect is how easygoing my son is about letting me take downtime when I need it.  Yeah, he still yodels through a nap sometimes - but never when I'm sick.  He seems to pick up on when I feel sick and is more than willing to watch some extra TV while chilling with me.

I have the good fortune to live within easy driving distance of both sets of grandparents - and they've all come to take care of my son on the rare occasions when I was sick enough that I needed a few hours of sleep and my husband was available.   I've also provided coverage for other moms who don't have family nearby when they are sick.

The option I never considered was letting my teenage daughter care for a plague-stricken house when I've adopted four kids under the age of six:

This was illustrated for me several months ago, when my entire family caught a nasty flu virus --and when I say my entire family, I mean everyone except for baby Micah and me. While I do help out a lot at home, the full responsibility of taking care of my family rarely rest squarely on my shoulders. Although things can sometimes get hectic, with four adults and four younger children in the house, teamwork keeps us sane.

I didn't realize how much this arrangement spoiled me until everyone was down. Talk about a reality check! The Lord gave me a foretaste of what motherhood truly means ( although I hope that the days I have to take care of six sick folks - 4 of them five and under - are scarce). I can imagine that Johnny [....] wouldn't look so charming doubled over and in green in the gills. Diarrhea, vomiting, dizziness, runny noses, and coughing where the symptoms. When I didn't get sick, I stopped to think of what the Lord might be teaching me: 1) I need to add a really strong immune system to my resume; and 2) although it was my joy to take care of my family, and I praise God that I wasn't ill, I loved the reminder that running a home is not always easy and romantic. When my dad was well enough to join forces with me, I was ecstatic. (pg. 86)

I seriously hope that Jasmine is stretching this story for the sake of her running point that marriage can deeply suck - that's the theme of Jasmine Baucham's "Joyfully at Home" Chapter 7, right? - because I'd have to be hospitalized before I'd let my kid completely take over running the house while I had three sick toddlers. 

Having said that, I doubt she's exaggerating.  A page earlier, she talked about trying to keep up with four young siblings, her normal chores and errands while her parents were away for a romantic weekend. 

Jasmine and Trey were 14 and 11 when their parents decided to expand their family by adoption.   Having Jasmine and Trey three years apart likely minimized the craziness of their youngest years.  Since there were only two of them, her parents would be able to play man-to-man defense when managing the kids rather than the zone defense required for three or more kids.   By the time Jasmine is 19 and Trey is 16, their parents have adopted four little boys in five years.   Faced with more small children that the couple had ever had before, they pressed their older kids into caring for the younger kids.   I don't think that having siblings care for younger siblings is a bad thing - but there's a difference between a 19 year old occasionally babysitting her siblings for an evening and caring for multiple sick people for days at a time.

I'm still hung up on this - but my bar for "well enough to care for my kids" is "not hospitalized; not dead".  I'm not saying that her parents needed to be doing parenting miracles - just making sure their children were fed, supervised, and had basic hygiene needs taken care of.   Now, Jasmine's mom currently has a diagnosis of lupus.  That's a disease that can make routine illnesses more severe and longer to recover from - but what is her dad's excuse?    Women and men having been dragging their sick bodies after their kids for millenia; he can do it too.

The worst part for me is that Jasmine logically expected some level of return on investment when she became a mother.  Yup, teenage Jasmine was racking up the hours caring for her four younger brothers (or five...six...seven younger siblings) - but that would mean that her mom and dad would have young kids at home when Jasmine started her family and that should make having her parents help out with her little ones easier.    I mean, as weirdly dysfunctional as the Duggar family is, at least the sisters have a mother, sisters and sisters-in-law nearby who can watch their kids for an evening or an afternoon so the mom can get something done without littles under feet.

It was a reasonable expectation - but Voddie and Bridget Baucham moved to Zambia not long after Jasmine married.   That had the rough combination of separating her from her younger siblings who she helped raise while massively reducing the amount of help either of her parents could give her when her two sons were born.  Becoming the dean at African Christian University was a huge career step for Voddie Baucham - and he's the only one of the CP/QF leaders who has the academic background to lead a post-secondary institution - but the price of that career step came at the cost of being around to support his oldest daughter when she became a mother.

In the last post for this chapter, Jasmine teaches young women to substitute one unrealistic set of expectations for their husbands for a different set of unrealistic expectations.