The Domestic Monastery

I’m stealing an idea from another blog that I occassionally read and linking to this article because I don’t want to forget it and don’t want to lose it. The author compares motherhood to a religious vocation in which the members are called to prayer by the ringing of a bell. They stop what they are doing and pray. The mother’s bells are the children constantly interrupting. I loved this and honestly, it was the first time I began to think of staying home with the kids as a VOCATION. I always felt privileged to be able to be home but until I read this article, I had never considered it a vocation.

Nobody would ask a priest or sister the kinds of questions I’ve been asked. “So…what do you do for yourself?”( I get to stay home all day with the people I love most and I don’t have to dress up to be with people I don’t love). “Don’t you miss being in the real world?”(Last time I looked, the kids were real) “Doesn’t it get mundane?”(Doesn’t your job get mundane-EVER?) “Do you ever just want to talk to an adult?”(I talk to adults every day). “Don’t you miss the stimulating conversations?” (I don’t remember discussing quantum physics at work, mostly we laughed about Seinfeld episodes).

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