The other day, I was at a football game had to leave early
to come home for 90 minutes of late night calls with Asia. As I was leaving, a mom said, “I don’t know
how you do it!” I thought about that for
a while and I thought about the generation before us.
My Mom had 7 kids, drove the school bus in the morning and
afternoon. She also cleaned houses for
people during the day and if not that, then was at home trying to take care of
her own home and family. She was up
every day before dawn, if we were home for a meal, it was always homemade. She had two gardens from which she canned
vegetables for our large family to enjoy in the winter. Saturdays were a steady rotation of fresh
bread and buns to last the week ahead of us.
My Dad, also had 7 kids…see how that works, worked from 6am
to 6pm Monday-Saturday at the gas station in town. He was the guy everyone in town knew because
of his smile and his willingness to help.
When he got home, he cared for cows, pigs and chickens that we also used
to fill the freezer and our bellies. He
took care of the yard, the driveway with snow and ensured that everyone
respected their mother!
My Mother-in-Law had 5 kids and married a dairy farmer. She was also a nurse at the local retirement
home. When her schedule allowed, she got
up and helped with morning milking, went off to work, to come home and take
care of her family and help as she could on the farm. It was a good day if she was home in time for
evening chores because some of the kids would surely be missing for sports or
something at school. She was the
disciplinarian of the family and the kids knew when Mom was mad, Mom was
mad!
My Father-in-Law, you guessed it, 5 kids and a dairy farmer,
was up before sanely possible to start to gather the herd into the barn for
milking. And when I say start, I mean
start. It was a physically demanding job
that he gladly did, every morning and every night. In the day, he wasn’t in the house sleeping,
someone had to manage the ongoing care of the herd in their feeding, watering
and seeing that they were healthy. He
also had to attend meetings with the dairy councils and farming community to
ensure he was getting a fair price for the product he was producing.
Going back to the comment from a fellow mom, I think, “Wait,
I came home to an office where I sat, talking on a phone for 90 minutes with
people all over the world. It wasn’t
physically exhausting. Earlier that day,
I went to the store and bought meat, cheese, bread and groceries for my family…I
didn’t have to physically produce, tend or care for any of those items.” I wonder how THEY did it?!
This weekend is Grandparent’s Day and while none of my
children’s grandfathers are alive, I will make sure they know that their grandfathers
AND grandmothers have a secret…they are superheroes and should be treated like
it! They had no choice but to keep going
and so should we!
