I Don't Want to Be Famous Anymore

I’m a wife to a great man and mother to four beautiful children, I am Athena. It seems at times this is all I am; a wife and a mother. I get up I make coffee, I change a baby’s diaper, I teach school, I get a shower on days that I am lucky and I move from my day to day life in what seems like a mundane way, at times. I have actually had someone not recognize me without all my kids. The comment made to me was “You look so much younger without your kids.”

Who says that?

It’s easy when your in your early 30’s to sing the song of “Is This all There Is?” I know, thirty is the new twenty and all that jazz but, I believe that 30 is just that, 30. I did everything the traditional way. I married young and had kids young. However, I do believe it is the age of self discovery and becoming comfortable in ones own skin. I remember walking through a book store one day with the aroma of coffee in the air and a vanilla tea in my hand when I realized “I no longer care about being famous.” I only cared about being known to myself. For me becoming more comfortable in my skin was knowing that I had value because of who I was in Christ as a christian, no longer needing the accolades of men. For a homeschool mom of four this was crucial moment of growth.

My husband and I married young, we were impulsive and no one stood in our way, so we married. Getting married young for two impulsive kids was a good thing. It protected us from ourselves and further bad decisions. Not that getting married was a bad thing it is just challenging at 18 and 19. We both started to go to church regularly in Stillwater, where my husband went to school. We fell in with a group of young marrieds many, of whom we continue to be friends with to this day.

During this time we were taken under different peoples wing. We were invested in as adults and not children. One couple named the Spillmans loved us. Eileen was the wife and she would share little honest bits of truths with me about life. They at the time had six kids. What I really enjoyed about her is she never tried to put a perfect face on raising a large family. It just was what is was: hard, but worth it. We were learning to be adults with others our age and guided by those further down the road. A few of the couples we had come to love were homeschoolers. The seeds of interest were being planted before we even had our own children. We watched from a distance.

Parenthood did come though, one week before graduation. I thought to myself “What am I going to do now.” It hadn’t been that long since I’d graduated highschool but, I felt I was slowly loosing my own identity. I wasn’t that cute little cheerleader from Bethany High School anymore. Then 13 months later I had our second child.

My mom’s comment to me was “Oh, Athena!”

Nobody was appreciating me for being pretty, or saying really witty things. Baby’s cannot talk and they do not care about pretty. I was officially an adult and was up to my elbows in poopy diapers and babies.

Before too long we had to decide what we would do for school with our own little brood. Homeschooling was the choice we had felt lead to. I had become excited in the process, picking out books, going to the homeschool fairs were encouragement abounds, and buying all the other supplies. I was excited until, I actually started school and realized, this is hard. Especially with an ADHD child I had no idea what to do with.

The next year I ran to the closest private school and gladly enrolled the two school age children.
This was a perfect plan, until they too had no idea what to do with her either. Once again the self pity fell like rain. What was I going to do? I hated homeschool. I pulled up my bootstraps and we all got to work and gradually we all started to enjoy it and find our way. The Lord made it all work out for both mine and my child’s good.

I prayed and I parented and somewhere along the way I learned who I was. I no longer need to hear how great I am from others. I still think I’m a little charming at times, and I appreciate that about myself. I can be a very good friend to other women and to my husband. Most importantly I know that family and parenthood is something I chose not something that just happened to me. I have been molded by my Lord I serve and the road he put me on. I love the idea that 30 years from now I will look around my dinner table at Thanksgiving and when we hold hands to pray, the circle will be wide, because like my friend Eileen Spillman I will know it was hard but, worth it.