Doing Enough
April 20, 2020
I can’t seem to shake this feeling that I am not doing enough with my life. My dear friend dying a month ago has only intensified the feeling. She was 60 years young.
The thing is I’m actually doing more now — homeschooling my 6 year old and such. Honestly, most days, I feel grateful for the opportunity to home-school because I am not sure we would have tried otherwise. Granted, we are very fortunate and privileged that I am not employed and can dedicate my time and energy to the care of my family, especially now that there is more for me to hold emotionally, physically, mentally, and psychically being isolated from others outside my home.
Staying at home has been something I’ve been conflicted about. Not now in the corona era, but in general, I’ve questioned my decision to be a stay-at-home mom for the last six years — I don’t love that term — stay-at-home. It doesn’t really capture my work status. My work at home doesn’t count towards the GDP, and therefore is not valued by economists and, well, our society in general.
Are my conflicted feelings related to this idea of one’s value coming from productivity or what one produces for our capitalist society? My spouse and I would argue that I am a very productive person and contribute great value to our family and household, but also to society and the communities within which we live. Some days I think there aren’t enough stay-at-home parents doing the necessary work to weave the threads that bind us together. Schools need engaged parents who aren’t stretched thin to support the work they do as well as create school communities that are more inclusive and guided by community input. People, but particularly parents, need time to demand more from governments to ensure living wages, universal healthcare, environmentally-friendly policies, just to name a few. I don’t blame people and their choices. Those choices are bound by the systems and structures of our society. It’s not that parents want to work more, it’s that they need to care for their families. But what would it look like if there were more of this kind of engagement and connection? How would our societies change if there were more time and opportunity for people but particularly parents to engage outside of the capitalist system?
One of my favorite songs in Hamilton is Satisfied because of how much it speaks to my own longings. Have I ever been satisfied?
Last week, after a meditation session, I wondered, what if this is it? What if this is my contribution, my purpose, my calling? By “it” I mean raising my kid, taking care of my family and never again formally entering the workforce. Could I find meaning and purpose in that? And for a split second, I felt “YES!” There is value in this work, in the labor of raising a family and taking care of my loved ones. Why can’t I feel this all the time?
Then the voices come back to me — people I knew when I was younger who were shocked when they learned I wasn’t working outside the home.
“But you had so much potential.”
“You know Ana, when you were young, I thought you were going to be somebody.”
“When are you going back to work?”
But I’ve never stopped working.
What if I decided that I was doing enough? What if I felt satisfied with my life as it is right now? How would that feel? How might my perspective change, or not? How might I live differently today or tomorrow? Would my day-to-day choices change or be the same? Who would I become if I believed and felt like I am doing enough? Mind you, I believe I am enough, but what if I let go of this nagging feeling that I need to do more to serve others outside my home? How would my world, my being, my life change if I simply decided to feel satisfied?
