Day 308: Growing up/Maturity

Today was a horribly overwhelming day. I got bombarded at work; everywhere I turned something else  needed to be done or will need doing in the next 72 or so hours. I didn't pee until 7:30 tonight after work because I was that busy today. About five minutes before I left work, a "friend" I met awhile ago at church wrote a terribly insensitive comment about my working moms blog on Facebook, and then unfriended me before I could respond. What hurt even more was that I considered this person someone I was friends with. I don't go anywhere with anybody, but she is a fellow army wife and mother. I thought she was at least someone who could commiserate when I was having a rough day. If nothing else, because I met her at church and she calls herself a Christian, I was absolutely harpooned by her actions. Her comment was meant to attack me and my "whining." Well, excuse me for using the blog to vent, my husband is gone and this is a healthier way to express the emotions I am feeling than lashing out at people in anger or drinking.

So apparently I am whining a lot. Being a working mom is hard! Being a working, single mom is beyond anything I ever expected. I know women do it every day and would make my whining look ridiculous by comparison with their lives, but that doesn't mean this isn't tough for me. I would rather be able to stay home. I didn't come to this decision lightly. My husband and I didn't come to this decision lightly. If I stayed home this year, we would be able to scrape by while Chad is deployed, but next year wouldn't be able to make it.  We literally would not be able to make our rent, utilities, insurance, food and car payments. Because I am working right now, we are trying to get at least the car payments gone and plan for our future.

Even so, we may still not be able to make it on one salary. If we cut out all the "luxuries" and nothing breaks or goes wrong, we might still not have the money. Not only would it be only one salary, but some of that goes to help support his older children. They are expensive to care for between clothes, activities, food, and now that they are in puberty - water usage! We get it. We don't begrudge the child support but it does take a large chunk from what another family might have coming in each month.

Having made this decision consciously doesn't mean it doesn't hurt or isn't hard. I deliberately chose to marry a soldier, knowing what that meant. Does that mean I don't cry sometimes, does that mean he doesn't? Of course we both do! Knowing something is hard doesn't mean it isn't the right thing to do. Staying at home is awesome and is such a wonderful commitment, but it is something that has to be right for you and your family. I already have explained in an earlier blog this week why I am working and how I feel about people who make such blanket judgments about others.

This entry is really about growing up. This kind of nonsense would be laughable if the people perpetrating it were in high school. It is doubly ridiculous as adults. If you are someone's friend, be a friend. If you have something negative to say about someone, say it to them. At the very least, as a Christian, we are called to address each other in certain ways. Her actions today were mean and unChristian and immature. I was very hurt. I try to brush things off and say it doesn't matter, but this really hurt. I sat at my desk and cried. Why as adults would anyone treat a friend this way? How did she think her comment made her look. Even to people who agree staying home is best, the way she said what she did was angry, bitter - not trying to see from someone else's perspective.

If she was really so offended by my working or my complaining about working, why wouldn't she offer to help or at least ask me if I needed some help to figure out things so I can stay home soon? Or better yet, not say anything if she couldn't be nice. This is someone I have prayed for. At least Facebook talk a few times a week to/with. When she wanted to have another child, she lambasted people for criticizing her family's decision to try to have a third child. Regardless of my feelings, of which I had no opinion other than being jealous she has that option, I prayed for her and her family and congratulated her when she found out that she was expecting. Her family isn't mine, I don't know the intimate details of her decision making. I prayed that God's will for her family would be clear and that if a baby was His plan for them, that it happen. I prayed for her wait easily for God's answer because waiting to get pregnant can be SO challenging.

I guess I thought adults were supposed to comport themselves with maturity. I guess I thought Christians should approach people with love and understanding and compassion (really, regardless of faith - still the way we as people should strive to be). I don't have to make your decisions for my family for them to be ok. The bible says that certain things are required to do and not to do, but outside of those things are options that we as Christians are supposed to be tolerant of.

FB, I challenge you (I will also be more self-vigilant) to think about whether you could say it to that person's face or if you would want your mom, Jesus, boss, child, to see you saying that.

Growing old is mandatory, unfortunately growing up takes effort. If you're reading this person who made the alluded to comment, hit me up on Facebook, and make a lunch date with me. We can sit and talk like friends and see if we can't find a way to look from someone else's perspective for awhile. And just for the record, I totally admire you for making the sacrifice and staying home. Just don't judge me because I can't do the same right now and wish I could everyday.