* Career Prospects * Skills required *
* Hours of work * Rates of Pay * Holidays * Benefits *
* Duties *
Motherhood is truly a job for life!
You may find, however, that when your children go to school in a few years (or, if you're homeschooling, when your children have grown up and left home in, oh, about 20 or 30 years!) that your hours and responsibilities have gradually lessened to the point where you then wish to take paid employment outside the home.
Many employers (not to mention the Government) are apparently oblivious to the fact that being a Mother (or Homemaker) is such an important, involved career, but as you will see from the remainder of this job description, the skills required & tasks undertaken as part of Motherhood could be applied to any number of jobs outside the home.
Skills & Qualities required by the Job
The following qualities are absolute essentials:-
* Love * Patience * Kindness * Gentleness * Long-suffering * Energy *
* Imagination * Sense of Humour * Social Skills *The following list are useful, but are often learnt 'on-the-job':-
* Managerial & Organisational Skills *
* Planning * Leadership * Diplomacy * Catering *Additional qualities useful for homeshooling:-
* Self-motivation * Creativity * Infallible Memory *
(And, of course, whilst it is not required for the mother to worry, most do! A healthy concern is probably a prerequisite for successful motherhood!)
* Active duty * On call * Breaks * Time Off *
* You will be required to be on 'active
duty' for all the waking hours of the children! This is
likely to vary from child to child, but can be expected to be an average
of 12 hours a day, say for example from 7am to 7pm! (However,
there is no guarantee that, where there is more than one child,
all the children will follow the same wake/sleeping pattern and
so, in practice, your day-time hours may be even longer than
this!).
* In addition, you will be 'on call' throughout the day and night to attend to wakeful children or any emergencies (bad dreams, bedwetting, etc).
* You may or may not find that occasional short breaks become available through the day as and when the child sleeps, although these breaks may vary from day to day and will become less often/ likely as the child gets older, and where there is more than one child, the likelihood of all the children sleeping at the same time diminishes considerably!
* Occasional evenings etc. may be taken as 'time off' where suitable safe, reliable alternative arrangements for care are available.
Motherhood isn't usually thought of as 'voluntary' work, but of course it is essentially a 'labour of love'. (The minimum wage doesn't apply here!)You will most likely receive no financial reward (and you will probably be challenged, criticised, underrated, undervalued and misunderstood by the rest of the world!).
You will, however, be entitled to the benefits outlined below:-
* Occasional Evenings * Job-share * Working Holidays *
* You will be required to work 365 days of the year,
i.e. including all weekends, bank holidays and national holidays!
* With the exception of occasional evenings etc. where suitable safe, reliable alternative arrangements for care are available, there are no days holiday from the job!
* However, there may be several days of working holiday throughout the year, for example: at weekends and on bank holidays and national holidays, the father is likely to be at home and may temporarily 'job-share' with you your workload or in some cases even temporarily relieve you of them!
* In addition you may find that, as and when the father has annual leave from his job outside the home, you will be invited to attend with the family on working holidays, for example: day-trips or even weeks away!
Although the following may not be regarded as entitlements in the strictest sense (since a failure to receive them does not constitute reason for resignation), you will most likely find that these benefits tend to just come along with the job:-
* The priviledge of sharing the children's most precious years and watching them grow.
* The satisfaction of seeing your children learn something and knowing that it is largely through your effort or influence.
* The priviledge of working from home, and being your 'own boss' (or, looked at another way, being a 'partner' in the family business!)
You will be required to provide for the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual needs of your children as detailed below:-
* Physical * Mental * Emotional * Spiritual *
* Feed * Clothe * Groom * Soothe * Nurse * Nurture *
* To cook and feed
nutritionally balanced, tasty meals to ensure that children are
adequately healthy. (This may involve breast-feeding!)
* To buy (or make!) well-fitting, comfortable clothes and to ensure that these are clean, smart & adequate for the weather/ occasion.
* To attend to the children's personal grooming (nappy-changing, dressing, washing & bathing, hair-brushing, tooth-brushing, nail-clipping, hair-cutting etc.) and to guide & teach them in these ways until such time as they are able to attend to them themselves.
* To soothe a crying baby, for example by means of rocking to sleep. It may also be necessary to carry a child too young to walk or an older child who is tired.
* To attend to the children as necessary when they fall ill - relieving their pain, making them comfortable, administering medicine, taking them to the doctor/ nurse/ chemist as required (and occasionally not taking the experts' advice but possibly getting a second opinion just to be sure!)
* To follow the required programme of child health care including (if appropriate) immunisations, weight-, height-, sight- & hearing-tests etc.) and keeping a monitor on these things yourself.
* Language * Social * Knowledge * Creativity *
* To teach your
children their mother-tongue (although you will most likely find
that your children will learn without any active intervention on
your part!).
* To furnish your children with an elementary understanding of personal & social etiquette by way of arranging suitable social interaction and so on.
* To furnish your children with an elementary understanding of the world, including geography, mathematics & so on.
* To encourage creativity. To this end, it may be necessary for you to provide constant "entertainment" for the children!
Later on you may feel that you wish to delegate the responsibilities of this area of motherhood entirely & indeed other areas on a day-time basis to "carers" (pre-school) or "educational experts" (school). Whilst this option is the norm, in law the final responsibility for education lies with the parents. It is, therefore, the continuing responsibility of the mother to provide for the children in this area, until such time as they - as mature students - are able to take over their own continuing life-long education.
(For more reasons to educate your children at home, take a look at our Homeschool pages)
* To love your
children unconditionally as long as you live!
* To provide security, comfort and support, in varying degrees, all the days of your life!
* To guide your children in their emotions and their developing self-control thereof until such time as they are emotionally 'mature'. This may involve a great deal of comforting, cuddling and, later, encouraging speeches, pep-talks and so on!
* Enable * Example * Encourage *
* To ensure
that your children are enabled to discover God
for themselves and to develop a meaningful spiritual life. This
may include developing good habits of, for example, prayer &
meditation, Bible study and praise.
* To be a good example. This is perhaps the most serious of your responsibilities a parent must take on, since the parent-child relationship is very much a teacher-disciple relationship: in other words, if you wish your child to accept the spiritual & moral values which you confess with your mouth, you must also live by them!
* To ensure that you do everything in your power to encourage your children to become responsible citizens with respect for people, property and nature.
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© Sharon Mortemore
02 July, 1999
