A Day in the Life of a Stay-at-Home Daughter

At 21 years old, I frequently battled feelings of futility. As hard as I tried to believe otherwise, my life felt meaningless, wasted, directionless and unmoored.

To cheer myself up one day in early spring, I recorded the following on a note card:

For Your Encouragement!

On Monday morning, you:

• made breakfast

• made your bed

• baked whole wheat bread

• planted seeds (and put away the stuff!)

• let Hope & Faith* watch the seed-planting

• washed the dishes, including the dough mixer

• checked the younger kids' math and reading books

• answered a Sentence Analysis (advanced English grammar) question

• cleaned the kitchen sink

• practiced a vocal solo

• spent an hour at the piano

• practiced Bach and Hanon Studies and a hymn solo and did Lesson 17 and prepared for Charity's* lesson

• refilled the yeast jars

• changed Faith's diaper

• tutored Zedekiah* in English composition and appreciation of his paternity

• removed a spot from a blouse

• returned a book to the bookshelf

• helped put lunch on the table

After lunch, you:

• washed the dishes

• let Faith rinse and remembered to run the dishwasher

• found the lost sweatpants

• went for a walk

• changed Faith again

• chased 5 chickens back in

• reported to "work" [for my parents]

• gathered the back yoke of a nightgown

• sewed a sleeve casing 

• mailed two invoices for Dad

• typed two pages of engineering jargon [that I didn't understand]

• printed 14 graphs

• tried a new idea for a gored skirt

• helped Mom in the kitchen (while she was in the living room)

• washed a mountain of dishes

• vacuumed the upstairs

For months and years afterward, that little note card gave me a sense of accomplishment. When I found it again a few weeks ago, it gave me more of a sense of exhaustion!

It also reminds me of why I identify so much with this song from Disney's "Tangled":

Instead of asking "when will my life begin?" I used Old Testament metaphors like, "until the pillar of cloud moves" or "until my Isaac finds me". Oh, I knew I was useful, in the sense that every mom is useful. My family needed me desperately. It just wasn't my family I was exhausting myself for every day; it was my parent's family.

And I was desperately lonely.



*Names have been changed.