...the hand that rules the world

for school i am in this diverse family class and we have a project due at the end of the semester. my project all came about when i was sitting at the doctor's office and i had to fill out the line next to the word: OCCUPATION. i sat there for a minute and a hundred different job titles went through my head: launderer, maid, nurse, chef, counselor, hair stylist, baby bouncer, teacher, chauffeur, coach, tutor.....the list is never ending, really. i also thought, should i just write, "mom"? well, that's exactly what i did write, and i decided to base my paper on the importance of stay-at-home moms. i shouldn't have to feel like less of a person or any less successful or talented than my peers who can write all sorts of "for real" job titles on that form.

i had this brilliant idea that i would do a photo shoot of all stay-at-home moms. in mentioning my idea to some friends, i had some willing, beautiful women volunteer to be a part of my project. between my friends and i we are raising 20 1/2 children. this group is filled with educated, capable women with several different skills and talents. each of these women has chosen to stay home, and all of us have made sacrifices to do so.

being a stay-at-home mom may not be glamorous {i am reminded of this as i pick cherrios out of my hair or find chewed up graham crackers on my shirt}, but the rewards come as my son takes my face between his chubby little hands and says, "You're the best mom in the world," or my daughter snuggles by me on the couch and says, "I need my mom time," or at the end of the day my baby lays his head on my shoulder and softly sighs as if to say, "thanks mom for the million and one things you did for me today."

so just in time for mother's day, we had a day of fun and pampering. thanks to the ladies who did our hair and make-up! and thanks jenny for taking my picture...that NEVER happens. it was a great day. i feel honored and blessed to know each of these women and to have them as friends.

**to my good friends who want to be mothers and it has not come yet, you all have that mother within...someday it will come.**

"God could not be everywhere, so He created mothers."
-Jewish Proverb

"No other success can compensate for failure in the home."
-David O. McKay

"The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for
one purpose only...and that is to support this ultimate career."
-C.S. Lewis

"The mother at home raising her children makes a greater contribution
to the economy than the father in the workplace."
-Gary Becker {Noble Peace prize winner for economics}

"We should no longer allow a mother to be defined as 'just a mom.' It is on her back that great nations are built. To play down mothering as small is to crack the very foundation on which greatness stands. The world can only value mothering to the extent that women everywhere stand and declare that it must be so. We affirm other mothers and as we teach our sons, husbands, and friends to hold them in the highest regard, we honor both the mothers whose shoulders we have stood on...and the daughters who will one day, stand tall on ours."
-Oprah Winfrey

"No nation can exist at all, unless the average woman is the home-keeper, the good wife, and unless she is the mother of a sufficient number of healthy children to keep the nation going forward. The indispensable work for the community is not that of careers, industry or research; it is the work of the wife and the mother. The woman's work in the home is more important than any man's endeavors. She does play a greater part."
-Theodore Roosevelt

"All that I am, or can be, I owe to my angel mother."
-Abraham Lincoln

"A mother is she who can take the place of all others but whose
place no one else can take."
-Cardinal Mermillod

For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.
-William Ross Wallace