Of Yarn & Storytelling

Back to the Beginning

Welcome 2013! In the spirit of the New Year and fresh beginnings, and for the geek that I am, I wanted to learn more about the people who founded this country. While I try to refrain from divulging my political opinions on my blog, I feel I must share new insights I have gained from reading about John Adams and his wife Abigail.

I recently had an insatiable urge to read up on Mr. Adams. As it turns out, my husband’s family tree shares a relative with our second president. I wanted to delve deeper past my high school history knowledge and learn more about this very distant relative.

John Adams’s popular profile is short and pudgy with male pattern baldness all the while having a sulky, outspoken, snobbish attitude. After reading First Family: John and Abigail Adams by Joseph J. Ellis, I now know John Adams made tremendous sacrifices of his personal time and familial responsibilities in order to bring independence and government structure to our country which we have today. In all that John Adams did, he truly did it for the greater good of the country which ironically fueled his ego which mainly desired to be looked upon as one of the greatest American dignitaries of all time. He knew for that to happen, he had to do his job beyond the best of his ability but to the unerring truth, for justice for all people.

As I read more of Ellis’s book, I learned that John and Abigail Adams were true soul mates; the kind of stuff read about in fairy tales or romance novels. I admire John Adams for his steadfast dedication to our country’s creation but it was Abigail who bolstered him and gave him the necessary strength to drive through the icy walls of infant American democracy. Without Abigail, I don’t think John would have gone as far as he did politically. Although in the time period she lived in, she was expected to keep house and take care of family not much beyond that. Her intelligence and sharp wit would have easily paralleled and even surpassed the men her husband worked with. I believe historians are now giving her due credit. I wonder if she was given the opportunity, would she have joined the Continental Congress? If she did, the Adams story would be a completely different one and what would that have meant for our country?

Quite unexpectedly, I gained a newfound respect for Abigail. I saw great beauty in Abigail’s love for her husband in having to let him go often while remaining home. She shared with her husband a faith and personal sacrifices that in doing his job well, our country would become one of the greatest on the planet. In her day, travel was much slower so John would be away months even years at a time. They didn’t have texts, email or even phones so the time between communications must have been agonizing. Yet her love never waned. She was the ballast for the family so that John could easily sail, literally and figuratively, to wherever he needed to be.

From Abigail’s steadfastness, I have come to realize there is much strength in a woman of our day and age who decides to keep house and take care of family full time. I am not casting a shadow on women who are in the workforce full time. Often times it is financially necessary for many families to have both parents in the workforce. Some women simply want a career instead of family and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. But I’d like to take time and wave a banner for the stay-at-home mom. I’d like to dispel the notion that stay-at-home moms eat ice cream while sitting on the couch watching tv all day. Even more so, I’d like to dispel the notion that a woman loses her strength and purpose if she chooses to put aside her professional career.

Right after Nate was born I greatly struggled with this shift in my own life – going from the corporate business world to the somewhat solitary life as a stay-at-home mom. Actually to be blunt, it was agonizing. For over a decade before Nate, I enthusiastically climbed the proverbial corporate ladder and placed high importance on my job so that it became my identity. I was well liked by my co-workers and often got slaps on the back and praises from the managerial staff that only fueled my ego and my need to excel at my job.

When I got laid off from my job and was home for the first few months alone, I found physical and emotional refreshment. When I realized I was pregnant, I had no idea of the full commitment he would need from me. Within the first six months of Nate’s life, I stood before a figurative full sized mirror and saw the naked truth of who I really was and the tower of strength that I had built myself to be was quickly beginning to fall apart brick by brick.

Being a mom, and a full time one at that, was a dream I never had. I think God allowed this to happen to me in order to break me down so He could rebuild me into someone better, not necessarily an important figurehead but a kinder, gentler and more thoughtful person that I had been. He’s got a long while to go to complete this project but it’s nothing He can’t handle.

Just as Abigail Adams did, I can take pride in being a stay-at-home mom for this fact alone: it brings essential structure to our family which provides priceless peace in our home. I know I am intelligent enough to have climbed the corporate ladder even further than I had but for me, it was eating away at the goodness in my spirit. I feel as I have been given a second chance - a new beginning. I am learning to be content to walk slowly along on this new path, allowing to be reshaped into a different person, and being stronger than ever. For there is much power in loving and caring for others.