Times and Seasons

When my first child Maija was born and I was home with her pretty much full time, I felt like with this blessing of a beautiful baby girl also came a new kind of challenge I'd never experienced before. I felt like I would never have any freedom ever again and that my whole existence revolved around feedings and diaper changes. It's that fog that a mother goes through with every new baby, but with the first it's the scariest because you don't know yet that at some point you will get more than 2 hours of sleep at a time.

It was during this newborn fog that I complained to my mother about my feelings of isolation and lack of freedom. My mother said a very wise thing to me. She told me that there are times and seasons for everything and the day would come when my children would be older, and I'd have the time and freedom that I missed so much. That thought has gotten me through many a difficult day of crying children, constant messes, and unending diaper changes.

One of the things that I gave up in order to focus on having, adopting and raising babies was my career as a teacher and future professor. I was a PhD student in Education when Maija was born and after a year of struggling to continue the program (and after being told by one of my professors that I had no business having babies while I was getting a PhD...story for another day), I finally decided to quit the program. Although there were a lot of things that led me to quit, the primary reason was my desire to have children and raise them myself. Several friends and family members tried to convince me to continue, but once I prayed about it, I knew it was the right decision for me. Although it was a painful experience, it ended up being a blessing for our whole family. I know now that if I had stayed in the program we would never have had Rebekah because of the pressures to not have children while in school.

Have I ever regretted my decision? No. Have I given up on being an educator and getting my PhD someday? No. Because I know that there are times and seasons for everything. Now is my time to raise my four little children and focus on being a mother. The day will come when I will have the time and freedom to continue school if I so choose. And, interestingly I have been slowly and almost imperceptibly moving into a new season with my children now that my baby is almost 18 months and we have no plans for any more babies (see my previous post here for more on that.). For the first time in six years I am teaching again as a substitute teacher, and I'm loving it. I'm able to pick and choose when and how much I work, and I can still be home most of the time with the kids. I feel blessed to be a mother and blessed to be a teacher again. I can see now that my mother was exactly right. Nothing ever stays the same, and we don't have to be or do all things at once. As women, we can have it all, but it doesn't have to be all right now!!!

Why Saudi Women Need Drivers

It seems my interest in the Saudi Arabian justice system is becoming a repeated blog topic for me. As I mentioned in 2 previous posts here and here, I lived in Saudi Arabia two times so my interest is more than casual. My experiences living in the middle east and in other parts of the world give me perspective on many issues we deal with here in the United States, especially as they relate to our individual freedoms.

A couple of months ago I wrote about several brave Saudi women who were audacious enough to DRIVE!! The nerve! That's right. Women in Saudi Arabia are not allowed to drive, so they must either have male family members take them everywhere or hire personal drivers at several hundred dollars a month. No soccer moms there, maybe soccer drivers, but the point is that it is a really really bad idea to drive in the country if you're a woman unless you're willing to go to jail. That's exactly what happened to the women who decided to drive in protest.

Now one of the women, Shaima Jastaina, will receive 10 lashings by whip for driving without permission. One of the religious mufti who enforce religious law in the country said about the ban on women's driving, "It's for women's good.". Apparently it's to protect them from having too much freedom which would lead them to sin. I have to say if there's anything that has led me to sin, it hasn't been driving a car. Sometimes my car was my escape from a questionable situation. And now that I'm a mom, staying home in isolation with no means of escape would be much more likely to lead me to do something crazy than being able to get in my car and just drive. Although having a driver sounds swanky, I often find driving therapeutic, except for driving in Korea which is a story for another day.

The Saudi ban on female driving applies to foreign women, too. Yes, my mother had to use a driver who was shared with other foreign women at my dad's company. Imagine the scheduling nightmare, just saying. No impromptu trips to the store or last minute errands. My mother handled all of that pretty well considering she had 3 children and my dad was gone nearly half the time on business trips. Her attitude was that we were guests in the country and we had chosen to be there. True enough, but for Saudi women this is a way of life not a two- year stint in some exotic country.

If you'd like to read more about this wave of Saudi women taking to the streets, you can read this article from the Associated Press and this previous post on my blog Suffrage Saudi Style

95 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Superior Take the test!

I'm not sure what this says about me, but the test is pretty funny.