Determined.
Facebook is amazing. In emails from 2012 I found a link to a comment my husband made in April that year. When I clicked on the link, Facebook’s servers pulled it right up! He said, “Great comments - and unlike the Obama administration, my family maintains a budget - and my wife Melinda Ambrose, who is a stay at home mom and homeschools our children, works far harder than most people I know!”
This comment was posted along with a link to an article in which the Concerned Women of America responded to a statement by Rosen about Ann Romney. The article is missing from CWA’s website. Concerned Women of America does still have a website 12 years later. Ann Romney is the wife of Mitt Romney, who in 2012 was running for president of the United States. He lost to Barack Obama. A search for “Rosen quote about Ann Romney 2012” produces a slew of articles detailing how Hilary Rosen, Democratic strategist and media commentator, insulted Ann Romney by saying “she never worked a day in her life”. There was a media firestorm, as Ann Romney bore five sons in 11 years and spent their childhood raising them. She was not a shrinking violet; she won a local election for representative city government, became an excellent tennis player, and taught classes in religion and cooking. —but why am I telling you anything beyond, “raised FIVE BOYS”?
As I’m talking about her, I see myself getting defensive. I had five children living at home in 2012, down from seven, the peak in 2009. I was homeschooling them, besides, you know, the usual: feeding them, overseeing their chores and homework, cleaning house, washing clothes, buying food and household goods, organizing the whole unit that makes up a household. Wiping their butts and their noses, cleaning up their vomit, dressing and redressing them, making sure they had play clothes in reasonably good repair, plus Sunday clothes that fit while they grew measurably every month. Hugging them, singing with them and to them, reading bedtime stories and history textbooks, doing science experiments with them and overseeing messy art projects. Gardening, hiking, biking, running along behind while they learned to bike, finding the roller skates and getting the garden hose out of the driveway so it won’t be squashed by the van. Buying gas before the van gasps its last on the road. Taking them to activities, at church, at Scouts, homeschool co-ops, meet-ups at the park, the library, field trips. Washing and rewashing the dishes and overseeing them washing even more dishes; seven places at table every night and morning, plus snacks and my word so many water glasses! For a while we had 40 yogurt cups for drinking water. Seven people’s play/work shoes, Sunday shoes, outgrown shoes, sandals, snow boots. Coats, jackets, sweaters, hoodies, gloves and mittens; snow pants. We had just moved from northern Wisconsin and still had snow pants for everyone. My husband’s business suits, wingtip shoes, military uniforms, master’s and PhD robes. Our sons’ Cub Scout and Boy Scout uniforms. Two containers of Halloween costume pieces. Bushels of craft supplies, including 500 popsicle sticks; board games in stacks, plus a container for spare pieces lost from their homes. Thousands of books. Hundreds of Pokemon cards, toy army men, trucks, cars, dolls, stuffed animals, trinkets, jewelry; a gallon of loose beads. No glass statuettes or gewgaws; instead the walls held family portraits at various ages and I kept one vase with two tall peacock feathers and a few pheasant feathers. Two dark feathers that might be eagle but are probably cobra chicken feathers: Canadian geese.
My spirit animal, if there is one: the Canadian goose. Fiercely loyal to family, striking in appearance but not elitist. Determined.
