Without saying a word, my mother taught me a truth that has set me free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was a teenager when my 39-year-old, stay-at-home mom decided to become a nurse. She did not drive, and we lived on a lake in the country about fifteen miles from where her classes would be held. Always resourceful, she convinced her sister, who could drive, to become a nurse too. Thus, my aunt provided Mom\u2019s transportation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m told the sisters were a hit with their class, despite being nearly two decades older than everyone else. I can imagine my mother\u2019s cheery personality adding laughter and enthusiasm to the classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was in eighth grade, my brother in fourth grade, and my sister in kindergarten when Mom\u2019s nurses training began. It irritated me that she was no longer available 24\/7 and that my siblings and I now had more chores around the house. But I also felt proud of her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She\u2019d be studying when the rest of us went to bed. And she\u2019d rise at 4 a.m. to study, then make our school lunches and prepare our breakfast, before rushing out the door with her books to climb into my aunt\u2019s car. After graduating at the top of her class, mother began working in the premature nursery of Borgess Hospital in Kalamazoo, Michigan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Women\u2019s Lib and feminism weren\u2019t familiar phrases at the time. And my dad, a hard-working laborer, was not expected to take on housework just because his wife had a job. So, Mom still performed all the traditional homemaking tasks while also working full-time. However, Dad did become her chauffeur to and from the hospital each day. That drive gave them both some much-needed time together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unlike TV moms, who often dispensed wisdom to their confused or discouraged children, my mother was way too busy to sit us down for some sage advice. Yet, I learned from her annual springtime ritual the most important lesson ever about work and my relationship to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When May arrived each year, she would approach her supervisor at the hospital and ask for a summer leave of absence. \u201cMy children are growing up so quickly,\u201d she\u2019d say, \u201cand I want to spend the summer with them while I can.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her supervisor would explain that there was no way to grant my mother\u2019s request. A three-month leave was totally out of the question. Within a day or so of being refused, Mom would write and deliver a two-week notice that she was quitting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When we were finished with school, she was finished with work. She\u2019d once again be our 24\/7 mother, and we\u2019d all enjoy summer together, swimming in the lake, visiting friends, and just plain having fun. We\u2019d pick berries and she\u2019d bake pies. We\u2019d help her can tomatoes and peaches and green beans. She\u2019d make strawberry jam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Dad got his two-week vacation, we\u2019d all take off for the Smoky Mountains, or Mammoth Cave, or some other wonderful place, camping along the way and making family memories for a lifetime. In the fall, as we kids headed back to school, Mom, refreshed and renewed, would apply for work at the hospital and be immediately hired. She\u2019d be back in the nursery enjoying the work she loved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This yearly tradition continued throughout my and my siblings\u2019 school years. Why the hospital never granted her request for leave or tried to negotiate a shorter leave of absence, I\u2019ll never know. But as a family, we enjoyed summer vacation together. And I absorbed the truth that my employer does not own me; I\u2019m not a slave to my job. I am free to walk away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That freedom has served me well, enabling me to comfortably tolerate unpleasant but temporary situations at work, or giving me permission to quit when a job is taking the joy out of life. More than once, when hired for a new job or being promoted to a new position, I have negotiated a two-month rather than two-week yearly vacation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mom\u2019s annual ritual taught me that while you can always earn money you can never earn more time, that life\u2019s quality is more valuable than a paycheck, and when it comes to my working life, I\u2019m the one in charge. These truths, taught without speaking a word, have blessed my life with uncommon freedom.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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