The Thread that Weaves the Tapestry

What my life at home is ultimately about

I texted my husband at work and asked him: “What am I really doing here as a stay at home mother?” He knew I didn’t actually mean any of the following:

• I didn’t do anything all day

• Why did I sign up to be a stay home mom

• Can I please escape and go out by myself

• Why don’t we send the kids to school/the zoo/the circus?

The question came while I was having a sit on our kitchen floor one afternoon¹, while my children played noisily in the other room and I reflected on our unusually chaotic morning of homeschooling. We hadn’t done our family rosary yet, it felt like the kids weren’t learning anything in their lessons, and I had broken up several fights among my boys just before breakfast. (Notice I used the word “among”, rather than “between” - that’s because all four of them were fighting at once, yes)

I had been mentally sorting through my day, thinking about which activities I spend the most time on and whether they reflect my underlying purpose - and what that purpose might be. I saw our lives together weave a tapestry comprised of joys, sorrows, successes, inside jokes, grudges and forgiveness, hardships. Birthdays, sick days, Masses, grocery trips, funerals, baptisms, family walks, work days, baking marathons. Myself as the mother amidst it all, doing what I do - but to what concrete end?

In envisioning the fabric of my family’s life, I imagine my primary purpose as the fundamental thread that provides the actual substance of the tapestry, connecting each picture to one another and yet building the picture simultaneously. Women have (usually) traditionally been the weavers of textiles; this reflects our nature as the creators and connectors. ² I don’t weave, knit, or crochet, but I think that the function of women creating and connecting materials surpasses the purely physical elements of life.

Penelope at her Loom by John Roddam Spencer Stanhope ;

What I meant by that initial question was: what is my primary duty as a mother and homemaker? What is the fundamental thread that interweaves and forms the basis of our family life?

To find the answer, we’ll need to examine what my primary duties are not.

For context - as a quick summary - I live my life currently as a stay-at-home mother to 6 children ages 10, 8, 7, 6, 4, and 9 months. We live on a fixer-upper hobby farm in the Midwest country and homeschool. My husband works full-time outside our home and runs a side business here in his spare time. Considering my lifestyle, it would be easy to list all of those characteristics as one great overarching purpose which is lived each day. My husband and I are proud of the way we live and the hard work we have put forth to arrive at where we are today. Our lifestyle both informs our identity and contributes to its ongoing purpose; but even so, I think that my primary duty lies within the margins of my daily duties, not readily seen.

We homeschool, yes, but: regardless of how I attempt to teach my children long division, the state capitals, artistic techniques and the history of government, we are going to see mixed results from their schooling just by the nature of each child’s different personality and level of commitment to their own education and future. Our life at home is not about producing highly educated individuals - it’s more important to us to raise good, well-rounded people. My primary duty is not to educate.

We take our Catholic faith seriously; yet while my duty as a mother to educate my children in the faith is very important, my children will ultimately have their own personal lives of faith (or unfaith) regardless of my attempts to pass on our Catholic beliefs to them. Our life at home is not exclusively about producing little future Catholics. In observation of other Catholic families, I’ve arrived at the conclusion that adult children are simultaneously and paradoxically a complete reflection of their parents and home life, and an image of their own making, choices and actions. That seems to hold true when it comes to whether children choose to remain Catholic or not in their adult lives. My primary duty is not to catechize.

Thousands of dollars and thousands of hours have been spent repairing and building our home, creating a life custom-fitted to our family’s needs. But as much as I love antiquing, decorating, painting, and garden planning, our life at home isn’t about having the most beautiful, antique-decorated old farm house with the loveliest garden on our country road. It’s not about having the cleanest kitchen or the dandiest heritage barnyard poultry. Those objectives might be more readily straightforward to attain, but that’s not my main job at home. My primary duty is not to keep house.

I wear dresses, gather eggs, have lots of kids, and I’m proud of it! But I’m not cosplaying as a SAHM “tradwife” because it’s my lifestyle aspiration; that would only provide idealization for idealization’s sake. We chose these facets of our life because we liked them, and thought they were good things to pursue and include in our lives. Do they contribute to my own development and growth? Of course; but my own individual growth is both the genesis and result of my efforts as a mother - it is the cause and the effect; I still don’t think of it as my primary duty. My primary duty is not my own self-actualization.

Where does that leave me, then? Aside from the more repetitive, laborious aspects of being a stay-at-home mother like laundry, cleaning, cooking and paperwork, I’ve determined that my primary obligation does not lie in homeschooling, housekeeping, catechizing, or self-fulfillment.

Through reflection, the conclusion I’ve arrived at is that my job at home is to build relationships.

My primary duty is to facilitate the building of relationships amongst my children and with us, their parents. Without relationships, our family is just a collection of people who happen to live under the same roof; my marriage is just a piece of paper and a bare promise before God. Our family has no present or future as a living entity without meaningful relationships to bind us together; and as the woman who married the man and carried the children, I am the thread that binds us all together.

My presence in our home as the literal stay-at-home-mother provides the necessary stage for the family drama to take place upon. Were it not for my role, our children literally wouldn’t be able to spend the time with each other that they do. We would all be separated from one another for a great majority of our lives via school, activities, and work. Such is the indispensable function of the mother at home! My position is one of delicious luxury; a weaving woman in a fiber house of the finest silks and woolens: my own dear children.

I bind my husband and children to one another not just through my inherent physical reality as wife and mother, but through my actions as an intuitive observer and participant in each family member’s life. No one but a mother can hone the keen eye with which she recognizes unmet emotional needs or problems lying below the surface level of a child’s life; these needs and problems I bring before my husband in discussion for him to aid in determining how to best address them. This is not an unfair burden, or an aspect of the “mental load” which so many women bemoan having to carry; it is a task which we are uniquely suited to perform which most men would, frankly, fail at given the responsibility - not because they are losers or oblivious, but because it is generally not their nature to bind the family relationships through love and intuition. ³

Music Lesson by Frederic Lord Leighton

Wouldn’t it be easier if our lives as mothers at home were like a traditional job, with only concrete tasks to complete, straightforward boxes to check, a start and finish time? Life would be so much more frank that way. But women aren’t generally “frank”; we are especially suited for our tasks as relationship-builders because of our inherently flexible, nurturing, creative nature that makes this an attainable objective which is fulfilled through our other roles as mothers.

While I break up a fight between my children, I gently correct their hurtful words towards each other and (hopefully) exemplify an attitude of peace without losing my cool (that’s where the self improvement gets worked at).

As I homeschool my second grader and help him with his math, we are building our bond as mother and son. It’s not about the math, its about the relationship.

Allowing my five year old to help chop onions and chatter while I prepare lunch is lately a not insignificant part of our relationship. It’s not about the onions, its about the relationship.

Laying bricks on the garden path with my ten year old entwines yet more fibers in our connection. It’s not about a garden path, its about the relationship.

And what would a healthy relationship be without the steadfast, serene presence of at least one of its members? A key component of being the thread that weaves the fabric of the family is knowing how to simply be when at home with your children (and always). I discussed this further in my post “What To Do with Little Children At Home.”

Allowing yourself to naturally exist as the mother in the home, relaxed and secure in your irreplaceably important role, allows the intuition and spiritual self to flow and the deeper connections to be made and solidified. That grounding and comfort within ourselves as mothers is invaluable to providing a strong thread with which to weave your family’s tapestry. How can you notice that your four year old has been teary and quiet lately regarding his older siblings’ behavior towards him if you’re scrolling Instagram? If you are chronically self-focused and insecure about your role in the home, will you divine the worry behind your nine year old’s eyes when you’ve been away and return home, indicating a relationship in need of attention and healing? Your peace and secure sense of purpose is essential in being the mother who binds her family together.

Returning to myself on the kitchen floor, upon elucidating my ultimate role as the mother at home I felt a sense of relief wash over me regarding my prior frustrations and worries. My day at home was not wasted because of my children fighting amongst themselves or because I deemed our progress in school insufficient. The education, the work, praying the rosary, the appearance of our home and lives are the images upon the fabric of our lives; but the relationship we hold to one another is the foundational thread which is woven. Kitchen floor thoughts can be profound.

1. the millennial “sit on the kitchen floor” pastime is beloved around here

2. for an excellent essay adjacent to this topic I recommend:

Lessons from Moroccan Matriarchs (part 1)

3. I highly recommend the book Hold On To Your Kids by Gabor Mate & Gordon Neufeld for further exploration and reinforcement on why, as parents, your relationship with your children is absolutely paramount.