News Story Works Like a Mirror
by Sandy Hancock
June 3, 2013

I saw a news story today about a valedictorian of a high school who had an unusual mother. In order for the boy to be in the high school’s International Baccalaureate program, he had to be at school early and also late. This meant he couldn’t use the school bus transportation in order to arrive at school. His mother didn’t have the money to pay for gas for both a trip to school to deliver him and home and then again in the evening for the return trip, so she stayed in the parking lot in the heat/cold all day so that she only had to make one trip. The mother sacrificed her time and her day in order to support his dream. She worked on what she could in the car, read, etc.
Why did this seem odd to me? When our family began homeschooling as a one car family, we often had to make this kind of deal work for us. We often arrived at places 2-3 hours before the event or left 2-3 hours after the event, because “you move when the chariot comes.” It became an interesting motto for ourselves as well as for other families. I’d bring schoolwork, snacks, papers to grade, my zip pouch of colored pens for grading, teacher manuals, a book one of the kids needed to read that I needed to read first, etc., and we’d just “do school” wherever and whenever the opportunity arose. Computers weren’t used; laptops didn’t exist then, so you couldn’t take a computer with you. That meant I had to choose curricula that was non-computer based as well as portable (not too heavy; not too many parts). The kids couldn’t complain. They didn’t know any other way. I knew how to bring tuna in a pop-top can, crackers, or such, and we’d have tuna crackers and drink water or ice tea. When they became older, I could send them to the nearest 7-11 type store for lunch time drinks and ice.
Non-padded floors upon which to sit? No problem. Uncomfortable chairs? Lie on that non-padded floor and pretend you are in a concentration camp somewhere. Or put several of those chairs together and create your own bed or couch. Comfortable? Probably not. Neither were my grandparents when they worked in fields so their kids could go to school or my own father when he worked 4-5 jobs at a time (day job, evening job, night job, Saturday job, and odd jobs) Blazing sun pouring down upon you while you sat on a bench not in the shade? No problem: Use the bags and boxes brought to contain all the activity, lunch, and school stuff and stack them, find 2 long sticks {the hardest part of this venture in Florida} and create shade by hanging a cloth or shirt between the sticks as they stuck out from the bag-tower we’d created. No sticks today? That’s alright! We’ll each take turns being the shadow for 5 minutes and then get to enjoy 15 minutes of the other shadows. I’d say, “See kids! I’m preparing you in case you are ever shipwrecked on a deserted island.” Invention became an expected way of doing things.
In order to afford things on the beginning salary available to the husband, we’d sacrifice adult things such as a second car, extended cable, newest TV, newest computer, new clothes, new furniture, newest anything. Even now we have an old-fashioned TV with the hunchback {I call it Quasimodo.} because, while not new, it is still workable. Why buy a new one just because it is available and flat? Clean your glasses and the definition WILL be high.
In fact, having only one car was one of the best decisions we ever made. We didn’t have to pay for the monthly payments, extra insurance, gas, tires, maintenance, wear, etc. on that second car. It requires coordination and planning, but it also meant both parents being involved in what was happening as switch offs occurred: How’s your day?/What are you all up to? It meant telling a real estate agent, “Here’s where M works. Here’s where our church is, and here’s where Sandy ministers. Find us a house no more than 5 minutes from all of that.” She found us one. Not only has this saved us a ton on gasoline, but it also saved us the most precious of resources, time. He could leave on a lunch hour and pick us up and I could take him back to work, all in no more than 10-12 minutes. Or he’d pick us up, but have to drop us at the venue then in order to use the car for his appointment elsewhere. WE DIDN’T even have CELL PHONES, much less smart ones with which to keep in touch or on which to play. I’d go to the kids’ class at New Covenant, shop, and be back at his work usually about 30 minutes before he was ready. Once it was an hour. What happened? I rolled the windows down, put the ever present umbrella up so that the child on the west side had shade, and we’d get busy with school.
Sometimes, the church secretary would say, “Why are you here at 9? Doesn’t your meeting start at 11?” I’d answer, “Chariot moved.” She’d nod.
My husband also worked as many as four jobs at a time as well. His sacrifice made so much possible for so many families. For example, 100% of the school’s rent has been paid by him, until recently, when the school was able to take over 10% of it as we began weaning the school.
It alarms me when I hear a father say, “Well, I haven’t gotten a second job because I want to spend more time with my family” but then I notice he isn’t spending that time with his family….he’s on the computer or video gaming or into sports or whatever or they are just buying bigger phones & tv’s, better cameras, vacations or trips, or more newer stuff to fill the house, including cool floors, new couch, new appliances, etc., but not paying what is needed for a better education. Someone else should pay their way.
By the way, a second job doesn’t have to mean you DON’T spend time with your kids. It means you give up all your own time, and you have no life except work, your wife, and your kids for the duration of your kids’ minority years until they reach the age of majority or finish college, whichever happens as needed. It’s called sacrifice. It’s called putting others (your children) ahead of yourself. I don’t believe I can find a place in Jesus’ life or other lives in Scripture or in the lives of the saints where they had their personal days or had hobbies. Those come AFTER the kids leave home, if they came at all.
My mother babysat kids to pay for music lessons for me. She ironed clothes, hot and steamy work at best. My parents did what needed to be done so that I could have the educational experiences I needed to have to become the person I was supposed to be.
A teenager should be able to mow a few lawns or weed gardens or wash windows in order to earn money, not for a new electronic device, but to take part in a class or an educational activity. That sweat and tears will make the class more meaningful.
For three years, I attended a prestigious college by using a scholarship I had earned from hard academic work. It was a good experience, but I was also one of those who celebrated when a prof didn’t get to class before ten minutes late, so that we could all leave early. Then things changed. I married and lost the state-bound scholarships. I once worked for nine months in a terrible warehouse clerk job with a boss who was not totally honest but was pretty lecherous, never spending a dime of my pay check for eight of those months, taking three buses to work every day and three more home in order to save enough money to pay for one more semester of college. That was often in bone-numbing cold or excessive heat, after leaving home as the sun was rising, 2.5 hours before the job started in order to make all three buses and get to work barely on time. The home trip was the same, but darkening all the way. I NEVER missed a class when I paid for that semester, and I always had the homework done early and well. I read every article assigned and every article to which the professor alluded in his or her lectures. I RESENTED professors who were late or didn’t show up, feeling they owed me $X, equal to what that class hour had cost me in work at the warehouse.
My husband once spent an entire summer (the one before we were married) mowing industrial-size factory lawns when the heat was blazing and he was allergic to the grass. Long sleeved shirts and a scarf over his face and a hat on his head did not keep him from daily wheezing. Then he’d go to another job and clean toilets for 4-6 hours, all to save enough money to pay for the trip for both of us (right after the wedding ceremony) to the college where he would earn his Master’s degree and, a year later than normal, I’d finish that BA degree.
Don’t let stuff stand in your way! Don’t let circumstances defeat you.
Give all of yourself to accomplish what needs to be done. I’m not writing this to make myself look good or look like some martyr. I rarely felt that way, and, when I did, I had friends – real friends – who would get me back on track and say, “Walk your path, Sandy. You’ll make it. It’ll be glorious at the end.”
I’m writing this to tell you to become what Jesus expected of each of us, someone who is a living sacrifice to obtain the hope that was set before us. A living sacrifice means you feel all the pain and all the emotions any human has when setting aside your own life in order to walk the pathway Jesus puts before you. It means working when you are bone-tired. (If you don’t know what that means, you haven’t worked that hard yet. Work harder, at least until you DO know.) It means spreading one scrawny chicken between six hungry mouths, giving the lion’s share to the manual labor man, and dividing the remainder between the kiddoes and saying, as my mother did, “I like the chicken back. It’s my favorite part to eat.” Once, when she burned the toast for me and my sister, she said, “I like my toast dark brown like this. I’ll make you two a different batch because I know you like that limp, light brown toast.” And I watched her eat that not-dark-brown-but-black toast with her share of the day’s butter, and she smiled. And she’d wrap the other share (two slices) of that burnt toast in a napkin and put it in the breadbox to eat tomorrow for breakfast. You see, every slice of bread in that bread-bag had already been designated for something for someone, so there was none to throw away. Her sacrifices meant that all four of her children became successful people, in a variety of fields. When I hear some reporter say, “What are mothers like?” in their annual Mother’s Day reverence, I think automatically, “Mothers like burnt toast and chicken backs. And they make you believe it!”
So why did it seem odd to hear that news story about the woman who sat in her car all day so her son could attend special classes he could have done without? At the beginning of this homeschooling journey, that would have seemed normal to me from my own life as well as watching other moms. Now, I watch way too many families these days who are focused on the parents’ activities and needs and then can’t supply for the children. I watch way too many parents’ not giving their time to help create activities or, at least, to attend activities for their children. Unless there is something to enjoy for themselves, they don’t want to do it.
Happy faces! Happy faces, whether you enjoy it or not, is required as a parent attending activities. The kids won’t enjoy it if they believe YOU don’t. I’ve had kids lately who have said, “My mom doesn’t want me to be here. I know because she was angry about having to come.” You may be surprised to find joy comes when you see joy on THEIR faces. See life through THEIR eyes. Have W-O-N-D-E-R returned to your jaded hearts by wondering over a pretty weed-flower with the child.
Almost every parent I know became a parent because they wanted to be a parent. Accidents are actually rare. Grab that parental commitment by the horns and work it! In a 1968 episode of the original Star Trek called “Is There In Truth No Beauty?", Dr. Miranda Jones can only save Spock’s life by being willing to give her own. She has tried half-heartedly by focusing selfishly on her own needs to succeed and be accepted. When Kirk confronts the ugliness she is showing, she sets aside her own desire in order to help. She says, “Now, Spock. It's to the death, or to life for both of us.” I said that statement many times in my mind when facing situations as a parent and not wanting to face them as a parent. I wanted my own way. God would blip the picture in my mind of what I SHOULD do, and I’d say, only sometimes aloud, “Now, Child, it’s to the death or to life for both of us.”
Was it worth it? Every drop of sweat, every tear, every headache, every heartache, every material thing not gotten, every hard time, every moment of sadness or worry….totally worth it when I arrived at the other side and watched the new adult emerge and set off on that individual’s own independent life. You spent your life trying to help them become the kind of people you would enjoy having as friends because you couldn’t think of a better standard, and then they leave to start the cycle again somewhere else.
Being a momma never ends. Daily sacrifice for that small person does. But, oh, the bouquet of joy and delight that springs up at that point. And Jesus, well, He’ll fill in the gaps with new things to learn and do and which will call for more living sacrifice to be made, because that IS the life here on earth for which He created each of us so that we will have something far, far better in its time. I see what He did in 7 days. What did He do over millennia creating that new home for each of us? The best is yet to be. Now…. get back to work!