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Given the Holiday of honoring Mothers, I thought it an appropriate time to share my observations of motherhood by way of my gypsy adventures. Last summer as part of gypsying around I spent a good portion of it with one of my closest sets of friends. They are a family of three children, dog, cat, and occasional small fluffy furry caged pet, and I’m not sure, do we count the TV, for it does seem to have intimate relationships with family members and communicating in the household all the time. It is a busy household, and as any Mom knows when you are balancing a teen and toddler with one in between you never have time for yourself. You are way to busy shuffling kids in different directions, making sure they have what they need, (for surely you will be the one paying the price if they don’t) and stealing time to take care of all kinds of other household details.

I had the best of it. I got to cash in on family Sunday breakfasts when Dad breaks out the electric griddle and flips pancakes for every one, as Mom rolls her eyes anticipating the sticky spots left in the most unusual spots from the magical art of kid syrup migration. I got to enjoy what I fondly call “Duffy noises” which are the family sounds that range from fighting, laughing, screeching, squealing, banging which is usually followed by loud crying, to the proverbial most common sound “Mommm, I neeeeeed you” and mothers favorite desperate cry of frustration “Can you just…”.

To me all those noises were comforting. Living alone for the last twenty years, the variety was quite stimulating. Oh, and did I mention that I had the luxury of closing my door and disappearing into my room if it moved beyond enjoyable and on to out of control. Mom and Dad didn’t have that luxury obviously.

I will say that after spending the summer with them I do marvel at what mothers endure. It is a tough job that offers little gratitude and is constantly wearing on your internal battery and sanity. God bless you all, I don’t that I could do it, especially with three. Mothers do deserve a day devoted to treating them special, for they spend 364 days serving family, careers, and managing a household. Thank goodness the culture has begun to shift and Dads are becoming a bigger part and partnering in these roles.

Did you know that they did a study and accessed that if mothers got paid for their work it would be about $125k per year? Imagine that. Evidently organizing, cleaning, processing laundry, party planning, event scheduling, teaching life skills, meal planning and execution, tutoring, kissing and treating wounds, problem solving (or should I call it crisis counseling every time the tear button goes), and chauffeuring does add up. There is of course a lot of “over time” factored into that figure.

So would you sign up for $125,000 a year as Mother? Is that really enough when the guy who books down the big green field with some pigskin gets millions? And what about the Dads that do their part, can we sign them up per-diem? Or are we too focused on the skinny actress who spent 5 hours in the dressing room trailer to come out and say a few lines for the camera and earn a salary of a few million.

We do live in a strange world when it comes to getting paid what your job is worth. I hope that one by one we each can place value on what feels right within and over time society will change for the salvation of this world lies in family and the cultivating mothers do.

My summer with “The Duffy’s” was an enlightening experience. Watching each member interact each with the other, joining in their family fun days, and contributing help to lighten mothers load was an awesome experience. It demonstrated to me how it really does all begin at home. Home is where the heart is, and I was fortunate to share theirs while I am in search of a home suited for a gypsy.