What You Can Do Before Marriage & Children
I wanted to share with y’all an answer to a comment I received about using our time before marriage and children.
I graduated from college just a month before getting married. Whether or not that was a good use of my time is another post for another day.
There were five months between when my husband and I got married and when I became pregnant with our first son. I was looking for jobs, turning down job offers, realizing “maybe I don’t want to be a chemist” and tutoring here and there. In other words I was floundering.
Going from the intensity of studying chemistry for four years to not having a job, all while my husband was working all day, was a huge shock for me.
I can’t believe I ever uttered the words “I am bored.”
Honestly, I didn’t know the first thing about keeping a home, cooking nutritious food, or caring for a baby – the bare necessities.
I can say wholeheartedly that I have many regrets with how I used my time before having children. You just don’t have very much time to dedicate to focused activities when you have little ones. Of course I wouldn’t trade my boys for the world, but we should always be using our time wisely.
The best thing you can do is to focus on learning useful skills while you have the time.
Here is a list of things to learn and do that I wish I had done myself:
- knitting
- sewing
- gardening
- preparing nourishing food
- nourishing our marriage
- reading
- praying
- composting
- learning about homemade cleaners including laundry detergent
- learn to make your own bread, yogurt, butter and anything else that you would buy from the grocery store
- learn to make homemade soap
- learn to make homemade candles
- learn to use herbs and natural remedies for healing
That is just the beginning. Many of these skills will save you money so that you can stay home with your children and not just survive on one income, but thrive. I have done and am learning about many of these things, but if I had done them before having children, I would have even more time for my family.
There are so many things I wish I had done then so that I wouldn’t have to do them now. Use this time God has given you in order to bless your family and honor the Lord.
I wish I had.
Yeah, that’s funny you bring this up. I know all those things now, but did I learn them growing up? Well, some of them like sewing but as a young woman in this culture they certainly weren’t considered necessary. I’m trying to raise both my daughter and my son to know they can do anything they want, but to feel that staying home with children (or even without, “just” being a homemaker) is something they should plan to do at least for part of their adult lives. And then I’m trying to teach them the skills they’ll need. Slowly, over time…
It is never too late to learn. I think the time between college and kids I was learning other life lessons. Now, I am so eager to tackle that list and the cool thing is that my girls (8 & 10) are learning right along with me (except the marriage one).
Thank you so much for this post! I’m on target with some of these items and way off on others. It’s encouraging to know that my natural interests are mostly what I need to be learning/doing right now.
I wasted so much time as a newlywed. I think I watched absolutely every minute of OJ Simpson’s trial. I did NOTHING with my free time back then. Even when I had one baby, I would sit on the couch, nurse her, chat on the phone, read and re-read “what to expect”. I could have really utilized that time.
Thankfully I’ve learned to crochet and knit and can and bake bread and make laundry detergent even with little ones underfoot, but I could have used my time before so much more wisely.
You left a comment on someone else’s blog about making homemade yogurt in the crock-pot. I’d love to have a step by step guide to how you do this. Any chance you can share with us how you make yours? Thanks in advance!
you are so right. i wish i had learned many of those things too, because it’s harder to learn when you have so much going on. but it’s never too late, right? we just need to learn from each other. i cannot wait to try that chili. any way i can get leafy greens like kale into our diet is great! does it come out spicy?
ladybugbeck – I will try to post my yogurt recipe next week.
Jana – The chili does come about fairly spicy with the 1/4 tsp. of cayenne. You can certainly do just a pinch if you’d like it milder. I know that while pregnant it is hard to handle spicy foods sometimes.
I have found that my ‘job’ now is to learn to do those things and it is so rewarding. I never thought I would brag to my friends and family that I make my own laundry detergent!!!
How is it that you always post exactly what I need to hear? I am in the middle of breaking up with a very wonderful, lovely man because of our different expectations about kids. I want some (now – er, whenever, but soon 🙂 and he maybe doesn’t (he doesn’t know, but certainly after he gets his business off the ground, ie: years and years from now). It’s a very frustrating time, one that is requiring a lot of listening/meditating/praying on my part to see what is really going on here, what god wants for me. Part of that process needs to include finding joy in the part of my life that I am living in now and not pining for what I don’t yet have. It’s difficult, and sad, and hard.
Thank you 🙂
Build a community. Give and get all kinds of support and help from other people nearby so that you have that community when you have a newborn, when you are ill, if your marriage is in trouble.
Establish a decent employment history in the time you have so that if you’re called on to provide all of your family’s needs, you can.
While you’re doing the above, save money: for a postpartum doula, to pay the midwife, to set up housekeeping, to start a business.
If you are an artist/writer/etc., develop disciplines that will enable you to keep creating while raising children, and hone your workspace and materials to be compatible with family life. Do not be someone who “used to paint” if it’s something that feeds you.
Get to know your local government and community institutions and leaders so that you’re not reinventing the wheel with toddlers in tow when there’s an issue you want to speak out on.
Go adventuring and traveling – things that can be harder with young children. Travel teaches you to pack light, be brave and self-reliant – always useful traits. If you have always wanted to offer service somewhere that might be difficult with small children, do it now!