Ever heard this saying, "A Woman's Place is in the Home?"

I used to ask my Mom about her childhood dreams, what did she long to be when she grew up? A wife and a mother, she would say. No, Mom, that's not what I mean. You know, what did you want for a career? All I ever wanted was to be a wife and mother, she would say.

And she did it well. Her housekeeping skills were stuff of legends. No lie. People used to say they would eat eggs off her bathroom floor. Personally, I don't know what could compel me to do that (except maybe starvation). Yet, that's what folks said. She cleaned all morning, read books in the afternoon, and started cooking supper about the time we got home from school.

After school was a magical time for me. Mom focused on me and my stories. She peppered me with questions, as though I were the only child on the planet. My squeaky-voiced little sister sat beside me on the floor as we gazed into our mother's face, and drank in her attention.

Mom played games with us: Sorry!, Monopoloy, Uno, and her favorite, Trouble. She spent all the time she could with us. She cherished her children. However, her time on earth was to be a short one.

My mother bore four children, but her frail body did not allow her to see them into adulthood. She was thirty-eight when she died. One of the last things she said to me was, "I prayed to see my children grow big enough to take care of themselves. Now I wish I had prayed to see my grandchildren."

I remember voices from my childhood saying, "A woman's place is in the home." It was a derisive comment meant to demean women, something along the lines of keeping your woman pregnant in the summer and barefoot in the winter. As for me, I was glad to have my Mom home, however incomplete the time was. She was 100% at home. She never longed for a career, never desired to compete with men in a man's world, never made her kids feel like an inconvenience, never acted like housework and childrearing were beneath her.

My mom stayed home on purpose. She made our house a home. God bless every woman who puts her heart into homemaking and childrearing. Her kids will never forget. They will rise up and call her blessed.