Making Do….

Sometimes, too much is not enough and too little is just right.

When my children were tiny, we didn’t have much money. My husband and I were both committed to having me stay home with the kids. An additional perk for him was that I was available to fix his breakfast, pack his lunch and prepare a dinner that was to his liking. In exchange, he worked hard all day in a physically demanding job and came home to a clean house, food on the table, and clean, shiny kids.

It was a marriage model that we both espoused. The male is the breadwinner and the female is the nurturer. One notable outcome of the arrangement? We were a single income family: the car was several years old, our home was less than a thousand square feet, and our children wore clothes that were purchased at Kmart. Except for the clothes I made for them.

They didn’t have as many toys as their playmates did and what toys they had were kept in old ice cream tubs from Baskin and Robbins. I decorated them with wallpaper scraps and put their names on them in felt letters. We did have a swing set because the grandparents went together and bought it for our daughter for her second birthday.

We didn’t have central air conditioning and, in the summer, the house could get pretty hot with just a swamp cooler. We didn’t have a pool, either. One summer, we bought one of those inflatable pools for our daughter and put it in the backyard. We gathered wooden spoons and plastic cups and “stood” in her pool with her.

Years later, I took care of a patient who had lived behind us when we lived in that little house. I turned beet red as she told me her fondest memory of my husband and me: in our backyard, playing in that little blow-up pool, throwing glasses of cold water at each other! We were soaking wet and laughing! I had no idea the neighbors were watching!

We ate a lot of vegetables that my father-in-law grew. Squash, tomatoes, peppers and, not a vegetable, but the very best watermelons I have ever eaten. I bought potatoes in a 10-pound sack. We would have mashed potatoes one night, and potato pancakes the next night. We ate Spam and Rice-A-Roni, macaroni and cheese, and tacos…….a lot. I made all our cakes and pies, and some of the bread we ate.

The car was several years old. My husband was a mechanic and had a rolling box full of tools. He could fix anything that could break on the car. We usually bought used station wagons: they held more stuff, including cute little kids, dressed in their pajamas, holding their teddy bears, at the drive in movie. We got in for $2 for the whole carload. The ice chest was full of lemonade and cookies. After the movie, we drove home with sleepy little kids, carrying them inside the house and to bed, one by one.

And our furniture was old. Most of what we had was our parents cast-offs. Nothing matched, or even went together. But it all worked. And our television? A 12-inch black and white TV. The pictures on the wall were made of burlap with felt shapes glued on them. I don’t think they were particularly pretty but no one ever complained. How could they? I made them.

Clothes for us were an issue, too. Most of the clothing budget was spent on my husband. He wore jeans, chambray shirts, and work boots to work. I had a couple of decent outfits but I saved them for church or social activities. Mostly, I wore my husband’s old jeans and a tee shirt and button front shirt of his……

Those were “hip” years for me, meaning that I spent most of my waking hours with a small child sitting on my hip. I could fold clothes, iron, and vacuum with only one arm and hand because the other was busy, hanging on to the kid on my hip.

My parents and my in-laws loved me. My children thought I was the most wonderful mommy in the world, and my husband called me MLMLME…..My Love, My Life, My Everything. We didn’t have any money but we had each other. We were “that cute little family” to others who lived on our street.

We were getting by. We were making do. And we were very, very happy….