A Real Person

After spending an hour fighting over reviewing sweet lady algebra with Spencer, I feel the need to express something to my children.

So - Madsen kids. Madsen kids who are reading this in the future. Pay attention. This is important. (Hands out of pants, Cole.)

I am a person.

A real person. With a working brain. Just like you!

No really!

In fact, I used to be a lot like you. Probably more like you than you would care to imagine. But I know, I know, it's hard to believe. Right now to you I'm just mom, the one who cooks and cleans and probably yells a bit more than she should.

And despite what you think now - and I know for a fact that Spencer and Josh do, because they have both told me in no uncertain terms - I am not an idiot. Cole and Tess, don't look so smug - give yourself a few years and you'll be telling me the same thing. It's inevitable; the circle of life and all that.

And I'm not truly offended. I get it. It's what kids do. I used to think my parents were idiots, too.

Except they weren't.

And I'm not.

I was actually pretty brainy in school. That was my thing. In school there are all sorts of groups: athletes, smokers, artists, band geeks, what-have-you. My thing was academics. I got good grades.

Not just good grades. Great grades. I graduated in the top 10% of my class of 800+ in high school. (Actually, more like the top 2%, but who's counting?) (Me. I am.) And I took the hard classes, AP and honors and all that. And then I went to BYU and graduated with close to a 4.0 GPA. (Those dang calculus and chemistry classes my freshman year!!) And BYU, while no Harvard or Yale (thank goodness) has pretty high academic standards. It's no diploma mill.

I don't claim to be a genius. Far from it. I had to work tooth and nail for those grades - hours of studying, no procrastinating, training my brain to take in that information. I earned every grade I got.

And then I married your father and started working. At a real job. As in, a career. Full time employment, salary, benefits, the whole nine yards. Your mother worked at the biggest advertising agency in Salt Lake City. (I know, it's no New York or Chicago, but it was something.) Adulting at its finest.

And then we decided to have kids. And part of that plan was for me to stop working and to stay at home because why have kids and then pay someone else to raise them?

I want to drive this point home as well - so pay attention. I chose to stay home. I chose to give up my career. I didn't cave in to pressure from the church or from family. I didn't decide to be a stay at home mom because I wasn't smart or driven enough to have a career. I became a mom because I sincerely wanted to.

So. I totally get that none of this will matter or compute to you right now. Or for at least the next 8-15 years. But some day - hopefully before you have children of your own - you'll read this post and realize that maybe, just maybe, your mom is a real person. Not a dummy. Not a maid. Not a chauffeur. A real person who gave up everything the world holds important for you. And would do it all again.