Passages for the Modern Accomplished Lady

Meet Janique

Janique is truly an Accomplished Lady who has always LOVED being involved in her community, and it was great to get with her, and to learn some things about moderation. 

“I think of balance and happiness when I hear the word moderation,” she said, “when I try to run faster than I have strength, or do too much, it is true that there is a temporary high, but there are also meltdowns because there is no control.”  “I used to think happiness was being busy all the time, but now that my life is vastly different, I am beginning to understand that that isn’t always happiness.  You have to find joy in just being,” she told me.  I love that she talked about just being, because that is what being a mom is all about--just being. 

Janique knows all about being busy, and the shot of exhilaration that comes with that.  She was on the city youth council, volunteered around many juvenile centers, took dance, and was involved in many scholarship pageants.  As we sat in her living room she told me, “When I got married, reality hit really hard.  I was no longer Janique Sinclair, I was now so-in-so’s wife.”  I wonder if those are the limitations we feel as wives and mothers, the limits that we are living ALL the time for others, and when you think of it in those terms, it really is a remarkable thing- something that society could use more of.   

It’s interesting that this reality hit so hard, because Janique had grown up being taught all about moderation.  Her father died when Janique was the age of 2 and her little sister was a tiny baby.  “Life was about moderation,” she said, “my mom had to provide physically for us as well as emotionally.”  She was able to start a business and run it out of her home. “She worked super hard while we napped, and during the night, but we always knew that when we were awake, it was our time,” she said with a smile on her face.  We then talked about how interesting it is that our mother’s generation lived for their children.  My mother too, though not a single mom, lived only for her children.  I barely remember her doing anything for herself.  Janique had an interesting philosophy on that, “I think our mothers’ generation grew up learning to work hard; work hard for others; they were raised in preparation of being mothers.  Our generation grew up learning to seize every opportunity, because there were so many.  The intentions were good, but it becomes really hard when we become mothers and all of those opportunities we had for us-that lifestyle changes. I wonder if there could be a better balance?”  That’s a good question.  Please understand that Janique is TRULY grateful for all of the opportunities she has had and would change them for a second, but could we offer a better balance for our little girls so that they don’t have to face the same difficulties?  “I always believed that all the things I was doing were going to help make me a well-rounded person, a better mother, but when I got to the point of marriage and mother-hood, I really wasn’t thinking that way,” she said.  That’s the danger that most of us face, that somewhere along the way, we loose perspective of what life’s really all about, and then when we do, make the choices to get our lives in line, we are faced to deal with all the selfish habits that we have formed.   Janique looked at her little girl Amiah and smiled, “I want Amiah to accomplishe a lot, but all in preparation to becoming a mother.”   

I wonder if that ties back to our passage on dreams, I wonder if teaching our children the differences between dreams and interests, things we enjoy versus things we give our hearts to, would give us the moderation needed for our children. 

Many people could look at Janique’s life and see ALL the limitations there are in being a wife to an aspiring professional football player.  Even now he is gone every night for college football practice, and during the season he is gone every weekend.  Even when there is not a game he is gone to a hotel to rest, to prevent illness.  Janique says, “I can sometimes think it’s hard, but instead I try to focus on the time we do have together, and how his experience is building the both of us.”  Obviously it’s not that Janique is without ideas and aspirations of her own, but isn’t it remarkable to see someone care about a person more than ideas? “My role is small, but it’s also big.  I can help change an outlook, or help him get the rest he needs to do well on the game,” she said.  I then asked her how do you keep yourself from deciding that because he is gone all the time your marriage isn’t working?  The first thing she said to me with surprise was, “Wow, you know, I don’t even think that way.”  Isn’t that awesome! Then she added, “It is kind of a refresher for the marriage.  We miss each other terribly when he is gone, so when he gets home it’s like a newly wed faze all over again.”  She told me several times when talking about her marriage that the thing that makes it work is balance and moderation.

Janique has had some interesting jobs that I had to ask her about in relation to moderation.  She has worked with children nationally and internationally.  One joy she had was working with in a center for people with eating disorders.  “Moderation is truly survival for them,” she told me.  When the girls come to this center, they are usually dire.  They are not capable of making clear decisions when it comes to food.  Their choices have altered them physically, mentally, physiologically, emotionally, and chemically.  “It’s hard because most of them do not want to change.  Death is not a scary consequence to them. They would rather be dead than fat,” she said with a pained look. “If we can help them BEFORE they get to this point, that would be great.”  Hearing this made me sad, and made me think about disorders in general--a disorder is really a lack of moderation.  Of course, in many cases, disorders and addictions cannot be fixed by an individual’s efforts alone.

Janique has also worked at a center for children with learning disabilities and minor behavioral problems.  The center dealt with cases that range from ADHD to minor autism and aspergers.  Some of these kids, may have been left to live far below their potential.  It's a normal occurance for families to feel like since they are handicapped, they will never function fully, so they ought to just let them be.  “They’re lives are in chaos.  We begin by giving them structure and balance.  At first, they see it as a consequence, but when they get comfortable they realize that they are much happier with the consistency,” she said.  Structure allows people to feel safe.  It allows them to make choices and mistakes and realize it’s ok.  However, they have to know what it is they are failing at in order to fail.  They have to see the expectations.  “You can’t set the expectation too high, but there HAS to be progression,” Janique said. 

I found it very interesting that the common link in these struggling children was the instability of their mothers.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe that every child who has a handicap or problem is a result of poor mothering. That would be ludacris. However, a mother’s role cannot be downplayed in the nurture and rearing of healthy, stable children. “What I am providing for Amiah is greater than ANYTHING else I could be doing,” Janique told me.  “It has also made me ask the question, ‘Am I mentally there with my child’?  Some of these mothers are there physically, but they are not mentally present,” she said.  We talked about how hard that is sometimes, and how sometimes you just zone out, but again it’s all in moderation. Quality verses Quantity.   We talked about how there are two types of moms: those that feel like they have to be around every second, or the type that is always checked out.  There has to be a balance; our children have to have the freedom to make choices too. 

I next asked Janique about her darling daughter, Amiah, and how she sees that being a mother is LIMITLESS.  She said, “It is exciting to be in a role where you are the most influential person in your child’s life.  I love to try and base my days around what experiences I can give to her and what bonds we form, or strengthen, today.  It doesn’t always work, but it is worth trying for.”  Boy THAT IS true.  Our efforts as wives and mothers, as women really, don’t always work, but who we become by focusing our time and attention on others is well worth the try.  “Just to feel a fraction of what God feels for me as I look at my child makes it all worth it,”  Janique said.

When I asked Janique about how principles of moderation would help her in the future,  she told me about the performing arts school her family is starting, and how keeping moderation in their work would be key.  “I have to tell myself to only work on it an hour here or an hour there while Amiah is asleep,” she said, “I have also had to learn to say, ‘no’.”  Then she said something that I will never forget. “You can’t have it all, but you can.  You CHOOSE what having IT ALL means.”  I asked her what she meant and she told me about how her mom is back in school getting a degree in Travel and Tourism because that is what she loves.  “Times and Seasons,” she said, “we can’t have it all right NOW but that does not have to be a sad thing.”   Moderation.  Moderation. Moderation. 

Janique is a wonderful mother making a HUGE contribution, helping her family live in moderation one simple way at a time.

Yours truly,