Amber Betzen

WHAT DO YOU LOVE MOST ABOUT BEING YOUR AGE?
I love being a mother to a young child. I gave birth to my last son in my 40s. My other children were born to me in my early 20s. Now, when situations seem a bit overwhelming or difficult, my close friends remind me that my young son gets the best version of me, thanks to the experience and many lessons I’ve learned, rather than when I was raising his siblings. During a time in my life when I was much younger, less equipped emotionally, physically, and monetarily to handle a special needs child. A time when I was less confident, patient, fairly overwhelmed with four small children, and was still growing up myself, in many ways.

DO YOU LIKE BEING 40+?
I do. This body, this heart, this mind has been through, seen, and survived an amazing journey thus far.  

WHEN IN YOUR LIFE, SO FAR, HAVE YOU FELT MOST CONFIDENT, AND WHY?
I feel most confident when I can help others navigate difficulties in their lives because I have lived through those same challenges and conquered them.

WHAT BRINGS YOU THE MOST JOY AT THIS AGE?
The most joyous feeling in the world is when my entire family, all my children and grandchildren, are gathered around our table for dinner, laughing, reminiscing, and talking about what’s going on in their lives. 

WHAT IS YOUR SUPERPOWER?
My superpower is intuition. I have the ability to identify a need for pause, redirection, or abort a decision. Call it a 6th sense, call it intuition, foretelling, I have it in spades.

WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER YOUR GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT?
My greatest achievement is raising my children. I have raised four amazing children and am working on the 5th. I have had no long-term career outside of my home to speak of. I have worked part-time jobs, driving a school bus, substitute teaching, and working dispatch, but I have always been a hands-on parent. My children have always known their need for my time came first, and that dedication and monetary sacrifice paid off.

WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST EXTRAVAGANCE?
Traveling. I have traveled through half of the United States, been to Hawaii, Alaska, and many places in the Caribbean. 

WHAT IS YOUR MOST TREASURED POSSESSION?
My Bible. My faith is of utmost importance to me. John Adams said, and I am paraphrasing; The Bible is the best book in the world, contains more philosophy than all the libraries he had seen, was the book of all books in regards to teaching a man how he ought to live. I concur.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE THING YOU HAVE CHECKED OFF YOUR BUCKET LIST?
I travelled to Alaska.

WHAT IS YOUR IDEA OF PERFECT HAPPINESS?
Maintaining a well-rounded relationship with my children. To know I always have them to count on and to know myself, they recognize they will always have me, so that to the end, any of us can make it through any situation/challenge because we have one another to lean on. There is a folklore quote that says: “A mother is only able to be as happy as her unhappiest child”. It is difficult to have complete joy when you have a child who is suffering or in a time in their life when they are truly unhappy and struggling to find their joy.

WHAT IS A TRAIT YOU ARE MOST PROUD OF?
On the “inside”, it would have to be my resilience, my strong personality. This can be a double-edged sword and be off-putting to others who don’t understand where I have come from. Without it, I wouldn’t have endured the difficult times in my life. Physically, it would have to be my red curly hair. Though with age, I have more white than natural auburn red color, and the perfect curly locks have abandoned me.

WHAT HARDSHIPS HAVE YOU ENDURED THAT YOU FEEL HAVE MADE YOU STRONGER?
I was a single mother, and born to a single mother. It goes without saying that, statistically speaking, life could have been very challenging for me and my children at times. We have all persevered.

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE YOUR YOUNGER SELF?
Don’t sweat the small stuff…. It is mostly all small stuff. 

DO YOU HAVE ANY WORDS OF WISDOM FOR YOUNGER WOMEN?
If you can think it, you can do it. Dreams are dreams, goals are goals, doers do. Just do it. Make it happen. You CAN do it. If you fail? You fail. If you don’t try, you will never know. 

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO OR FAVORITE QUOTE?
Lin Yutang: Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother.

WHAT DO YOU MOST VALUE IN YOUR FRIENDS?
Loyalty. With my busy schedule, I don’t have the time I once did to maintain many daily friendships; however, the friends I do have can pick up right where we left off when we spoke last, never skipping a beat, and are always there when I need them. I hope they would say the same about me. 

HOW DID YOU CHANGE OVER THE YEARS?
I became more patient, less high-strung, more confident, less judgmental, more loving, and less superficial. 

IF YOU COULD CHANGE ONE THING ABOUT YOURSELF, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
I don’t love my nose, but who cares, right? I will learn to contour better when I want to. I would get rid of my autoimmune diseases. It limits my ability to physically do all the things I want to do. 

WHAT DO YOU HOPE FOR THE FUTURE GENERATIONS?
I hope we find cures for everything that ails them, from mental illnesses to life-threatening diseases. When we have a world of healthy individuals, there’s nothing we can’t conquer. 

IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU WOULD LIKE TO ADD?
As a woman who has likely lived half of her life and is greatly looking forward to the 2nd half, at 50, I want to encourage other women not to be intimidated or hesitant to show more love, compassion, understanding, and become more educated with those with whom we have differences, to surrender judgment to God.  As women, we have a unique God-given innate ability and desire to love, nurture, and care for others. We need to be the driving force to learn how to understand others better, or give a hand up to someone who needs it. What the world will get from me is love, kindness, and understanding that they might not receive from someone else. I am an ear, a hug, a hand to hold, a voice, a dollar to give if you need it, an umbrella to get out of the rain; that’s the kind of human I strive to be.