June Cleaver doesn't live here anymore. The roles of motherhood continue to evolve from the traditional family portrayed in the 1950s on television's "Leave it to Beaver" and other shows.
"Mothers today find themselves facing the challenges of combining motherhood and family life with the challenges of work, and there are rewards women get from both of those arenas," said Diane Everett, Stetson University sociology professor.
Stay-at-home moms today deal with busy family schedules that might include volunteering or home-schooling their children. They are also working to keep the household going, Everett said -- they're just not getting paid for it.
The Daytona Beach News-Journal sent a call out for traditional mothers and came back with a host of mothers who positively influence their children whether they stay at home or work.
Here are some of their stories:
JULIE PERRY: She couldn't have children of her own, so she's showered adoptees with love
DELTONA -- In matching red-and-white outfits handmade by their mom, 2 1/2-year-old Joy holds tight to the roots of a plant and hands it to her 8-year-old sister, Grace.
Their older brother, Grant, just finished pouring mulch and soil while their mom helps them with their new garden project.
It's a typical day for Julie Perry, who home schools her three children, the oldest now 18 and graduating from high school as he prepares to leave for a Bible college in Idaho in the fall.
Perry, 46, has wanted to be a mom since she was in elementary school, a goal strengthened when her mom taught her skills such as grocery shopping and budgeting and when she babysat. But Perry and her husband, who were high school sweethearts at Mainland High School and have been married since 1983, weren't able to have biological children.
After years of heartache, they ended up adopting their three children with a large break between the first and second child while Julie Perry dealt with uterine and endometrial cancer. There were times she didn't know if she would live or die.
Every six months for five years, she wondered whether the cancer would return. It delayed future adoptions, she said, because agencies wanted her cancer-free.
When the time came, they adopted Grace, now 8. But after conquering the cancer and moving forward, Julie Perry found she had severe food allergies.
Now, she cooks meals for her children and husband and a separate, more bland meal for herself.
When asked what she loves about being a mom, Julie Perry simply says, "It's my life. It's a calling. You feel you have purpose."
Her cooking, said her oldest child, Grant, is one of the things he'll miss most when he goes to college to become a worship minister.
Julie Perry said it will be hard to see her son leave, but "my job was getting him prepared for what he wants to do."
He and his sister play the piano, both recently winning state honors. Grant also plays the guitar and is active at their church, Tomoka Christian in Ormond Beach.
"She's always caring and loving," said Grant, who also took college-level classes this year at Daytona State College. "If I want to do something, she'll take it through the 'mommy factor' and see if it's best for me or not."
While her husband, Brian Perry, 47, a graduate of Stetson University, is working for a financial company, she's tending to the house and schooling her children. Her positive nature, said her mother-in-law Judy Perry, got them through financial struggles, including losing their home and moving earlier this year to a rented home.
On the kitchen counter recently, Grace worked on a quilt she's stitching of a map of the United States. Julie Perry teaches sewing not only to her children, but twice a month to other area students who are home-schooled.
Grace said she likes how her mommy "helps me sew" and "fixes my hair pretty."
Perry's mom, Marjorie Jones, says her daughter's greatest gift is "she has great insight and she knows what to do to encourage her children along the path they would like to take and to use their gifts."
AIMEE GURTIS: Stay-at-home mom's never home
ORMOND BEACH -- With her hands on her hips, 4-year-old Morgan Gurtis yells, "My turn. My turn," as her mom, Aimee, blocks her brother trying to shoot a basket.
Mom and daughter are on one team and her two sons, Alex, 15, and Jack, 7, are on another.
Aimee Gurtis, 35, takes a few minutes before dinner to shoot some hoops with her three children in the driveway while her cornbread and chicken finish baking.
Earlier, she made brownies for Jack's second-grade class.
"She's awesome," said Alex, a freshman at Spruce Creek High School, who is in the guitar ensemble there.
"She cleans up for us," Jack said.
"She makes me breakfast," Morgan added
Aimee Gurtis could be considered the traditional stay-at-home mom though she jokes, "I'm never at home. I live in my car most days." She's usually taking her three children to school, soccer games or tennis and track, music lessons or church activities.
She juggles mommy duty with volunteering, whether it's as PTO president at St. James Episcopal School, helping serve lunch at the school or organizing community projects and keeping the website up-to-date for the Junior League of Daytona Beach. A painter herself, she also teaches arts and crafts at Christ Presbyterian Church, is a church elder and serves on the children's ministry committee.
"I feel extremely blessed to be able to spend time with my children," she said. "I know a lot of moms don't have nearly the support system I do and I want to try to give them some of the same advantages I've been able to have for my kids."
That's where volunteering comes in. Through the Junior League, she has helped with projects and fundraising for low-income children and pregnant and young mothers getting substance abuse treatment at Project WARM.
She's also part of the local Healthy Start coalition, which works with pregnant women and holds a special place for her considering she lost her son, Dylan, in 2004 soon after an emergency C-section. Fluid had built up in his chest, head and other cavities.
She also feels a connection to single mothers.
Before marrying her husband, Andrew, in 2001, she was communications director for a nonprofit and a single mom for five years. While getting a bachelor's degree in marketing and public relations, she lived with her parents who helped care for her oldest son. Her husband has legally adopted him.
Andrew Gurtis, 43, vice president of operations for Daytona International Speedway, said it was hard at first for his wife to switch from being a career woman, but "she has really thrived being involved in each of their activities."
Aimee Gurtis, who has a twin sister and older sister, said she enjoys "the unconditional love of my kids." She learned from her mom to always make them feel special.
"Every day is a new adventure, a different memory and a different experience," she said. ."
KATHY BALDWIN: Humor helps while working
PALM COAST -- In the middle of the night while her two little ones sleep, Kathy Baldwin writes lesson plans, pays bills and takes reading classes online to better help her teach and train fellow teachers.
Getting up at 3 or 4 a.m. after five hours of sleep each night gives the 38-year-old Baldwin the quiet time she needs. Then she wakes her 2-year-old son, Braylen, and 3 1/2-year-old daughter, Kyra, and makes them waffles and "fruit salad" based on a jingle from "The Wiggles" television show that they sing together every morning.
Then it's off to day care and then her classroom at Rymfire Elementary to teach 20 special education students. Her husband of six years, Marcus, chips in before heading out to work at Flagler County schools as assistant district custodial supervisor.
The two met while she was teaching and he was cleaning floors at one of the schools. They have a rich history in Flagler County, graduating from Flagler Palm Coast High School and coming from large extended families.
Kathy Baldwin's father, Bob McCarthy, was Flagler County sheriff for about 18 years and previously police chief in Flagler Beach.
She jokes that he had eyes everywhere, checking on her and her brother growing up.
McCarthy passed away in 2006 while his daughter was 7 1/2 months' pregnant. He was looking forward to his new grandchild, buying items for the nursery.
Her mother, whom she was very close to and was also named Kathy, died in 2002.
Kathy Baldwin, a teacher for 15 years who has bachelor's and master's degrees, said her parents taught her to stand on her own two feet, be responsible and successful. She learned to be there for her own children "110 percent and to listen and ask questions and not judge."
Humor was also an important trait she learned from her father, she said.
On her living room floor in the house where she grew up, she tickles and cuddles with Kyra and Braylen before dinner is ready, which her husband helps prepare.
"This is the story of my life -- playing," shesays with a laugh.
They eat dinner on the same table she sat around with her parents growing up. She also takes food once a week to her nearby grandfather, who is blind.
"She makes sure we're all stable," said Marcus, 31.
Being a working mom has been hard -- "you don't want to miss anything." But she said "I love both parts of my life. I love being a mom, but I also love teaching."
But family time, she said, is what "I cherish."
"I like making projects with Mommy," like dog puppets out of brown paper bags, Kyra said.
No matter how bad Baldwin's work day may be, she said, Braylen will be there at home to give her hugs and say, "You're the best mommy."
"It just melts you," she said.
SHIRLEY HENRY: Grandmother raises dead daughter's children
DAYTONA BEACH -- Shirley Henry has been on a long journey with her three grandchildren since losing her daughter and another grandchild 14 years ago.
Catina Smart, 23, and her 1-year-old daughter were passengers in a car that was hit by a train in Daytona Beach the day before Mother's Day in 1996 when the driver, her boyfriend tried to race past the train, police said.
Smart was planning to surprise her mom with flowers at church the next day.
"She was my sweet little girl. She was my friend. She was just everything," Henry said.
Henry, 56, stepped in to care for her then-6-year-old granddaughter and 4- and 3-year-old grandsons.
The journey has not been without struggles. One of her 17-year-old grandsonsis in a juvenile program and plans to come home this month. Her granddaughter, Kiarra Smart, 20, is waiting to get into a Job Corps program where she'll get her GED in hopes of becoming an electrician. Her other grandson, Patshon Radcliff, 18, said he's taking classes part-time at Daytona State College after graduating from high school last year. He wants to become a surgical technician.
Henry, who also has a son, gets tearful when she talks about raising her three grandchildren in the church and trying to keep them on the right path. She was there to take them to the doctors, go to parent/teacher conferences, football games and other activities.
" "Those are my babies, regardless of what they do. I still love them," she said.
Henry, who married two years ago, said she raised them as a single grandma by running a day care in her home, cleaning hotels and now cleaning at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, she said.
"I've had my hands full," she said. "Only by the grace of God was I able to do what I've done for these children. "
Radcliff said his grandmother taught him the importance of school and "how to love each other."
Kiarra Smart said her grandmother "loves to give," including delivering clothing and food she cooks for homeless people near North Street. "She brings a smile to their faces. They are so happy to receive something from somebody," said her son, Darnell Lowe, 33, who works part-time and plans to enlist in the Army after previously serving in the Marines.
