It’s a beautiful sunny day. So far today, I’ve been drooled
on, gotten orange poop underneath my fingernails during a diaper change, and gotten
unexpectedly bitten (hard, like vampire hard) on my lip while going in for what
was supposed to be a kiss. I woke up feeling exhausted and knowing my day
wouldn’t consist of putting on high heels and curling my hair to go have talks
in a language other than “motherese”.
This sounds like the day of a rock star so far, right??
This morning, I got my 18-month son out of his crib when he woke up, and he wanted to cuddle. He hid his little, squishy face in my neck and I could feel his warm breath on my collarbone. I took his chubby hand in mine, admiring the dimples in his knuckles. I was filled with a bliss so pure and so intense that I could literally feel it radiating through my entire body. As he raised his head back up, he looked in my eyes and leaned in for a kiss (this was NOT the biting incident! Ha!). Then he smiled from ear to ear and kicked his legs happily until I set him down and he was off to wake his 5 year old sister. She woke up sweetly and put her arm around her little brother. “Oh, hiiii bud!” She said in a scratchy voice. I sat down on her bed while she sleepily climbed into my lap and her brother followed suit. Here I was, holding 60 pounds of blessings, challenges, love, responsibility- and two little people that are making forever memories with me every day.
Let me first clarify, this blog entry isn’t to make working
moms feel bad for working, this is to share my own personal journey as a SAHM.
This note is for the mom who is struggling to decide if she wants to stay home
with her kids instead of return to work. This is for the mom who can’t decide
if sacrifices that would need to be made to survive on one income are worth
it. This is for the mom who recently
decided to stay home with her child and is having a hard time, maybe even
regretting it. This is for the stay a home mom who feels like nothing she ever
does is noticed or appreciated and is having trouble feeling accomplished in
her home. This might even be for the working mom who is thinking she might want to become a SAHM, but is afraid to take the step.I chose to quit my job and stay home with my daughter when she was born. My husband supported me, although I wasn’t sure he really knew what it meant to our family for me to be a SAHM at the time. I was lonely at first, Izzy slept most of the day. When she wasn’t sleeping, I held her, kissed her, talked to her, and listened to her coos. While all of that is priceless and amazing, there was also a lot of quiet time where I was alone with my thoughts. Seeing others my age going to college to start a career, or working already. I was subtly criticized for starting a family so young (married at 20). This society often has an attitude towards a woman who feels her identity is in her home. In voicing that to others, I am sometimes met with looks that say things like, “And doing that makes you happy?” I’ll admit, I couldn’t always confidently answer that question with a sincere yes.
However, quite a few things throughout these last few years solidified my belief that there are three things I’ve done in my life that I will never regret. Giving my life to God, marrying my husband, and staying home to raise my children.
In April of 2012, my daughter was diagnosed with a liver cancer and for the first time ever, I was faced with the looming possibility that she really might not celebrate any more birthdays. I sat for countless minutes, hours, days, weeks- mulling over regrets I had about things I felt I didn’t do enough, things I did too much, missed opportunities, etc. But one thing I remembered was that confusion and deep down loneliness I felt when I first became a stay at home mom. And then I remembered how that eventually passed. I remembered how I watched her roll over for the first time, I remembered how I helped her learn to sit up, how many nights I spent rocking her to sleep while she played with my nose, how her first words were so easy for me to understand because I was there to hear them all. I didn’t regret a single moment spent with her. By the Grace of God, she had a only a 3 month intense journey of healing and is over a year cancer-free now.
She went to kindergarten this fall. (Sidenote: I’m still trying to decide what our plans will be for future schooling- whether to continue as we are or homeschool, but that’s another topic!) And with that said, here’s what I hate about being a stay at home mom. I hate how the little years go by so fast. I hate that I ever felt like maybe I was wasting my 20’s by staying home and raising my kids. I hate that I ever felt like I wasn’t accomplishing anything tangible or really important. Okay, hate is a really strong word, and my grandpa taught me not to use it… so it’s more like a very, strong dislike!
In the beginning, I stayed home because I wasn’t crazy about finding a daycare provider, or being away from my child. But in 5 years of doing this, the days of loneliness, craziness, doubt, the sacrifices we have made to be a one income family- don’t even begin to come close to the amount of love, passion, fulfillment, happiness, connection, or PURE BLISS I’ve felt as a result of being home with them. Time is already short and you never know when it could be suddenly made shorter. Small hands and feet will be big before you know it, little coos will soon be voices telling you what they think, feel, and wonder, the toys laying on your floor will soon be going to Goodwill or a new young child who will play with them. If you are reading this, and you’re a mom who isn’t sure of the decision you’ve made or are about to make about being home with your kids…my hope is that this helps you decide. If you are reading this and have been the one who gave the subtly disapproving look to a new mom who has decided to stay home, my hope is that you can respect this choice as much as a choice to be a working mom.
The drool on my shirt from this morning has dried and left a spot on my shoulder, there’s no doubt that the fingernail poop that I had to scrub away will happen again, and my lip is still a little swollen from my baby vampire bite… and as I write this, I’m ducking to avoid being hit in the head by a Tonka dump truck. This is a whole different kind of rock star life. This is being a stay at home mom…and I really, really love it. <3
P.S. I had to end this quickly to
go play with my little sunshine. Any grammatical or spelling errors as a result
of not being able to proofread this correctly, I apologize for! :) Have a beautiful, blessed day!!!
