Could you fathom being a stay at home mom? Can you wrap your head around the idea of being at the beck and call of tiny dictators who toss tantrums and crumbs all over your clean house numerous times a day? For some women, the idea of stay home to raise their children makes their skin crawl. The idea of needing more in their lives to fill them, make them whole, excite them is where they are at.
There are days when I think, ‘how did I end up here’? Times that I wish I were back in the working world, socializing with peers, challenging my mind in ways long gone. There was recently a two year period where I missed the social aspect of my work becausse I was unsettled in my own village life.
I ‘ended up’ here by choice. Actually, when I was a young girl growing up my answer to the famous, ‘what do you want to be when you grow up’ question was always the same….a mom! I always knew I wanted two children. I always knew that I wanted to be home with them while they were little. I had always had the idea that I would return to working outside the home when they were in school full time.
I am thankful that my husband works hard and earns enough to offer me the gift of staying home to raise our children. Not every women has this option. However, I am going to put it out there though, that more women could stay home to raise their children if they honestly looked at their money and made some changes. Thanks to my grandmother and mother I was fortunate enough to grow up in a world where it was the expectation that I finish high school and university. It was expected that I travel and live on my own and experience all the world has to offer. It was expected that I take my time, date men, figure out who and what I wanted in a spouse. It was expected that I might not marry, but might still have a family and live in a less traditional way. It was expected that I would have children and return to work. Being equal to my partner. Sharing the role of breadwinner for our family. I have not lived up to these expectations.
Thankfully, I finished high school and most of my university degree. Honestly, I have dated two men, one of them I married. I wanted to get married, and did, at 25. Which today, seems kind of young. I had my children before I was 30 and happily danced out of the work force and into the arms of my babies. I gave up my paycheck, my growing bank account, my own personal income source, my daily freedoms to space and privacy and solitude. To alot of women, I am sure I gave up dignity and independence too. Thankfully, I am not alot of women.
I think that staying home to raise children is less about filling a womans’ needs and desires and is more about filling a families bank accounts at the end of the month (this being for two parent families, not single parent families). I think that as a society, we are pulled in the direction of up, bigger, better and more. We replace cars and tv’s, computers and cell phones constantly. We consume and consume and we are frantic in our consumption. It costs money to consume so much though. And someone, must be out there, making this money so that the consuming can continue. What ever happened to just being? Just being happy with your home. Happy with your car. Happy with your clothes, your cell phone, your computer, your tv, your life. When did it become undesirable to not want?
If we stop consuming and just be, don’t we have enough? Who says we need more? And, why are we listening? By me, taking a step back and out of the work force and out of the bracket of earning and income, our family had to make some changes in how we viewed and valued our lives. Of course we wanted a new car. Who doesn’t? We don’t need one though. We would love new furniture. Ours is only a handful of years old though. We don’t need it and it has many more years of life in it. We want new clothes to keep up with the latest fashions. But, we don’t need them all of the time. The biggest want we had as parents though, was to be with our children. More than a new car, or a new home or constantly buying new clothes and gadgets, we wanted to raise our children all on our own. We wanted to watch them walk their first steps. We wanted to share our meals them. We wanted to comfort them when they are sick, scared and lonely. We wanted to be the ones to teach them to count and sing songs and learn their ABC”s. We wanted to teach them how to use the bathroom, how to brush their teeth and how to get dressed in the morning. We wanted to be the ones who walk them to playschool and pick them up. To share in their day. To celebrate their accomplishments every day with them. More than their providers, we wanted to be their parents.
To those women you can’t imagine living my life, I say, okay. I sit on the other side of the fence. I can’t imagine my life not with my children. I can’t imagine a life of day care and the frenetic pace between work and home and life. In my heart and head, the life of the working out side of the home mother is much more challenging than the life of the working inside the home mother. I know just how hard it is to balance the needs of my children with the needs of our house our marriage and myself. I can’t imagine adding in the needs of an employer as well as the constant desire to be with my child into that mix. Our differences are okay and both of our choices are right, for us. Being at home to raise your children is a worthwhile job. It is valuable and oh so important. As my daughters grow up and into women all their own, I want them to know that they have every choice open to them too. I want them to work hard and lives their dreams. If their dream is like mine, to raise a family, I hope that they do so, even if it means bucking convention and seeming old fashioned.
