Motherhood

One Year of Being a Stay-at-Home-Mom

Well it is now June, which means it has been officially one year since I quit my teaching job, after 4 years, and chose to become a stay at home mom and doula on the side. I say doula on the side, because most of my days are spent morning to night at home with my boys.

As a little girl I always wanted to be a mom, and I’ve written quite a bit about how hard it was on me physically and emotionally to live life as a working (outside of the home) mom. Being a working mom was never something I wanted, and it felt like pure torture a lot of the time. It was mentally draining, physically exhausting, emotionally taxing. Trying to get everything done for my home in the limited amount of time in the evening. My mental health was suffering and I decided it was all too much of a sacrifice to make. I couldn’t justify it all, so I told my husband we had to make some changes, and we did.

I am very thankful for these changes this year has been really wonderful despite having a tighter budget. But I have been asked multiple times “well, how is it staying home?” With eager/worried faces, as if they are anticipating me to say something like “its not what I thought” or “I’m bored out of my mind” or that I miss working and am already thinking of changing my mind.

But… I don’t feel that way at all. It was 100% the best choice for my family and for me. I almost get them impression that they expect me to be unhappy with my choice.

As a working mom, I was riddled with guilt and grief. I looked at other moms who got to stay at home with their children with a lot of jealousy. I thought life must be easier for them than it was for me, and I will admit to having some bitter thoughts and feelings towards moms who got to do what I wanted to do. I fully intended to write a blog comparing the two and saying how much better life was as a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM) compared to being a working mom. I wanted to pit the two against each other and say being a working mom was so much harder and how angry I was every time I saw blogs, articles, comments showing SAHMs getting all these accolades while I struggled so much to “do it all”, but got this idea that my time at work was viewed as a vacation from my children. Articles that said the work of a stay at home mother would be valued at $170,000 annually, or that being a SAHM was the hardest job on the planet. My working mom self thought, “well what about me? I’m barely making it. I do all the same household tasks on my own, while juggling a teaching job.” It made me want to stand up for working mothers, and myself. And my co-workers who were working mothers didn’t seem to be struggling in the same way I was, or at least they never let me know it. It made me feel very alone and frustrated. Everyone wants to feel seen, valued, and validated, right?

…but now that I’ve done both I can’t quite muster up that same feeling of anger or resentment.

I definitely still empathize with working mothers, especially mothers who are teachers or care givers or some kind. It is one thing to work, but another to work a 9-5 by pouring your attention, patience, nurturing, and problem solving into a classroom full of other people’s children and then come home and try to graciously do the same for your own children despite exhaustion and a few hours at the end of the day.

I empathize with trying to do it all: pumping, the commute, trying to get it all done by deadlines and due dates, leaving sick children, or taking off too much work, trying to catch up, prepare for a leave, evenings and weekends that are non-stop trying to take care of everything you can’t do while working. It feels impossible to catch your breath and life moves so quickly.

Now I can say it isn’t really one being harder than the other. It is one being harder for me than the other. Teaching was too much for me. Staying home with my boys, although still exhausting and sometimes stressful, is a much better fit for me. I feel like my life has slowed down in a good way to where I can finally breathe. I never feel dread about a work week. I don’t wish away days, weeks, and months to get to a weekend, or a break from school. Is everyday at home with my boys easy, or even enjoyable? Absolutely not, but my mental health is better and my overall happiness has improved.

However, now I can empathize with the stay at home moms too. My 15 weeks at home with Holden on maternity leave were not the full SAHM life experience. My summer with two under two, but my husband being home on summer vacation too, were not the full SAHM life experience.

Staying home with toddlers Monday through Friday and going out of your way to make their environment enriching, engaging, healthy and safe is a lot of work. It has kept me busy, tired, and left me feeling frustrated and defeated a lot of the time. No longer was I in the classroom where I could check off objectives we covered, and input grades and assignments so others could see what I had accomplished with my students each day. No longer did I get a 50 minute conference to collect my thoughts or be alone. No longer did I get a 20 minute lunch break to respond to texts, or eat in peace, or use the restroom alone.

Instead, I had to accomplish daily tasks by myself, but without anyone to validate that I had done something. Go on a walk, meal plan for the week, go to the grocery store with two toddlers, make them breakfast, and lunch, and dinner, take them to story time, clean up the mess at the library and then wrangle them both to go home, do a craft, read the same 12 books over and over, run some loads on laundry, clean something in our house, break up fights, and make a phone call with a lot of background commotion.

It isn’t that I need validation for taking care of my family, but after a full week of working in my home, without a break to even eat lunch or pump break, or drive home, I was exhausted, overwhelmed, and a little stir crazy at times. I craved going out to eat or going to visit family just for a break in the monotony of our everyday. Someone to talk to, something to do that wasn’t toddler focused, or work for me to pull off all alone.

I wouldn’t trade it, and I wouldn’t want to go back to teaching full time, but I can’t end this year and say it was exactly what I thought it was, or that it is easier than working. It is easier for me to stay home, but it isn’t easier for everyone, and I’m now comfortable stating one isn’t harder than the other.

As a working mom anytime I saw praises directed toward stay at home moms, I felt angry. I felt like my struggle was being minimized. I felt so stressed out I could cry, and then to have the added layer of guilt for not being with my children, it made me want to stand up for all the working moms.

As a stay at home mom I felt this need to prove to anyone and everyone that I didn’t sit around and watch TV all day. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t always fun. There is a lot of work that goes unseen, and a lot of unfair assumptions of how mothers who stay home use their time. Not to mention the change in our finances.

But the truth is both are equally hard. Motherhood is hard. Period. Pitting moms who do it differently against each other helps no one. It invalidates the experience of both moms working in and out of the home. Do some moms have it easier? Absolutely. A lower stress job, a cleaning services, family close by, more more friends, more income, a flexible work schedule, reliable child care. But it does none of us any good to say one is harder, one is easier, one is a break, one is a vacation. None of that is true, and moms in every circumstance are doing their best.

The bottom line is that we should all do what works for us and our family. If you want to work or prefer to work, I want you to have to ability and support to do so happily, and hopefully love your job while you’re at it. If you want to stay home, I want you to be able to do that too.

My anger/bitterness/jealousy/discontentment was my problem; and my ideas that I projected onto other mothers in different circumstances did nothing to help how I navigated being a working mother. They were also just that: projections. I made assumptions and judgements based on someone else’s “highlight reel.” I think the best thing I ever did was take steps to make what I wanted a reality. Our happiness as mothers isn’t just important to us on an individual level; it impacts our family so much too. I think making the right changes has made me a better wife and mother, and few things are more important to me than that.

If you’re interested in my other thoughts on being a working mother, I have quite a few blogs on the topic I will link below. My three/four years of being a working mother were hard on me, and taught me a lot and sharing my thoughts on it all was always helpful and healing for me.