It’s been almost a year since I quit my part-time job at the
library to be at home with the family more.
Here are a few things I’ve learned during this eye opening time.
I’m always a full-time mom
At this point in my parenting career I have been all of the
following at one time or another: full-time work-outside-of-the-home mom,
part-time work-outside-of-the-home mom, and stay-at-home mom. For some moms, this is a huge point of
debate. What’s the right way to do it? I
tend to think that answer is the same as most answers about parenting: the way that works for you and your family. I didn’t enjoy working full-time outside of
the home and felt uncomfortable with it even though I loved my job. Part-time was okay. Being a stay-at home mom works for me, but
within this structure I try to carve out writing time, my side career with no
pay that is none the less mine and of value to me.
Here’s the thing though:
I’ve never felt like I was more or less of a mom depending on my job
status. Being a full-time mom is a calling,
a life time endeavor, not a definition based on hours worked inside or outside
of the home. Working outside of the home
doesn’t make you a part-time parent. No
one looks at my husband and says, “Oh, you work outside the home, so you’re not a real
dad.” It doesn’t work that way. I’m always a full-time mom with on call night
shift hours. At least my boobs aren’t on
call anymore.
Being a stay-at-home mom doesn’t make me just a mom
I’ve read a lot about new moms feeling they’ve lost their
identities or part of themselves after having kids. It’s not hard to imagine this happening, a
mid-life identity crisis where it’s hard to balance desires with obligations, even
if they are obligations you enjoy like caring for a child. I was lucky to not experience this because
just as I started having children I started finding my identity in Christ even
more, learning who I was to Him. That
was crucial for me as I spent years watching things I used to attach my
identity to-being thin, climbing the ladder professionally, advancing my
education constantly-disappear.
In making the transition to stay-at-home mom, my identity in
Christ kept me from feeling that now I was “just a mom”, a person of little
value outside my own home. Instead I
recognized the importance of being an example for my kids. I also realized my life will be full of
getting involved in issues I care about if I follow through on that desire, and
that the small things in life like kindness on a daily basis are just as important
as job titles and pay raises.
I also came to
understand that I have eternal value outside of my role as a parent, value that
isn’t connected to employment. I’m a
saint, one who sins, but a saint none the less.
God said so, not me. It’s still a
weird concept for me.
That’s not to say I don’t understand the need to carve out
personal space outside the mom role. I
write. It’s not important, but it’s
mine. Everyone has their thing. I’m just better now at not attaching my worth
to what I do and instead view it in terms of whose I am.
It’s okay to talk about life, whatever that entails
When I didn’t have kids I didn’t understand how people could
talk about their kids all the time. When
I first had my own kids, I didn’t understand how people could talk about
anything else. I think now I’m in a bit
more balanced place. Lacking a job
outside the home, I can still talk about other things I’m interested in which
is nice to know because when I was thinking about quitting I feared I might
start only communicating using grunting noises or by telling fart jokes, all
which relate to my children and would be their fault. Sure, sometimes I’m around other moms and we
discuss kid-related topics the whole time because that’s what we want to
do. But many times there are the “how is
everybody” questions and then we talk about Jesus, writing, books, armpit paste
(totally happened today), the whole thing.
My brain still functions outside of just kid talk. I still like fart jokes, though.
Relationships and writing don’t happen just because there is
more time
Intentional effort is hard.
I hoped and maybe assumed it would be easier to cultivate deeper
relationships outside the home once I wasn’t working. I thought it would be easier to write
consistently if I was home at night.
Turns out showing up really isn’t that big of a
triumph. I’m here every day, but nothing
happens that I don’t make time for and put effort into. I write every day now because it’s a habit,
it’s what I do. I still suck in the
relationship department. Somehow I am
trapped in the land of talking to interesting people while also feeding a
child, soothing a child or checking to see if someone has pooped. I’m working on it. I’ve made time to have coffee with
girlfriends maybe 3 times in the last almost year. (Good grief, that looks horrid now that I am
actually typing it!) D and I have
accomplished zero date nights that involve us actually leaving our children at
home and going somewhere without them in over a year. We do a lot of on-the-couch-eating-pizza-discussing-everything
dates, though. We're used to that, especially when the kids are young. Still, I need to have a better
plan for these things since it’s obvious after a year they aren’t going to just
magically happen on their own. Having
more time doesn’t mean you always end up using it for what you planned.
I need much more and much less me time than I thought I
would
Part of what I thought I needed when I worked part-time was
the opportunity to get out of the house.
I am not good at taking time away from my family. I always associated it with a ton of guilt, therefore I squandered any time away due to lack of focus and feeling like I
needed to rush back. Work solved that
because I was being paid to be there and owed it to other people to show
up. I anticipated major issues when I
quit because I feared I’d never have time to myself because I wouldn’t allow
myself to take it.
What I found was weird and surprising. Number one, I need some level of time to myself
daily. I know, that’s probably not a
surprise to the average person, but when breastfeeding my children I could go
weeks with almost zero time without someone attached to my body, including
nights. It was my norm and I embraced it
to the point that I thought that would be my forever existence. Understand when I say embraced I also mean
pissed and moaned about it on occasion, especially when sleep deprived or
suffering from mastitis. Now I know that
I want and embrace personal space and quiet every 24 hours. However, I don’t need it in the ways I expected. As opposed to long hours away, I just need to
make some tea at night and read a book, do something creative without
interruption. They are small things that
make a huge difference.
It was the right choice
