Since the first few weeks after Sadie was born, I’ve found myself repeating one statement for all those who ask – I could not be a stay-at-home mom.
At first it was just the frustration that comes with being a new parent. Every day I was a ball of hormones dealing with a newborn baby. Who would want to deal with that all the time? After we started settling into a routine, and things got easier, the hormones began to recede, but then a new battle began. Boredom! Now I will fully admit that I’m somewhat of a homebody. I could spend a perfectly nice day lounging on my couch, blogging and watching an Americas Next Top Model marathon. But all of a sudden when it became my norm day in and day out? I needed to GET. OUT.
Every day I’d try to find more things to return to Babies R Us (so many things we didn’t need!), or trips to Target, food shopping, doctor appointments, etc. Just to get out of the house and be amongst the masses.
And at some points I also began to resent my husband for things that were irrational and unwarranted. I resented him for going to work every day and leaving me at home. And then I resented him for going to the gym or taking time to work out, even though I wanted him to continue down the healthy road that he had been working so hard to stay on. Ridiculous, right? I know.
Here I am now, about two weeks away from returning to work (part time in the office until September), and I find myself looking forward to going back. REALLY looking forward to it in fact. And well, that makes me feel bad – shouldn’t I want to stay home with my child? Shouldn’t I want to not want to go back to work at all? Does this make me a bad mother?
After thinking about it, the answer is no. I’m not a bad mother because I am looking forward to returning to my job. I know a ton of stay at home mothers, and I think they are amazing for what they do. That’s the choice they made for themselves, and they’re lucky to be able to do it. The choice I’m making for myself (partially for financial reasons, I can’t lie) is to return to work, and continue down my career path.
I do not believe that staying at home versus working full time makes a mother any better at caring for her child. I went to daycare when I was little and I don’t think that my relationship with my parents, especially my mom, suffered at all. Do I hold it against my mom that she went back to work, while my aunts stayed home with my cousins until they were school age? Not in the least.
I can go back to work and still be the best parent that I have the ability to be. I hope other new moms out there can allow themselves to feel the same way.
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I think this is something you probably often can’t know for sure until you’re actually in the situation. I used to think there’s no way I could ever stay home with kids. Now I’m starting to think it might actually not be too bad, but I’d definitely need time for adult things and I’d want to freelance a little bit. But who knows – I might quickly realise after a couple of days that I’m not cut out for being with an infant that can’t talk, all day, every day. I have pretty much no experience with kids to date, so I probably can’t judge very well at the moment.
Yeah it’s definitely hard to know until you’re in the situation. You’ll only know for sure once it’s happening to you! Thanks for the comment
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