I am reading Dr. Laura's book In Praise of Stay at Home Moms, and it's not because I am a fan. I have never listened to her talk and read only one other book by her. And even though I found that first book to be insightful, I was annoyed by some of the other things she said. I decided to pick this book after a friend highly, HIGHLY recommended it. It's a quick read, so I will be finished with it soon. But it did make me think about my own story.
When I had my daughter, it was a tough adjustment to the lack of sleep, the crying, the constant nursing and her general sensitivity to everything. I wasn't expecting anything to be easy, but it was harder than I thought. What's even harder is changing yourself so quickly after you have this baby. Don't argue that you have 9 months to prepare, you don't! You don't really know what it's like until you have that baby in your arms and are caring for it 24 hours a day. It's hard to imagine any of the thoughts, feelings, and physical adaptations your body makes until you have your own child.
My daughter loved to nurse, in fact she wasn't completely weaned until just after a year. We started early trying to give her a bottle of breastmilk (even tried formula & water just so it was different) so that after the 3.5 months I spent home with her, she could go to daycare while I went to my job working in a school. She wouldn't take a bottle from either grandma, from daddy or a willing friend. It was the daycare provider that we had so thoroughly interviewed, observed & researched that got her to take a bottle.
I had a couple of half days to put in before my full-time schedule started up, so this was the perfect time to try out our daycare lady. I left with her understanding I would call many times and if my daughter had not taken the bottle I would leave work, come back & nurse her & then return to work. I did that the first day. And each time I left her I was always so anxious and sad to leave her in someone else's care. I began to plan how when I was back to work FT, how I was going to run back every day to nurse her or did I just let her go all day without food and she would nurse all afternoon & night, like I had read about in some books.
The second day, she called me before I made my call to tell me that my daughter had taken the bottle from her. This was fantastic news. Soon I was back working full-time and I still struggled every day with dropping her off. I loved picking her up and seeing her get so excited to see me, but some days I cried all the way to work because I was so sad & anxious about leaving her. I didn't have anything to be anxious about; I just didn't want to miss ANYTHING. I still kept thinking that I should be staying home with her, that I should be the one taking care of her, that I should see EVERYTHING she does.
It helped that I loved my job and found it very rewarding. It also helped that since I worked in a school I was done and was quickly to daycare to pick her up by 3pm, unless there was some after-school meeting I was required to attend. I could pick my daughter up right after her nap and bring her home to nurse her. I don't know that I would have chosen to go back to work if I didn't love what I was doing so much and that I was picking her up 2 hours before most people even left their full-time work. I sat down one day and crunched the numbers, with picking her up at 3pm and having the rest of the afternoon & early evening with her and the time in the morning I had with her, I had exactly the same amount of waking hours with my child that the daycare lady got to spend with her, plus I had all weekend. I felt luckier than most parents, but it still weighed down on me that I was leaving her there.
Then changes in both my husbands jobs & mine forced decisions upon us. Whereas he chose to leave his job and find a new challenge, the program I worked in the school system was part of budget cuts and with that my job was cut out as well. As much as I loved my job, I loved being with my daughter more and the prospect of finding a new job I might not like as well and having to work longer hours was unacceptable to me. Since my husband was still looking for a new job, I approached him with the possibility of finding a job that required us to move out of state as long as I was able to stay at home with my daughter. He had been finding lots of job for his career field across the nation, just not all in one spot and only a few in our state.
While he did still continue to look in our state, he did eventually find a job out of state and we moved. We never had that discussion about what would happen if we stayed in state and in our house. Would he have expected me to find a job and put my wonderful, beautiful little girl back in daycare? I don't know how that discussion would have gone, but I would like to think it would have resulted in me still becoming a stay at home mom. I had already been home with her for a month while he pursued job opportunities and finally had decided on one place he wanted to work and a job he thought he would enjoy and learn from.
I would love to say everything just fell into place after that, but it didn't. I choose to look at that year as growth opportunities for both of us in our positions as a working dad and stay at home mom and growth and testing of our marriage. He had a job he loved and a company he really liked working for. I found this wonderful mom's group that I made some lifelong friends with and were very supportive. I didn't know how much I was going to need that group for daily support. We both grew and learned so much from that year, but that's all it was, a year.
During that year, we tried very hard to sell our house in the crumbling housing market without any success. Financially, we were tapped and we weren't sure how long we could support us paying for 2 residences, but we made the decision together that it was important for all of us to stay together wherever that was. We knew it was important for our daughter and our relationship that we see each other every day and not live in different states, because a job is just a job and a house is just a house and those will change through the years, but our family needs to stay together forever. We found a lot of support through friends and family, for which we still continue to be extremely grateful for. Eventually, my husband found a job back in our home state that would allow him to commute from the house we already owned and we moved back.
There really was no discussion about what I was going to do. We both knew that my staying home to raise my daughter was the best thing for our family. We saw firsthand how much more she seemed to thrive under my constant care. I felt I was becoming a better mother, woman, & wife through my experiences staying home. My husband was a better father, man, husband, employee as a result too. And my daughter had the opportunity to grow through the experiences I would give her every day and I would see first had how she would learn even the smallest of thing. Every minute of every day hasn't been easy, but nothing is ever “easy”.
As our daughter is quickly approaching her third birthday, after only having spent 9 months attending a daycare, and I am pregnant with our second child, I know I will continue to stay home with them. My daughter with start preschool this fall; it's two days a week for less than 3 hours each time. I don't think I could have her be gone much more than that. I still have so much more I want to teach her and experience with her before she starts school full-time, and even then I am not sure she or I will be ready for her to be in all-day kindergarten. I know it's two years away, but it's unbelievable how fast the last three years went.
In five years, I will have two kids in school all-day. Will I go back to work a traditional full-time job? I don't think I could. I anticipate obtaining some type of employment while they are in school, but I want to be home with them when they get home from school. I want to go to all their school activities. I want to be with them on school breaks. I want to spend summer with them. Can I really make that happen and still work while they are in school? I believe I can. I made some good educational and career decisions before I started a family and I believe those decisions will be very helpful towards any future part-time career plans I make that allow me to still be a stay at home mom. I am a stay at home mom, I am proud of it, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
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