So How Do You Like It? – Part 1

So, how do you like being home full time? Do you miss work?”

That’s pretty much the beginning to most conversations lately.

I don’t miss working.

I don’t miss rushing around getting ready. I don’t miss being away from home so much.

Don’t get me wrong. Being home all day is tough work.

There is NO sitting around eating bon-bons, watching Oprah or even that clean of a house….

I remember thinking “Gee, if I was a SAHM (stay at home mom) my house would be SO much cleaner!” But that’s actually the exact opposite. It’s not so much about having the TIME to clean, but the fact is that someone is ALWAYS home. There is hardly any time at all where the house is empty. It isn’t like when you work and the house sits empty for 10-11 hours per day. There are 3 meals a day being prepared and who knows how many snacks being eaten. I mop my kitchen about 3-4 times a week and it still always looks like it needs mopped. Putting away toys is a losing battle. If he’s not napping or eating…he’s playing. As for deep cleaning…you know, scrubbing toilets and showers…ugh. When exactly is it that I have 4 solid uninterrupted hours to be up to my elbows in bleach and Tilex???? Riiiiight. Swish the toilet bowl…no more gross grow-y things…good enough…

I’m certainly less harried. I don’t feel so rushed and strained. I don’t feel like I’m being pulled in so many different directions. I feel more….FOCUSED. That doesn’t mean I feel all relaxed and blissful…um, you been to my house lately???

No, it just means that when I was working I always felt like I wasn’t being a very good mom nor was I being a very good employee. Too many places to be, not enough hours in the day. Now, I may not be the perfect mom and my house may not be as clean as I like, but I at least don’t feel so dang…RUSHED. I feel like I can at least focus on being a mom and wife…that doesn’t mean I do it brilliantly, but at least I can make an honest effort at it.

I think the best way to sum up how I felt when I worked full time (outside the house!), was that I felt like I was in perpetual SURVIVAL MODE. I was just trying to make it from one weekend to the next. One work day to the other.

Get up, get dressed, drop off at daycare, work all day, meetings, pick up, take a sick day, soothe screaming kid, make dinner, do dishes, sniff that load of laundry still in the washer…husband? oh what is that you wanted? HA! Silly boy…A for effort, but um…no.

Life was a crazy whirlwind. It was just. too. much. I wasn’t doing a good job at much of anything. I was just doing good enough. Just good enough to not have CPS called and just good enough to not get fired and maybe even work in a small raise.

I know lots of moms who thrive on working full time. I know moms who know that they are BETTER moms for working outside the home. I don’t think that being a SAHM is for everyone. I don’t think it’s the ONLY way to parent. I don’t think that choosing to work makes you a bad mom. Everyone is different. Everyone comes to the table with a very different set of circumstances. I just know that for ME and MY FAMILY…it wasn’t right.

I have lots more to say on this topic. I’ll just have to break it up into separate posts or it’ll be waaay too long.

Stay tuned.