For the majority of my children’s lives, I have worked outside of the home. This past year, I had the opportunity to work from home full-time and I found myself going crazy! I began to lose sight of who I am. I then began to have the Mom guilt that being with my kids should have been identity enough, but for me personally, it wasn’t. I think in the social media world in which we live, we see all these amazing wonderful things about how being a Mom is enough and the greatest role ever but those of us who feel stir crazy end up feeling this unending guilt because we don’t feel complete.
After a year of feeling guilty and finding myself slowly losing my sanity, I looked into working outside of the home again. My biggest challenge with beginning the search was the fear of judgement. I knew what it felt like to be judged for working, but I feared others’ reactions when I told them I willingly wanted to go back. I will be honest: there were plenty of people who seemed to not understand my desire, but I was actually pleasantly surprised by how many people understood and supported me. I found that my biggest critics were from an “older generation”, and while some of the things I’ve been told have been hurtful, I have also started to accept that times have drastically changed.
At a family function, a much older person was talking to my husband and I about how life was going. As I told her about the family and work, she looked at my husband and said, “So you must raise the children then, since your wife is working.” In my head, all I saw was the color red, but my husband replied perfectly with, “No, my wife and I are partners in all things. We both work and we both parent.” Looking back at the conversation now, I can understand that this particular person really didn’t mean to offend me with her question, but rather, when she was raising children, it wasn’t common for both parents to be working. The world and parenting have changed drastically, and for the sake of my sanity, I had to acknowledge that people might look at me working through a different and older perspective. I am not, however, saying that the concept of being a SAHM is dead. There are many people who love being at home with their children in my generation, too!
In our social media society, you tend to see the best in people’s lives. With all the beautiful pictures of people with their children at home, it started to make me feel like I was missing out or that I was somehow less of a Mom than others. Over the year of working full-time and being with the kids full-time, I discovered that I made just as many memories with my kids as I did working out of the house, but I also slept less, was crankier, and showered maybe once a week. I had to do some real soul searching and discovered this perhaps wasn’t the best situation for me. With it not being the best for me personally, it meant that it wasn’t the best for me AND it wasn’t the best for my whole family overall. While I don’t always like the saying “Happy Wife, Happy Life” I can understand the concept that members of the family have to enjoy their life to give of themselves to everyone else. Being a Mom is a full-time job, no matter what, but kids need their parents at 100% and if your emotional stability isn’t there, for whatever reason, everyone will feel that impact.
Whether I am working full-time, part-time, in the home, out of the home, etc, my number 1 priority is my family. Personally, I have found that I can’t give them my all without filling my needs first. While, as a Mom, my first instinct is to feel guilty about that concept, I think it’s important to be ok with the fact that I have needs. It’s also a concept that I want my kids to see and emulate themselves. To do and be who we are, to take risks and be daring, life isn’t meant to be a struggle. For me it was a struggle being home 24/7, for others it’s a struggle to be at work 9-5 and away from the kids, whatever that struggle is, it is ok to stop and do what is best for you and ultimately what is best for your family.
