6.26.2017

Being a Stay-at-home Mom



I am a stay at home mom.  I've been a stay at home mom for six years.  It is, hands down, the most fulfilling career I've ever had.  In my life before kids I:
nannied,
baby-sat,
was an office assistant,
a real estate assistant,
a department store clerk,
a swim instructor,
a special education staff assistant,
and a behavioral education staff assistant.

Since 2011, our family of (then five and now) six has been living on a single (teachers') income.  It's not easy, but Josh and I agree that this is exactly where I need to be and we wouldn't trade my being home for any material possessions in the world.

I am passionate about being a stay-at-home mom & homemaker.  I encourage every woman with children to stay home if it's on their hearts.  Sure, there are sacrifices that must be made, but you won't regret it.  I never have.

That said, there are days where it's lonely here. At home.
Even though there is always at least one kid with me, the work I do is often invisible.
Bills paid, dishes rinsed, laundry folded...
But the next day or week or month, everything I do must be done again.
It's often thankless.
Worse than the thankless work, I often wonder if what I'm doing even has any real value.
I will harp on my kids (and harp and harp) and it may be months before I can see the seed I planted begin to sprout.  Some seeds may take decades to sprout. Others never will.

All I can do is hope.
Hope that I can love hard enough and encourage loud enough,
for them to know that they can do anything.
But to also let them know that they don't have to do everything.
There can be balance.
It can be freeing to know the things you don't like or aren't good at.
That can often be as important as knowing what you do like, what you are good at.

I am good at:
organizing
planning
making our house a home
and loving our children

I am not good at:
keeping my cool all the time
being flexible
consistently waking up before my kids
letting things go

Thankfully I am good at turning to Josh for help where I have weakness, and I am bad at leaving my children.  It puts me in the perfect position to be a stay-at-home mom.  It's what God made me for.


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2 comments:

Holly said...

You are doing a good job! I am happy being home too and think it's very important. But it is very hard, and so often I just need a break but there's no possible way to get one. Ha. And time does fly, so being in the moment is best (but hard!).

Tabitha Studer said...

YAS. hardest job I've ever had for sure. I always say when people ask me, "you don't work, right?" I say, "oh, I work. I don't get paid, but I work." hahahhaa, they almost always laugh and agree. I feel lucky too that Brandon says out loud and regularly that I have the harder job between the two of us (he's one of the good guys).

It's funny that after this past fall semester substitute teaching, it was so painfully obvious to us that right now the best place for me to be is home with the kids. I have daydreams about being back in the classroom, but with all these babies home yet, it's not even financially responsible for me to work! Plus, the biggest side of it being we only get them this little for so long. So we'll go without for this small window of time. I know there are a thousand ways to make a family and raise kids, all of which I support - and the way I'm doing it, although terribly lonely sometimes like you mentioned, feels definitely like the right way for our family.

Always so grateful to have you as a friend walking the same path in mommahood as me right now. xxoxo much love to you always!