I worked after my first child was born and until the due date of number two, then returned to work after a 12 week maternity leave but became pretty quickly pregnant again. When #3 was born it stopped making sense for me to work. My ex-husband owned a business (we owned it, but he ran it), but was the one to have to take time off when the kids were sick because my low-paying job at a Jenny Craig Weight Loss Center didn’t allow for very much flexibility at all. So I pulled out of the workforce.
I loved it. I had four little delights and I delighted in mothering them. I delighted in singing songs and reading to them and tickling them and telling them things when they had questions. As they got older we had words of the week (a “hobbledehoy” is a disreputable youth and a “slugabed” won’t get up in the morning) and then when I got a blackboard and a dictionary of quotations for my birthday one year, quotes of the week (or 3 months; those were busy times). When my youngest was in second grade I realized that I was not going to be okay in the long term if I didn’t make changes, worrying the same worries @BethB does. How can they be the center of my world when I am no longer the center of theirs? So back to school I went, which was perfect for the in-between years, when they needed me to be flexible in case they were sick or had a concert during the day.
Being home with school-age children messed with me in terms of purpose, and I can remember the exact moment I knew I needed either a job or to finish college. I was talking to my husband in the kitchen and he was eating a pretzel. A piece of it broke off and fell, and we both watched it do so. After he finished whatever he was saying, he walked away, stepping on the pretzel as he went. I didn’t get angry or resentful that time. I just thought “I need to be doing things that are more important than a crushed pretzel. I need to have bigger things to think about. I can’t keep being someone who cleans up after five people who have better things to do than clean.”
It’s worked out well. Now I encourage and teach and nurture people for a living. They get the quotes that I still love to share. And my kids get a mom who is available, but not clingy or needy. In fact, I worry that I’m TOO emotionally self-sufficient now.
So anyway, I know the conversation has moved on, but I thought I’d add my view. I can see @Frank_C’s irritation with the SAHM lunch set, but I think for me it’s more bewildering than annoying that someone wants to live such a shallow life. I have a friend from when my kids were little whose husband cheated on her, which ended the marriage (he’s with the woman still). We were SAHMs together. She has a teaching degree, but has not renewed her license, instead trying to do side-hustle type jobs. SAHM jobs, basically. There are no pics of her online and she lives in Texas, so I don’t know what she looks like now, but back then she was not at all in shape, but wants to “get my wellness coaching business off the ground.” This is years now, and basically she’s into essential oils. We talk every couple of years, and every couple of years I listen and boggle that she can let herself fall from affluence into poverty and feel A) okay with it, and B) like it’s still the ex-husband’s fault, 10+ years post-divorce. Where is your PRIDE? Where is your GRIT?
All of that said, however, I feel ready today to take a stab at being a SAHM who lunches. Because I’m sick of the alarm clock and it all interferes with my workout schedule. I would get a lot more steps without all this JOB bullshit!
