I usually try and stay out of the debate of career vs. at home moms. When I was a single mom, I didn’t want to work outside my home, so I found a job that I was able to do in my home. The kids and I were not rich by any means, but the bills were paid, I was able to make all our meals from scratch, and I was always available for my kids day or night. One time when Bonnie was in junior high, she came home and gave me a hug and said “I am so glad you don’t work outside the home. Most of my friends never know what their moms are doing during the day. When I think of you while I am at school, I know you are at home and I can call you any time I want to.” That made me feel so good.
I know there are tons of women who wish like anything they could stay at home, but they can’t. My heart really goes out to them. I encourage them to keep looking for something they can do to make money from home. A big pay cut is well worth it, in my opinion. Besides, my daughter, Kym, sat down and figured out the expenses of her working vs. the expenses of her staying home and they actually save money with her staying home taking care of their 2 kids.
There are also women who really have no desire to stay at home. They are career minded and thrive on the pressure of working in the office world. I think it is great when these women have a husband that decides to work from home so one of the parents is home with the kids. I do believe one parent should be a stay at home parent when there are kids in the home.
What really angers me is when a feminist insists that any woman who stays at home is being held in a prison. They can not believe that there are women who actually love being full time moms/wives. They act like those of us who do enjoy being home have something wrong with us or we are stupid. This just grates me.
I loved being a full time mom. I went through the empty nest syndrome when my last child turned 16, I started crying over the day he was going to be moving out on his own 2 years before he did! I enjoyed every minute I had with my kids at home.
And now that I have an empty nest here, I love finally taking care of me – just me. I love the freedom of coming and going as we want, when we want. My life is centered around only us now and our needs, not little league practice schedules, youth group outings, or sitting up at night worrying about a teenager being on the dark roads with all the lunatic drivers out there. (Well, scratch that, I still ask my kids to call me when they make it to their home no matter the hour when I know they will be out on the roads at night!)
I am still a stay at home wife. I love being old fashioned in my homemaking. I don’t feel like I have missed anything from the business/work world by being home all these years.
When I got divorced 17 years ago, after being a stay at home mom for basically 14 years, I went to work in a doctor’s office. There I felt smothered, controlled, and a slave to the time clock and the office manager’s tantrums. It was horrible. I felt like I was in a prison all day because I could not even go outside to take a walk anytime I wanted. Office politics and I do not get along well at all. I am definitely an independent person. I am not a follower. I did not like being someone’s puppet, being told where I had to sit, what I had to do, when I had to be there, when I could eat, and even when I could go potty.
6 weeks into the job, one Saturday I marched in and handed over my uniforms and said “I’m done. Don’t call me, and I certainly won’t be calling you”. And I left. I know, I know… not a good thing should I need a job reference later on. But I did not plan to ever need a job reference again. I determined I would do whatever it took to earn an income from my home with me in charge. I didn’t even have a plan on what I was going to do, all I knew was working for someone else away from my home was not my cup of tea.
So I ran a daycare in my home next. The only good thing about that was - I was at home. I was still a slave to someone else though. I couldn’t believe the parents. I had only one good lady out of 5 parents. Everyone else thought they should be able to tell me what to do in my own home. One thought she shouldn’t pay a dime extra for stopping at the bar for a couple of hours after work before coming to get her kids. Another father developed a crush on me – and he had a wife, he was not single. The day he showed up at my door on a Sunday, alone, was the day I told him to find someone else to watch his kids. Yes, I do have a history of giving no notice it seems, but that is me. When I am done, I am done.
After 6 months of that I told all of them, except the good lady, to find another babysitter within 2 weeks. I kept watching Cody for a few more months and then Bonnie, my daughter, began watching him at his own home for about a year.
Next I hit the pavement looking for at home work. I thought about what skills I had and looked in those areas. I found a job sewing at home for a company that was in a town 45 minutes north of where I lived. I found out I loved that independence. Once a week I went to the company and returned the work I completed and picked up new orders and got my paycheck!! I worked at my own pace, my own hours - whenever I wanted. I fit my job around my kid’s and my life. All I had to do was get the work done before the next week rolled around.
The honeymoon with that job ended when I found out the owner was telling everyone he was seeing me. He wasn’t. I confronted him and of course he denied he had said that, then proceeded to tell me he had a twin brother and yadda, yadda, yadda. I remember thinking “Oh, great, there are two of you”!! I quit on the spot and told him to stay far away from me. Why me? I never asked for this. I never did anything to make him think I was even interested in him. It made me mad.
A few days later, I was at my eye doctor. The receptionist told me about another patient who had been there that morning. She managed a company that needed someone who could sew from home as the one they had needed to quit. I called her and I ended up working for that company for 7 years. I loved every minute of it. I quit when I moved from Iowa back to Southern California, and if there had been any way possible, I would’ve brought that job with me.
I want to encourage any mom who wants to be home instead of working to examine your budget. Many couples find that they are not making any more money with both working than if the wife stayed home full time. In fact, more often than not, they find it costs them more for the wife to work outside the home.
Happiness does not come from the things you can buy with a paycheck. It comes from contentment with what you are doing.
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