Stay at Home Mom

It's hard to be a Stay-at-Home-Mom (SAHM).  I've worked several jobs and this is the hardest, but also the most rewarding.  I know it sounds cliche, but it's true.  This is what I'm called to do.  I know it without a doubt and I wouldn't have it any other way.

The benefits of this job are endless and obvious.  So what are the difficulties?  My day never really begins or ends.  It's a 24-hour job.  If a child wakes in the middle of the night, I answer.  When the first child wakes in the morning, that's when my day begins (usually ... I've been spoiled by sleeping in lately).  There's no transition time.  I don't roll out of bed, shower, get dressed and put on make up, get in my car, and drive to work.  Work is here.  There's not really an end to the day; we put the kids to bed at 8:00 and we have some down time, Jeremy and me, but we're still at home, still on call.
There is a rhythm to our day and that's good for me.  We wake at 7:00 to get ready for school, kids are off with Jeremy by 8:00.  Because of the school day, our schedule is rather strict.  Maria naps from 10-11, has to be up by 11 in order to get a good afternoon nap because we must leave home by 3:15 to pick up the school children.  We eat lunch at noon, nappers are down by 12:30 or 1:00.  Up and out to school, come home, Jeremy's home at 6:30, we eat supper as a family, then do whatever homework is left, Maria goes down at 7:00, then baths, into PJs, and in bed by 8:00.  We're in bed by midnight, sleep, wake, repeat.

Jeremy often says how much he loves weekends.  Me too.  It's great to have him home, but I'm still at work.  I haven't left.  My Saturday and Sunday are almost the same as Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday except I have help and I might be able to escape during naptime to be by myself for awhile.

Jeremy is very understanding when I announce that I need an hour to myself and then take off for awhile.  Sometimes I get a coffee and just drive and listen to music (the Sienna has a nice sound system), sometimes I go to the store and just wander around.  Sometimes I meet a girlfriend for coffee, second supper, or dessert.  He's understanding, but I don't think he really knows why my inner self is scrambling to get OUT of the house sometimes when he's so glad to finally be home. 

My mom--who stayed home with the first seven of us and worked weekends--commented that the problem is "the same four walls."  We stare at the same four walls every day and don't leave.  I don't leave my workplace at the end of my shift.  I stay there.  The work may have changed.  Now I'm doing laundry instead of changing diapers, but I'm still at work. The problem is more pronounced in the winter when it's necessary to truly stay at home. 

Now I can look at this one of two ways: I never have to leave home or I never get to leave home.  I also say that neither of these statements are completely true.  I can stay home if I want to, but there are playdates with my girlfriends, trips to the parks, lakes, zoos, and grandparents' home when the weather is nice.  It's because I have the luxury of not being forced to leave home (to go to work) that I can do all of these things when the weather is nice.  It's because I don't have to leave home that I get to see all my children's growth and achievements.  I've been there for their first smiles, first words, first steps, first day of school.  I do not take that for granted.

But there is the other side of being a SAHM that's not always pretty.  The 24-hours in the home thing that can become monotonous.  The work can become monotonous, even if it is loving servitude.  The hard part of SAHMotherhood was summed up by Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who was commenting on the spirit of a woman.

He said, "It is well known that women are capable of ... sustained sacrifice.  ...[M]oral endurance ... enables a woman to be heroic through the years, months, days and even seconds of her life, when the very repetitive monotony of her tasks wears down the spirit. Not only a woman's days, but her nights – not only her mind, but her body must share in the Calvary of motherhood. That is why women have a surer understanding of the doctrine of redemption then men have: they have come to associate the risk of death with life in childbirth, and to understand the sacrifice of self to another through the many months preceding it.

It's so true, isn't it?  We women have children over and over and know that pregnancy will be difficult, that childbirth will be difficult, and that the first weeks of nursing a newborn who doesn't sleep through the night will be difficult.  We do it anyway, and we do it again and again.  Why?  We love our family so deeply, love them with such fervor, that nothing else matters. 

So what does a SAHM do?  Inquiring minds want to know.  Well, we stay in our pajamas all day, sit on the couch and watch soap operas, and eat bon-bons.  Ha!  I'd need a nanny, a nurse, a maid, and a cook in order to do that!  A stay at home mom wears many hats.  The first and most important is wife.  What are some other hats?  Laundress, Cook, Nurse, Maid, Judge, Policeman, Firefighter, Banker, Errandress, Repairman, Pharmacist, Teacher, Storyteller, Nutritionist, Musician, Artist, Wildlife Specialist, Interior Decorator, Secretary, Psychologist, Tailor and Seamstress, and Spiritual Director.  A mother is all of those things and she is the heart of the home.

To be continued....