Our Blog of the Week this week is by Sonya at Ramblings of a Formerly Rock ‘n’ Roll Mum. Sonya describes her blog as being ‘about family, babies, children, sleep, music, weight loss, cake, chocolate, sci-fi, green day, punk rock, women, feminisim, nonsense.’ Which all sounds pretty good to us! This particular post is about the value of being a stay at home mum and made us feel very glad that we are not alone with our swirl of mothering emotions.
————————————————————————————————————————–
Being a stay at home parent is both important and not. To Syd I am the most important person in the world. To the world I am an insignificant non-financially-contributing dullard. To me I am somewhere in between.
I love my toddler. But I have weeks where I find it hard to cope with the small-ness of my domain. I tire of it being my job to make sure there is bread in the bread bin, or clean pants in the drawer. I cannot always summon up enthusiasm for the daily ‘what to make for dinner’ trip to the shops.
I am not even always good at the Mum bit. I have days where we draw and go to the park, and do puzzles and play with stickers and everything is lovely. I have days where I do the above, but resent it as I did it all the day before too. I have days where I let the telly do too much of my job while I plod about on twitter, desperate for adult company. Overall I do OK, but I am not perfect at all.
Image: Netmums
I usually put my own needs last. I am happy for my other half to have lie-ins, nights out and time for hobbies as he works hard all week, and I do not resent it even a tiny bit, but I rarely take time out for myself. When I do – I feel guilty, like I don’t deserve it as I have been on the doing nothing all week anyway. But I haven’t been doing nothing, looking after a toddler is hard work, not to mention the jobs I do in the caring for the bigger two as well, and I do deserve some time to myself, so why am I so rubbish at taking it? I rarely get to watch a film, I am trying harder with reading books, I haven’t had a night out for almost 2 months. I wonder why it is that even taking half an hour for a bath can make me feel guilty?
Is it because deep down even I don’t value being a stay at home mum highly enough? I should, and certainly I rant about others not giving the role the respect it is due, but I clearly don’t place proper value on it myself or I would see that I am entitled to a little time off- a tea break, a lunch break or a days holiday. I guess the fact that I live in a world where we so often are dismissed as ‘just a mum’, has resulted in part of my brain believing that it isn’t enough. I MUST stop feeling like that. It is among the MOST important things you can do with your time. It is NOT time off, it is NOT an easy option. It is a hard but rewarding job, with really long hours and really shit pay.
Image:Netmums
Being a Mum is a monotonous, joy-filled, exhausting, beautiful, busy, funny, restrictive yet all-encompassing labour of love. I mostly love it, but labour it is, and slave labour at that, an unpaid skivvy to a tiny and remarkable tyrant! And I am worn out by it. This is both my favourite age, and my least favourite. I know from my older two that the actual physical job of parenting gets easier as they grow. They sleep, they don’t attempt to throw themselves off a furniture every 5 minutes, they eat their food by themselves, but they don’t fit in my lap the same way, they don’t snuggle up to me to sleep, they don’t talk cute toddler gibberish. They are just as precious but far more separate.
I look forward to re-gaining some freedom, but I will miss these baby/toddler days when they are gone. I must also remember that sometimes it takes a little distance to appreciate what you have, an afternoon away from Syd sees me missing him hugely and scurrying home for a squeeze. I mustn’t look on it as skiving, or feel guilty for needing a break, but look upon it as a chance to refuel myself ready to do some more enthusiastic parenting on my return. And most importantly I must respect the value of what I do.
———————————————————————————————————————
Do you think you are valuable? What price would you put on being a stay at home mother?
We’d love to see your comments below, or why not pop over to the coffeehouse and see what other parenting issues people are talking about?
You hit the nail on the head!
Being a mum is so hard guilt & feelings if being undervalued go hand in hand. But these precious years are so fleeting we really need to give ourselves a break enjoy keep questing for the balance via we are worth it and so are they <3
Cannot believe I missed out biscuits when I wrote that list. And I included women and feminism, and Green Day and Puck Rock? It must have been tautological tuesday, or i was drunk! Thank you very much for choosing this as your blog of the week, am very proud!
This is exactly me. I feel the same all the way.
A very well written blog – I too have days when I struggle with my ‘importance’ but I have to remember that it’s not about me, but moreso the needs of my toddler. Even though he can’t fully express it (and besides, having me around is all he knows in his world), I know I’m doing the world of difference in his little world. Putting my needs on hold for a while to shape his future is a very worthy sacrifice
Come on mums and/or dads, pat yourselves on the back because you’re all doing a fantastic job xxx
I love this blog! It is exactly how I feel. My son is 4 1/2 & in reception at school and my dd is just one & I am at home with her full time. I feel privileged in this day & age to have a husband earning enough to allow me to stay at home with my daughter, pick my son up from school, make the most of every moment with them, not have to stress about child care in the holidays etc etc.
I think I call myself ‘just a mum’ because I feel guilty for being able to stay at home. I met up with my mummy friends most of whom went back to work, how they juggle work, looking after the children finding enough energy to to those special activities fun is beyond me. Many don’t have enough time to complete their work in their part time hours so they get home, cook, tidy up, get the kids to bed & then log back on to do more work from home in the evening. How my friends don’t have nervous breakdowns I’ll never know! So they are doing a lot of the things I do on daily basis and somehow manage to fit work in too. Am I right in thinking that stay at home mums are now the minority? I watched a program about mary berry last night & she was in the minority of working mums in her generation & felt like she had to justify working – i guess if what you are doing is not the norm then we feel the need to justify whether negatively or positively. At least with me being at home we do get quality family time at the weekend, I work hard in the week to get my cleaning / shopping done & when the house gets trashed over the weekend I try not to worry about it too much & keep thinking I’ll get it sorted next week. I do think my job is important. I try to make sure I do as much of the running of the house so as my husband doesn’t have that to deal with to hopefully limiting some of his stress and I am so glad my babies get 24/7 one on on time. Although nurseries & crèches do an amazing job of caring for our children I cannot believe that it is better for our children than what nature intended. I do wish I could have a lie in occasionally & not have to get up in the middle of freezing cold nights to pop a bottle in dds mouth – but that’s the lifestyle change you sign up for when you choose to have children whether you work or not, I’m glad I don’t have to manage both!
I didn’t always feel this positive, I begrudged the day to day monotony cleaning, cooking etc but my husband put it into prospective when he said that a number of his tasks are repetive, he doesn’t want to do some of them but they have to be done & there’s a whole lot more stress involved. It really helped me get my head around that although caring for children & keeping a house is hard, it’s not stressful like dealing with big problems at work is & there is no job unless you are very lucky(!) where you are guaranteed it will make you laugh & smile at least once an hour!
I do resent not having financial independence. I hate buying my husband presents because its his money (not really a present!) he literally has to force me to book my hair cuts & would love to just have a bit of cash to treat me and the children or pay for a family holiday – but like you say this will come in time! I am also nervous about the thought of returning to work after being out of the work place for what will probably end up being around 8 years! Will I be employable? What type of job should I apply for – I will cross that bridge when I get to it!
Thank you! Fell exactly the same. xx
That should read feel!
Dear Sonya,
I am ‘giving up’ my London job to look after my 2 year old child. I appreciate the feelings of value(lessness) that go along with beign a stay at home mum. Since I handed in my notice I have been asked (by about 30 people) ‘what are your plans’ ‘do you have another job to go to’ ‘we are shocked you are leaving’. I might as well be dropping off the edge of the planet. Why do I feel so rubbish? I have worked hard to get to a position where I could have a child and look after them. I worked all through my pregnancy and returned to work so that I would have enough savings not to scrimp off my husband. It scares me – yes scares me – the idea of the people around me thinking I have given up. I found myself lying, saying ‘I’m having a career change’ ‘taking up a course’ ‘thinking of starting up on my own’ – thinking about it yes, intention of doing anything very slim. I am trying not to absorb those comments and (percieved?) feelings towards me. Thank you for your insights – they give me faith that my new career choice is anything but giving up.
Very honest account of my own day to day feelings. As much as I tell everyone I love my role as a sahm and it should be more valued in society, I feel guilty spending any time or money on myself. It’s like I don’t deserve to be a person other than mother. Lucky my other half doesn’t agree and has given me valentines chocs early so I can enjoy a bath and a film tonight x
I think we put so much pressure on being perfect and when you have less to do work wise it is easy to over think. She is right through we are not perfect but at least we can say we have been there to see all the snot, tears and dirty nappies and not pay someone else to do a job that really is our own. We will never get time back and money comes and goes.
In total agreement.
My last child has just started school and I still only work one or two days a week at my paid job. I find my days are so busy with cooking, cleaning, food shopping, tidying, washing, preparing, taking the 3 kids to various appointments – 2 to speech therapy, 2 to chiropractor appointments, my eldest has special needs so I attend a course seeing as there is no course available for him to attend at the moment .. and yet I have heard so many people say to me ‘oh well you don’t work’, and if I forget something my husband says ‘well why haven’t you done it, you only work 2 days?’ I sometimes don’t value my own job I think just because I don’t get pay I don’t work and yet I am still running up and down stairs to kids cries all night, hanging washing and putting away until late evening and my Sundays are spent preparing for school the next day. And I feel guilty when I sit and watch daytime tv while I eat my lunch or buy myself some clothes or lunch out because I am spending someone elses money and its not on kids shoes or clothes! Oh why do we feel so guilty, it’s a fantastic job, an important job, there is nothing better than being with our childen and if we enjoy it why can’t we shake the guilt?
It does sound a lot like how I feel but I do not feel guilty for being a mum. It would be nice to have time to myself but what would I do with it? I am lucky my partner helps me and even lets me have the lying’s. For me personally, I don’t think it will make a difference as my LO gets older, It is a lonely life as their is only me and my LO (and my partner when he is not at work)
Being a mum is the most important job in the world. You should not feel guilty about not earning money, think of it this way, because you are doing it (and are very good at it), your husband/partner doesn’t have to give up their job. In a way you are facilitating their employment and sacrificing lots of things (career, social life, financial independence) and you should be compensated for it.
I think the majority of SAHM feel the same way. There is this constant feeling of guilt by not working or earning money but looking after kids is a job by itself and the most rewarding job you can ever have. Its once in a lifetime experience of raising your own kids your own way! Its teaching them the values and meanings in life for them to make their own decisions one day. Yes we get tiered, grumpy, angry at times but that little smile, hug or kiss from your little one should make all your day worthwhile. Think of all the ladies out there struggling to conceive and to be called Mum. Enjoy time with your little ones and if you ever fancy having some adult conversation, come along to some of Kensington Mums events, thats exactly the reason why I set it up…To create this time for Mum and let you not forget that you are all More than Just a Mum! Thanks for this great post Sonya!