Stay At Home Moms (and dads) Rock

This was originally written on Tuesday, April 7, 2009:

Okay, three 4-hr days are too much for me!

[To bring anyone up to date: On March 24, 2009 I decided I was ready to get a babysitter for the first time for my 11 month old. He'd never been with "a stranger" for even a sec, but thankfully the sitter is AWESOME - she's had an at-home daycare for 26 years and raised 7 of her own children in a beautiful house just 5 minutes from my neighborhood. She was fine with my son only being there 8 hrs a week (two 4 hr days), which was just enough time for me to have a break to catch up on life outside of being a stay at home mom. His first 4 days went "better than average" but he still cried off & on. (You can read about those days in my posts, Logan's First Day and All Kinds Of Stuff and 11.5 Months Old and Adjusted.) In the last post, I said that this week & next Logan would go three half-days a week (so 12 hrs total) to see if he'd adjust quicker. He did! Both yesterday & today he never shed one tear or acted the least bit phased because I can tell he loves his sitter and the other kids & toys. Not only has it been great for him (and he's better behaved at home because he's not as bored), but also for me because now I have more energy. I've always loved being a stay at home mom (how could I not, my son is the best!!!), but I realized when he was ten months old that I could easily stop loving it if I didn't take some moments to myself. Even though he's easy-going, he's still a very active, constantly-wanting stimulation almost 12-month-old.]

In my post, 10.5 Months Old, when I wrote about how each mother should do what's best for them as far as how to be the best mother (whether that's work full-time, part-time, or stay at home - and sometimes there is no choice, such as for financial reasons), obviously what is best for any child is when a parent can be the best staying at home with them. This goes for stay at home dads as well because they are equally important! (I don't think it matters who is the one to do it, probably whatever works best financially.) Either parent who is healthy, stable, and secure will be a stronger influence helping their child to be that way if the parent is around the child more than anyone else. It does not make sense to think that if both parents spend more time at work than with their children that they are the biggest influence and that daycare isn't raising their children. That's why stay at home mom and dads rock! Yeay for raising our children!

Also, Logan needs me at this age & enjoys me, so taking two days in a row this week about killed me. Even after his great day yesterday, I sobbed worse this morning than I did the very first time I dropped him off (to be honest I never cried the other three days he went).

Maybe it's because I had a nightmare that woke me up this morning. . .for some reason I "had" to give Logan up for adoption. It was real quick, I just handed him over to another couple and then I was given another baby in his place. I was crying and saying, "I don't want another baby, I want MY baby! I want Logan! How can I possibly never see him again?!" (OMG, I'm tearing up right now) When I woke up I wanted to go into his room and hold him but I knew that would wake him up.

I'm so glad I don't HAVE to send him to daycare because, just like it didn't fit for me to not get a break at all each week, it definitely doesn't fit for me to take him any more than 8 hrs a week. I just didn't feel like I got to spend enough time with him yesterday, even though he was here from noon on! I missed my little guy!

Joe had to work 'til 7 pm last night and he said it was awful only getting to see Logan for an hour (since Logan goes to bed at 8). So we BOTH found out what our limit is!

Joe's a terrific guy but I remember that a couple of months before our wedding, it came up that I was going to be a stay at home mom. I'm sure we had discussed it before in our 3 yrs of dating but he must have thought I meant just when our child was a newborn or something. (I don't blame him; I wrote in my post, All Kinds Of Stuff how my life in high school and college was centered around becoming a TV news reporter/anchor - until my first real job in that profession, lol. That's okay, though, because there's no way to be successful in the news business and take a break to be a stay at home mom, so it was never meant to be!) Here's how our conversation went:

Me: "No, I'm going to be a stay at home mom until all of our children are in school."

At that time I was planning on having three kids, all 4 years apart. (Now we're planning to have just two kids, three years apart.)

Hubby: "That's thirteen years! No, you're going to make at least $30K a year."

I was shocked he would say that because neither of us are money-obsessed, there are far more important things in life and he's always been a very understanding, supportive, considerate, warm-hearted guy when it comes to everything else! Plus, his job was going to be able to afford me to stay at home. But obviously he'd had in his mind a different picture of "us" than I did.

I remember looking at him with my mouth open because I didn't know where this magical number was coming from. At the time I worked in TV. In my first job I was making less than $20K! So apparently I was going to have to switch professions?

I told him that I guess we should call off our wedding because this was a decision I'd felt strongly and passionate about since I was a little girl (because my mom was a single mother who had to work long hours to support us, so I was raised at babysitter's houses and daycare centers). I was very serious -- by then our wedding was pretty much planned, but I was willing to cancel over this issue because we were talking about "the rest of our lives."

It helped that we were at his mom's house at the time and she had been a stay at home mom with him until he was in school, then worked part-time until retirement. It was kind of like an "oh" moment because he considers his childhood to be perfect, ideal, so if his parents did it, then so could we.

We didn't have to cancel our wedding and he never batted his eye about this subject again. . .which is good considering I actually quit my job BEFORE I had any children so that I COULD change professions and become a writer (which was always the best fit and my #1 passion, anyway). Now he prefers it this way because I'm happier and a better wife than when I worked in TV and even radio (despite radio being A LOT better than TV).

Even though I altered my plans in March (since I had thought pre-school would be my first days away from my children), this is how I always fantasized my future family when I was a little girl. I wanted the convential All-American life: a cozy house in the suburbs with a white fence, two dogs, and kids that were tucked into bed with smiles on their faces because they were happy and loved and knew they were thought to be "the bomb" by parents who loved each other forever. (None of that I had.) Sure, plenty of women who aren't stay at home moms attain this, but I don't think I could have. So I will never take being a SAHM for granted!