Confessions of a SAHM

My time as a full-time SAHM is coming to a close. An opportunity to help edit a community newspaper, as well as a teaching position at a local college have presented themselves, and I have seized them. As I transition into this new lifestyle, one with income potential and a dress code other than yoga pants before noon, I want to reflect on the experience of being a full-time caretaker of my daughter for the last eighteen months. The following is a pretty complete list of what I have learned as a Stay at Home Mother. I cannot speak to anyone else's experience, but I can confidently say that this has been the most surprising experience of my life.

- I was a SAHM 6 days a week and most nights for 18 months. My husband works 6 days a week and 1-2 overnights/week. This is just to offer a framework for how much facetime I have had with my daughter. - There is nothing that can prepare a person to go into work on a Tuesday, work a full day, come home that evening and have one's water break at 2 a.m. and to know that one would never go back to that same desk, to that same work, to that same life ever again.

- There is nothing that can prepare a person to usher in her role WHICH BEGAN FOR ME 44 HOURS LATER as a full-time caretaker of a person I had never met, one that doesn't speak or make eye contact, one that, in fact, needs everything done for her. There is nothing that can prepare a person for that radical transition that can literally happen overnight, but support, love, and a stocked freezer helped immensely.

- Breastfeeding was easy and enjoyable for me. I did it for 10 months and can only say that, for me, it was one of my favorite parts of being a SAHM.

- That said, during the first few months when I was feeding constantly, my body felt like it was going through some kind of cruel boot camp. It was cold outside, my boobs were leaking inside, and I had to rinse out cloth diapers all day. I don't miss that.

- There were many weeks in the first six months when I felt like I should be doing more.  I never knew what *more* looked like, but talking to other stay-at-home parents helped me get through those weeks of feeling sort of anonymous and unpurposeful.

- People will always find a way of unintentionally denigrating the role of SAHM. Usually they will ask you, "So, you just stay at home with her?" They usually mean, So, caring for your daughter is your full-time gig, right? But they usually put it in a way that is condescending. It doesn't bother me because I don't let it, especially as I am sure I asked the same questions once upon a time ago.

- As a SAHM, I became a library tramp. I can also tell you where there is a public restroom in every neighborhood of every city in our county.

- I also became a coffee addict. I was never much into coffee, but sometimes it seems like the only lovely little ministration that I offer myself on a daily basis, and that's probably kind of sad.

- Most of my disagreements with my husband revolve around Where He Puts Things. The most stressful moments of my day are not when Baby Girl falls and hurts herself or when she screams in her car seat when I am lost. The most distressing times are when the clutter content in our home is at a premium and I cannot find things, e.g. car keys, eyeglasses. I can exercise the patience of the saints all day, but it is that last Lego that I step on that makes me say, WHO WANTS TO DIE????

- I have never resented my child. I have resented the fact that her naps have not been long enough for me to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish.

- I was never a phone person until I became a mother. I used to stress that I had nothing to tell my parents when they called for our weekly phone chat, and now I am the one who is prolonging the conversation.

- Even since my daughter was very young, I have treated my job as SAHM very seriously, almost to the point of delusion. I have acted as if I was running a pre-school for one. When she was only a few months old and not very interactive, I kept us on a weekly schedule, with "field trips" planned for each day. I would tell myself that this was my job and I honestly think it helped to get through the monotony of those early infant months.

- Life is about choices, and yet this doesn't mean I don't need to be reminded of the choices I have made. Whenever I resented my husband because he got to leave the home to go to work, I have had to remind myself that this was a choice that we made and one that is not subject to reexamination right now.

- I now understand why people who stay at home all day can still have messy homes. You are not only "using" your house and all of its equipment all day, but in my case, I seriously feel punished, like some Cinderella whipping girl, whenever I have to do the dishes more than twice/day. I oftentimes have a sink full of dishes or a floor full of clutter because I have already cleaned it twice that day and there is no one to help me. I refuse to clean more because I feel that I am being punished unjustly. It's delusional, but it's how I feel.

- I have become a more deliberate money spender as a SAHM. I don't think it's hard to save money if you don't go to places where you will be tempted to spend money.

- Even though I haven't had an income, I feel very informed on our finances and make a point to see where our spending is for the month.

- Being a SAHM has been easy to the end that my husband has been incredibly supportive of me and has few expectations of when things get done in terms of cooking and housework. I do still feel guilty that he comes home and has to help with some cleaning, but he is awesome like that.

- The worst day of my life as a SAHM was during a snowstorm when both the baby and I were sick (could not keep an ounce of water down, throwing up, etc.) and my husband had to HAD to go to work. I called every person in town that I knew to come and assist me, but because of the snow storm, no one could come. It was a dark, desperate day and I really longed for family close by.

- Otherwise, I have enjoyed raising our little family on our own. I enjoy family visits on our turf or theirs, but I am not a person that takes assistance or advice very readily. I think as our daughter gets older, I will long to have family closer, but for now, it works for us.

- I do, however, have a group of friends in my neighborhood whose generosity is fierce and overwhelming at times. I could not have finished grad school nor be as capable as I am without them. They are such a blessing to me.

- Because I am with my daughter 6 days a week, I try to sit back on Saturdays when my husband is home, and let him take care of watching her at church. I've received some flack for this, as our church friends only see us once a week and think, based on that, that I am an uninvolved mother. This experience has taught me that we generally only see people through a very small portal, and we should remember this before we judge.

- My favorite things about being a SAHM have been: going to the pool in the early afternoons, taking countless stroller walks, mom n' tot yoga class at the YMCA, Friday morning pancakes at our neighborhood cafe with my mama friends, being able to take off for weeks at a time to visit family, freelance reporting from home, reading books with my daughter, being the first to hear her try out new words and phrases, getting to snuggle her whenever I want, working out at the gym and grocery shopping during non-peak hours.

- My least favorite parts about being a SAHM have been: the constant feeling of not being able to complete something, the constant feeling of not being more proactive in nurturing my daughter's development, missing that adult interaction, living with clutter.

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Gonna miss seeing these kats as much as I do now...