Where do women fit into the working world after having children?
If you choose the path as that of a stay at home mom, not working outside of the home, you JUST stay at home with your kids. Some think you just play all day with your kids, watch your favorite shows and live the easy life. Others see that as not enough, you aren’t contributing, you’re lost, stuck, weird and out of tune with reality and day to day happenings.
All the while, you’re trying to give your children the best possible chance in life. You’re trying to teach, nourish, and protect them. You’re wanting to spend all the time you can with them while they are little because they grow so dang fast and because you don’t want someone else raising them.
On the other hand, if you choose to work outside of the home, you’re a bad mom. You’re not spending enough time with your kids. It’s wrong that you just had kids to put them in daycare. You’re not involved enough. You’re too tired to spend meaningful time with your kids from all your doings outside of the home.
Yet, you’re just trying to stay sane and feel whole. The only way you know how to do that aside from motherhood is by spending time outside of the home using your brain and socializing with other adults.
Where exactly do moms fit into society if we aren’t doing enough just staying home with our kids, yet we are also neglecting our calling as mothers by working outside of the home?
I have been fighting this very conundrum since I had my daughter Emberly five years ago.
See, as a mom, we are attached to these little ones from utero. They get to come to every prenatal appointment, they are the reason one has to pee in a cup a billion times during pregnancy.
From there they are attached to you literally if breastfeeding or in VERY close proximity being you’re their main food source.
Any doctor, dentist, beauty, church or other appointment has to be thought through as you now have an additional appendage.
Every outing, every meeting, drop off, pick up and work shift has to be planned and arranged because as the mom it’s in our nature and job description to protect and look after our children.
I appreciate my husband more than words for providing every day for our family and give him more credit for that then most in society would these days. He does it wonderfully but when he goes to work or has any type of appointment the kids are covered.
After I had Emberly I continued to work full time nights as a nurse until I quickly realized I was having a hard time keeping up with childrearing, house work, sleep etc.
A blessed soul on the unit I was working on at the time wanted to work more and so her and I switched our positions resulting in her working full time and I working 6 shifts a month instead of 12.
It was undoubtedly easier working less shifts but I had to worry about childcare. We don’t have immediate family in the area and so for a time Embers went to a friend we knew from church. She loved her and grew attached to her but this friend soon moved out of state.
Thankfully we soon found another amazing friend who watched Emberly for the remainder of the time I worked nights and for a time when I worked day shift. This friend too moved out of state.
Along came my second child, when I resumed working I had double the work with a still very young 2 year old and a 3 month old.
My son from the get go has been a mamas boy and had a hard time going to anyone else as a baby. I made the decision to stay at home with my kids and go PRN at my job only working once a month.
To this day I know it was the right decision for my kids but oh how I’ve lost myself in motherhood.