I realized something very interesting while walking recently with a friend I have known for 2/3 of my 35 years. He is a wonderful person, someone kind and hard working that deserves only the best in life. Still single, he has a lot to offer and I look forward to meeting the lucky lady who will end up with him someday.
In any event, many years ago we used to walk all of the time and talk at length about life, love and the pursuit of happiness. We rarely see each other more than once or twice a year these days but I will always consider him to be a dear friend.
He caught me up on everything happening right now in his career (exciting stuff!) and I caught him up on my life as a stay-at-home mother of three.
"Well, what about YOU?" he asked. "What are YOU into these days? Outside of the family?"
It was a fair question, and a very sweet one. It is always so nice to have a person genuinely care and want to know what your dreams and feelings are - apart from the day to day grind.
"Well," I answered, "The truth is, there really IS no me right now. The kids are pretty much my life ~ taking care of them takes a lot of time and energy."
"That's too bad," he responded, and I could tell that he sincerely felt sorry to hear it. He fell silent for a time.
My friend was not judging me, nor was he pitying me. I think he was surprised or maybe a little saddened to hear that a person with my intelligence and potential wasn't doing 'more' with my time and talent. After all, he has known me since I was a scrawny kid with stars in my eyes dreaming of the Peace Corps, international trade law, politics and running for president someday. LOL!
Sometimes I feel that way too, a little bit amazed that vast parts of me which were once so important have simply fallen away.
I've now reflected on our conversation at length and come up with this cliched epiphany: Without meaning to, we are often drawn to the type of life that we grew up with and to emulating the role models that we looked up to as children.
My friend was raised by a phenomenal woman who managed to have a fantastic career while raising her two kids. His elder sister is now also a phenomenal woman who is a college professor while raising her son. These are strong, capable, loving, career-minded women. I realize now, in reflecting on our conversation, that for him the ideal woman or mother would be a motivated and successful career woman, giving her child a great example to look up to.
I myself was raised by a phenomenal woman who ended her career and stayed at home throughout my childhood in order to raise me, take care of my father, and work on projects like writing, sewing, painting and crafting on the side. My mother was and is to this day a brilliant woman... and I remember as a child bemoaning her fate. "How did you end up a stay at home mother when you have so much potential?" I would ask her, and I really meant it. I swore that I would not end up that way.
The irony is, even though I prepared my brain and my resume for a rich and rewarding career in the world, my heart is really at home. I love the life of a stay at home mother, where my children take precedence over just about everything. I don't know how to explain to anyone without children how much your priorities shift when you have a baby (or three) and that suddenly nothing really matters except whether they are healthy and reasonably happy.
I don't really feel like I have sacrificed the best of myself to be their mother. I really feel like I have *become* the best of myself as their mother. I am so much less selfish and egotistical than I used to be. Life has humbled me to the point where I am simply grateful for a day in which no-one is sick and my children get along with each other.
I have read a lot of books and essays written by mothers, for mothers, about the tension of stay-at-home motherhood vs. career motherhood. I have personally tried it both ways, first working 60 hours a week from the time my eldest child was 6 weeks old until he was 18 months old. Then staying at home for the past four years.
For me, hands down, staying at home is the way to go. While working I was a distracted mother, a frustrated mother. I always wanted my child to be quiet so I could get my grading done, to nap so I could clean the house. I wanted him to be less of a burden so I could concentrate on my "real" work. Is it any wonder that after a year and a half of this, he felt closer to our nanny than he did to me?
The sacrifice at home wasn't reciprocated with glory and fabulousness on the work front. I worked hard but found myself falling behind the childless people at work who didn't have evening and weekend responsibilities. I fell asleep at my desk in my office, so tired from awakening every two hours to feed my child. I was curt and caustic with my husband because he was the one person I knew I could let it all hang out with, and he would not leave or abandon me.
When I finally quit that job I was replaced quickly and with great ease, by someone greatly skilled and educated. It turned out (as I know I have mentioned before) that I was entirely replaceable on the work front.
However, at home I am irreplaceable. Even were something to happen to me (death, divorce, etc.) and my husband were to remarry, there is NO ONE in the world that will ever be my children's mother but me.
I am their mother. They are my kids. There is no job, no achievement, no dream that could ever possibly be bigger than that.
While talking with my friend I also realized that we gravitate toward what we are comfortable with and accustomed to. My husband (who has a brilliant and capable mother who was actually a dean of four different departments at our local college) experienced a childhood with a mother who stayed at home with his siblings and him until he was 16 years old. She went back to work when his little sister was eight, and then kicked some serious butt in the workplace.
So my man is more comfortable with a wife that stays home and puts the kids first, because that is what he grew up with.
Just as I am more comfortable BEING a wife that stays home and puts our kids first, because that is what I grew up with.
In this way, we are very well matched.
My friend on the other hand will probably find and thrive with a wife who feels comfortable as a working mother. This is what he grew up with, and what he feels most comfortable with. I'm sure she'll be sensational, and that I'll love hearing about her work.
I learned something on our walk, which is that my choices in motherhood may alter the way people see me. Those who believe in the virtue of staying at home will admire my choice and understand its crucial importance to me, and those who believe in the virtue of working may think I am wasting myself and will probably encourage me to reconsider professional opportunities.
In the end, both routes are equally worthy and all mothers are doing the best they can. Lots of mothers don't even have the option of whether to stay at home or work. I am so blessed to have the choice.
Staying at home with my three kids just happens to be ~ for now ~ the right path for me.
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