children

[mommydaze]

There is this richness that I feel having multiple children. When it was just patrick and I it was like we lived in this bubble completely focused on each other. Tinged with constant paranoia of something bad happening because he was my everything and I couldn't imagine living without him. Now there is this love that is generated and is

Comments

[mommydaze]

For a long time I didn't really enjoy it either. It was something I did independent of my feelings. Eventually I began to enjoy it and finally found much fulfillment there. I found that much of it had to do with my mindset. Once I accepted that it was my job and role in life and focused on what was infront of me rather than thinking about what might be, things changed. But I always had the motivation of believing it was the right thing and should only be done otherwise under extreme necessity.

That may have quite a bit with how I was raised. One side of the family (my dad's) everyone pushed strongly that mothers should stay home and the other (my mom's) all the mothers worked. I saw a lot of the pitfalls that happen to kids when one parent isn't there all day (even once kids are school age), including things that happened to me. I was always so jealous of my cousins whose moms were there all the time. Of course later in high school I enjoyed it, but I also got in quite a bit of trouble because I knew no adults would be there to supervise until evening.

Then I taught preschool after college. And that was the final straw and, based on what I saw there, I swore I would do whatever necessary to be home with my kids. Now I watch my stepkids and all the negative ways their lives changed when their mom began working, even thought they are older and in school.

There is still part of me that wants more. I think of jobs and careers I could do, ways I could help others and so on. That is sometimes hard. But I remind myself that there is always someone else who can be a nurse or fill those other jobs, but that I am the only person who can be my children's mother.

[ladybluestar]

You make a very good point and I am happy that you have found fulfillment.

The reasons that you state are part of the reason why I stay home, very few reasons would justify me being gone and having to put the kids into daycare.

While I was growing up, my mom worked parttime and my dad, fulltime. So again, that has colored my ideals. I don't think that I would want to work fulltime, though it is also helps knowing that my husband has a great deal of flexibility with his job and could easily be there when the kids get home from school.

I don't take offense to your reasons, no concerns there.