I have been a stay at home mom for three and a half years.
Three and a half years. Wow, I’m thinking over that amount of time, as I write that out and even though it might not seem like a lot to some people, to me, it feels like a long time. It also makes me think back to the day I found out that I was pregnant. That was the day I chose to be a stay at home mom.
Why would I choose to do it? Why would I choose to stay home?
Why would I give up social interaction with adults and put myself through the challenges that come along with being a stay at home parent? Why would I turn my back on the 9 to 5 world that I had known since my sixteenth birthday? Why would I take such a giant leap into the unknown?
I made this choice because I was absolutely horrible at the 9 to 5 world. Before I had my son, I worked as the assistant manager of embroidery for a local branding firm and I was… terrible at it. I bet I was pretty close to getting fired more times than I knew. I was lucky to have a compassionate boss who would go to bat for me over and over again.
It’s hard. It’s hard making mistakes at your job, day in and day out. Even when you’re trying your hardest not to, you just keep making mistakes. It’s hard to think that your mind isn’t detail oriented, has a hard time focusing and would always rather be thinking of funny things like dogs in tuxedos than how many inches a Gatorade logo is. I was terrible at my job and knew that even if I switched jobs, it would be the same thing.
One day I understood that we are NOT all created equal and minds do function differently.
Mine is not a corporate mind. When did I gain this incredible knowledge? When my son was about six months old and I looked down at the floor and saw milk jugs made into toys, fingerprint art, dried beans made into shakers and realized, I LOVE this! My mind was at ease and my son was laughing and having a blast. My “boss” was happy and so was I. I really began to figure that there was nothing about that desk job that worked for me.
My mind was meant to be with children all day.
Some of us are meant to be adults. Those people are good at it. They like to dress the part and probably couldn’t wait to be older when they were children. They were in a rush to grow up. I was never that way. I hated the fact that I had to get older. I felt adulthood was forced on me. I hated that I had to try to fit in with something I never asked to be a part of, but with each year was being dragged tooth and nail into.
I was not meant for the adult world.
That’s not to say that I don’t crave adult conversation every day, because I do. I love having discussions about education, movies, the human condition and life. But the core of my mind is still too childlike to really fit completely in with the adult minded.
The other day, I ran into our living room at home where my husband was sitting after putting the kids to bed. I had this incredible epiphany while brushing my teeth and couldn’t wait to tell him.
“Oh my God! Do you know what I just realized? All of those fun and awesome holidays we did last year with the kids? We get to do those all over again!” He laughed and said, “I know! Isn’t it cool?” My husband and I are very like minded. I fell in love with him because of his vast fake vomit collection back in high school and neither of us have changed much since then.
