Staying Home, Part One

I am a Stay-at-Home Mom. It is something that was a foregone conclusion before Garrett and Drew were even imagined. Jim and I both had the gift of having our moms home with us as we grew, and never questioned that we wanted the same for any kids we would have. Yet sometimes, especially lately, I wonder if it's worth it. For the boys. For me. Or are the reasons we decided to do it, our hopes for the boys, balanced out or more by the unexpected wear it has placed on me, which in turn is transferred to the boys? All three of them.

I often feel like a different person than I was before. I know how I want to parent Garrett and Drew. Bridging the gap between that knowledge and reality is another story: so much more than I would care to admit, I have become instead a cranky, impatient and yelling person who struggles almost daily not to yearn for "how it used to be"; for a break, for some sanity and an adult conversation. Only to feel chastened to fail to appreciate the gift I have in sharing so much of the boys' lives. Wondering why it should be so hard sometimes, this job of mine? And how is it that other mothers seem to have it so much more together when my reality most often resembles a roller coaster?

I recently read that researchers have "uncovered evidence that full-time homemakers experience higher levels of psychological distress than working women who also have families. Apparently, multiple roles may be stressful, but they can also lead to richer, more satisfying lives." So would we have been better off if we had chosen to deliver the boys to day care and have me go off to work? Would I be a calmer, more satisfied mother and would the boys be better for it than having more time with me, yet having me be less able to care for them the way I strive to? Why is it that being a homemaker - a Stay-at-Home Mom - in our society would create greater psychological distress than being a woman facing the hands-down difficult task of juggling work outside of as well as within the home?

Being a Stay-at-Home Mom in our time and society is a strange, and strangely invisible position to occupy. The role is held at once as a noble pursuit and as something to feel vaguely ashamed of. Even me, who feels strongly about staying home with Drew and Garrett: when I'm asked what I do, I instantly assume an apologetic stance and sort of mumble that I stay home with my boys, and attempt to move on to other topics and out of the awkward fog that surrounds that line of conversation. Unless of course it happens to be another Stay-at-Home Mom I'm talking to, in which case the fog clears and some sort of mutual understanding is formed.

How is it that there is this dichotomy? It seems to be that those who don't choose to, or are unable to stay home with their kids often hold it up as an ideal, and yet there is an expectation that any woman who is worth her salt only chooses to be a Stay-at-Home Mom "in the meantime". That as soon as the kids are in school, she will surely return to her career. How many times have I had the "what do you do" conversation resolved when the questioner learns that Drew and Garrett are only 3. Perhaps it is that you can't assign a dollar figure to the work (though it has been attempted), so it doesn't fit nicely into society's classification system. Or perhaps it is because while the idealized version of staying home with your kids is seen as noble and worthwhile, when it comes down to it, the actual daily work of it is of much lower status: the jobs referenced in figuring the salary for a Stay-at-Home Mom were by and large tasks that are not given great worth in our society (rightly or not). Perhaps it is too still too uncomfortably associated with a time when women were not given the choice of what path to take in their lives as mothers.

In any case, it has left the path of choosing to stay home with the kids in a bit of a limbo, with a vague sense of unease in a role that receives mixed messages from society, is not well understood by many, and perhaps not well supported or explored by many in the midst of it, to boot (because really, twin three year old boys do not lend themselves to times of quiet reflection readily. Well, at all, really.).

Yet when it comes down to it, I am stubborn and hold tight to the belief that it is a good path and one I want to continue walking, and to the hope that it is worth it and that when Drew and Garrett are older they will see it as a gift as well. So then what does that mean as I live with not just the joys but also the wear of the role? How can I create a "richer, more satisfying" life that will benefit myself, and also the boys? That is one thing I'm thinking about these days. It is a goal, one of many on this journey.