After my ever so slightly gloomy post from the weekend I thought I would check in and say that I am feeling much better again. My negative head is back in it’s box! I am in a really lucky position to be a stay at home mum and I know that, but I guess we all wonder what we are doing with our lives sometimes. Being a stay at home mum is what I want to be right now, but I guess it isn’t what I want forever. I know that once the little ones are older that I will want to do something or go back to work, of some kind or another! But I would like this to fit around my family life. We want to have another baby in the next year or two so I am going to be at home for a while longer but I am also starting to think about what I would like to do with my life after this.
For me, being a stay at home mum is really important. I like being the one to raise my child and teach him about the world.I am in a really lucky position in that I am able to do this as we can afford to live on my husbands salary. I understand though that this isn’t a choice for everyone, and that for some people, even if they didn’t have to go back to work, that they would want to. As ever I am not judging anyone else’s decisions, just thinking about what is right for me and my family.
After feeling so down I also had a chat with my mum about things, as she was a stay at home mum when I was little so it’s nice to chat from her perspective. She went back to work when we were at school. It’s quite a long time ago now but she says she remembers looking at us as adults and feeling so proud and confident because as she quite rightly says, “I did that.” And, well, my mum can be quite soppy and she said that if ever she has a down day she thinks of my brothers and I and feels really proud of us, and herself for the way we have all turned out, which is just lovely really! I hope I can look at my grown up children one day and feel the same way, and be proud of the way that I raised my children, because that is what it is all about.
As a stay at home parent you don’t get achievements in the form of pay rises, promotions, certificates etc, it’s difficult to mark successes. But at the weekend, when my little boy showed us that when asked, he can point to his nose, his ears, his tummy, his head, his mouth and his toes, I was so proud! It’s nice to see that he is learning what I am teaching, to prove to myself that I am doing a good job.
While I very much enjoy my time spent day to day with my little monkey, it also nice to be able to use my brain a bit more sometimes too. I do some accounts work for my husband’s business, I blog, bake and crochet but I know that one day, I will want something more for me. I’m also very lucky that I am in a position where I can really think about what I want to do. It’s quite strange and it’s not like we are loaded or anything, but we have been managing pretty well money-wise right now. When it does come time to go back to work I can try to do something that I really want, rather than doing whatever I can to get a job. So anyway, I need to think about what this is and I kind of feel pressure to be successful, but I think it’s more the pressure I put on myself, maybe I am more ambitious than I thought!
In the meantime though, I am a bit refocussed on making the most of the time with Monkey and enjoying being a stay at home mum.
