Dear Stay-at-Home Mom,
You’ve been doing at-home with your kids long before this “forced rest,” haven’t you? You’ve been at home since making the choice, only to wake up to be at home again.
Your days might might feel like Groundhog Day, with less (or more) frustration than that of grouchy, TV weatherman, Phil Connors.
Though your routine repeats, you know with thought and intention, you can create a day that moves differently from the one before.
You wear the self-described SAHM title well, unseen to some like labels sewn to the back of shirt collars. At times it pokes out, like at a social gathering or holiday party when the dreaded, “What do you do?” is before you like a plate of hor d’oeurvres being passed.
It’s not that you’re ashamed of your branding, it’s just that it can bring out the ghosts of career pursuits past that sometimes make you feel sad. Your assigned parking space may now be the driveway bordering a front lawn in need of cutting. Rather than gathering around a conference table with colleagues, you manage young worker bees drinking from sippy cups, gluing craft projects and finalizing math problems at the kitchen countertop. Throw in special needs, learning challenges or a diagnosis, and your clock is running well past 5:30.
While “How Parents Can Cope with Staying-At-Home” headline stories flood social media, you might be thinking, “Been there, been doing that,” and perhaps embracing the absence of inferiority that is known to creep in. You may find yourself standing on a leveled playing field that has now been dug up to accommodate every working, out-of-the-house mother in the land.
In your season of giving to dependent children, you, SAHM, have much to bring to a population of desperate adults.
