Well isn’t this a controversial topic?! If you clicked for a ‘stay at home parent’ vs. ‘working parent’ blood battle then I am sorry to disappoint, this is not the post for you. There are plenty of messy online forums for that, although I would not recommend searching for them. They will leave you feeling like this…
The elephant in the room/on the blog is that I am an educated, 20-something woman, in 2018, who married young and has chosen to be at home raising babies. All day, every day, for I don’t know how long. I plan to pour almost all of my time, energy and heart into raising these little ones into somewhat decent humans. I have chosen this full time SAHM (stay at home Mum) life and I really want to start talking more openly about it.
I am very aware that our family set up looks pretty old school and I would happily bet that it curls the toes of some people (sorry ladies).
However, this is without doubt what I feel called to be doing right now. I am thankful for my education and all of the potential career opportunities that were there for me when I graduated. But from the moment I held my first baby, I knew that full time motherhood was my calling. Really, I knew it before, but that baby girl confirmed my suspicions in an instant.
Sure it is hard, and I am totally guilty of complaining too much on the harder days, but this is life right now and I have never looked back, even when my whole world is covered in strawberry yoghurt.
J and I got married YOUNG. Like 1950s young. We graduated and just a few weeks later we were married. I was totally that “when I grow up I want to be a Mummy!” kid. I always wanted to be a Mum, and together we hoped to have kids young, but I also had a good Law degree under my belt.
A year or so passed, finally we BOTH had jobs and we had fallen madly in love with London. We were part of an incredible church, we had made some great friends, and we were about ready to start our family.
Whilst we were ‘ready’, we assumed that it would take a little while to conceive. Incredibly, it didn’t. Which by the way we never ever take for granted. We have seen too many friends battle with infertility, loss and that desperate ache to become parents to ever lose sight of what a huge blessing it has been to fall pregnant right away with both of our babies.
We both wanted the same thing
Jono and I actually decided really early on that, if we would get married and be blessed with children, our ‘Plan A’ would be for me to stay home to raise them. To ensure that finances wouldn’t get in the way of that we never relied on my income for essential expenses so that if/when I got pregnant we wouldn’t have to flip our world upside down to make it possible for me to leave work. This wasn’t easy being young and living in London but we made a lot of sacrifices (namely spending our first year in a basement room of a very small, damp home where we had a bed, two chairs and a tiny kitchen) to make this possible.
Whilst I stay home, know that this is a team effort. Yes, I run the home day to day, take care of the kids, cook, clean, yada yada, but J and I both work hard to make this happen. Our decision for me to be a SAHM has not been ‘easy’. We are relatively young and doing this one income thing is often tough. Let me tell you that London and NYC are not designed for one income families. But we are patient, we work through it, make sacrifices, wait and trust God. We have seen God move in the most miraculous of ways.. but that is a whole other blog post.
Who knows what we will be doing next year and the year after? Maybe this is a short season, maybe not.
But what about your career?
To be totally honest, starting our family before establishing my ‘career’ was / is a little scary.
But, in faith, I handing that to the Lord. Easier said than done, I know. But I know that being home is where I should be right now and so I will let next year and the years after worry about themselves.
“Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.”
(Matthew 6:34)
I am not at home with the kids by some accident. Motherhood is my calling. I know that this season of little ones will pass and who even knows how long I will get to be at home with them?
What I do know is that whilst it is HARD, there is nothing that I would rather be doing right now.
This whole ‘stay at home mama’ thing is such a beast of a topic and there is so much that I want to talk about that it will have to be a series of posts. I will getting working on it!
