In the eight years that I spent home with kids full-time, I didn't realize that I was missing anything.
When I left my job for maternity leave, I fully intended to return almost full-time in a special arrangement I had spent months perfecting. I would work a set number of hours from home each week and spend two full days in the office or in the field meeting with clients.
What I hadn't planned for was the overwhelming desire I felt in those early weeks of my daughter's life to spend every moment of every day with her.
Without planning to, I made motherhood my full-time career during those years as we welcomed our second, and then our third, daughter into our family. My work during those years was feeding, changing, bathing, keeping house, reading, playing, cooking, laundering, and training. When we later decided to home-school our children, I added curriculum planning and teaching to my daily plans.
It wasn't until I started doing some freelance writing that I realized what had been missing during those years.
Creativity.
What I did before was re-creating. Every day, I work
ed to re-create a sense of order and peace in our home by completing the same tasks, again and again. It wasn't drudgery. There is joy in the every day, especially with three beautiful lives unfolding before my eyes. But apart from dinner (devoured in minutes) and memories, I wasn't creating anything.
Finding a creative outlet gave me a new spark for life. I even started waking up at 4:30 in the morning, just so I could have more time to write.
If I could go back 9 years, to my first summer of motherhood, I would make room in my life for creativity. Between play dates and vacuuming, I would tell myself that even though I might not think so, finding meaningful work would add a lot to my life, energizing me for motherhood in a way nothing else could.
Photo credit iStockphoto
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Thanks, Charee!
I really appreciate your kind words. I also appreciate you talking openly about the sometimes awkward feelings between stay at home moms and working moms. I hate that there is animosity at times.
My recent experiences have helped me see both sides more clearly. I have a much deeper respect for full-time working moms now, and I also empathize strongly with women who stay home full-time. In 2010, there are no easy answers for moms, no one right answer for everyone. We each have to struggle to find what works best for us and our families.
I hope this blog continues to be a place we can wrestle through these issues together, encouraging each other to follow our hearts.
Becky,
You sound so happy doing what you love and loving what you do. I’m sure you pour your heart and soul into everything you touch.
It was strange an interesting process, reading your thoughts and feelings as you look back. I pictured us staring at each other from opposite sides of the looking glass. Me on one side, feeling guilty for having a career (and enjoying it) then when at home wishing I could stay to keep up with B and all the household duty that wasn’t in the job description 🙂
I think most women wonder though, what balance lies on the other side. At least to some degree. Whether a career mom or mom who’s career is at home, raising the family. I’m not afraid to take risk and bet that if you pondered the “ordinary days” thinking through the creative side, you’d see that you used that flair to make all of the seeming ordinary things pretty darn cool.
Today you’re free to express it even further and in ways that are most interesting for you now.
Thanks for sharing the mirror with a working mom. You know we’re all in this together, really. =)
~Charee