I am a Stay at Home Mom.

It’s official!  I submitted my letter of resignation a month ago, and I received confirmation of receipt from the school district.  Getting to this point has been an interesting process and one I thought I’d share with y’all…at least a little bit. This whole past year has been kind of a trial run and a huge learning experience in many ways.    

When I was around 20 weeks pregnant, I seriously began thinking about how in the world I would continue working at the pace I was and have a baby at home to care for.  I knew my priorities would shift once the baby arrived, but my anxiety kicked into high gear.  I struggled with the thought that I wouldn’t be able to be the teacher I wanted to be because I would be the mother I needed to be. I started talking to J about taking more than 6-8 weeks of maternity leave.  He wasn’t too keen on this idea, but eventually I convinced him (with the help of my mother in law and her sister) to let me take the rest of the school year off.   It took a little longer to convince him that I should take a year leave of absence, but once Genevieve arrived, there was no question we had made the right decision. 

I am so thankful to have had the time to learn how to be a mother, though I’m also thankful that it seemed to happen more naturally than I expected.  I have learned a lot about cooking and cleaning, and I take pride in having time to do both of those things now. Some days though, I feel like I am not cut out for staying home.  My house is a mess, and dinner isn’t always ready when J gets home from work.  In fact, some days I have to call him and tell him to pick something up.  I’ve had to learn that that’s just part of life with an infant/toddler.  I’ve had to learn to be gracious with myself, but still the doubt creeps in.  I wonder if someone else would teach G more than I can – someone who knows more about baby development.  On the flip side of that is the fact that no one knows my daughter as well as I do, so who better to teach her? 

I have worried a lot about not contributing financially.  I’ve worked since I was 16, so it was strange to not be making any money.  J assured me that my job was to tend to the needs of our daughter, and if there was time in my day, then I could tend to the needs of our household.  He told me that I had the harder of our two jobs.  (Did I mention that I love this guy?)  When Genevieve was around eight months old, J said, “How in the world are you going to go back to teaching?!”  I assured him that lots of women do it, and they make it work.   I still wasn’t sure if staying at home was right for our family, though I felt it was where I needed to be.

Some time in January, J told me that the decision to stay home or go back to work was up to me.  At that point I knew I wanted to stay home, so I told him so.  He said, “Well, let’s wait until after G’s allergy testing.”  Oooooookay.  Now I felt like he was wanting me to go back to work.  To make a long story short, we had a lovely talk on our date night on March 1st.  J informed me that he felt as though I wanted to go back to work as to not “waste my degrees” and because he knew how much I love being a teacher.  I told him that if we can make it work, that I would prefer to stay home, especially since Genevieve has so many food allergies.  I only made it seem like I was okay with going back because I thought that’s what J wanted.  It’s a good thing we were finally given time to talk!  We agreed that I would continue staying home for as long as I wanted and for as long as it makes sense for our family.  I do see myself teaching again one day in some capacity (other than teaching my own children), but I am so thankful for this time with my daughter.  Teaching will always be there.