Dirty Little Secret

I have a secret: I don't want to be a stay at home (SAHM). Was reading a blog that a friend recommended, and the first post I read was an excerpt of someone else's blog -- so while not written by the author of the original blog I was directed to, the writer applauded this woman's decisions & parenting philosophy...

I have wanted to be a stay-at-home mom for as long as I can remember. I even majored in "Home and Family" for crying in the night! And let me tell you something, this life is better than I ever imagined it could be.  I take my title of "stay-at-home mom" quite literally. I try to stay at home with my kids as much as possible.  I am the lucky mother of 3 adorably perfect children. (I can say that because I am their mother.) Mabel, my oldest, is only 6, so my experience as a mother is somewhat limited. But as my children have grown, I have begun to realize that it is my job as a stay-at-home mom to create an environment that allows them to thrive. For me and my family, that means a slow-paced, home-centered existence.

My goal is to create a life for my kids that is peaceful and calm.

There is a lot of noise out there in the world. I want my home to be a refuge, a haven, and a place where that near deafening sound can be ignored for another day. As a stay-at-home mother, the home is my only domain, it is my favorite place to be, and I want it to be my children's, too.

Let me comment, first, on the fact that the author uses the phrase, "for crying in the night". What does that mean? I had to read it multiple times to figure out she wasn't talking about newborns and that she didn't want to use the phrase, "for crying out loud". I wasn't aware that the latter was a dirty word worthy of George Carlin's infamous list. I also just became a facebook fan of the group "Smart, Educated, Sophisticated Women who say 'Fuck' a lot", so maybe I am not the best judge of colorful language. But really. For crying in the night? There would be crying in the night if all I did was stay home.

I have to just say it, because really, since no one reads this, it's not like anyone is going to judge me...I think she is Weird. And that is 'weird' with a capital 'W'. Not only because she named her daughter Mabel, which is a little odd in and of itself, but because she tries to stay home as much as possible. Are you keying on the weirdness yet? Are you wondering if she is FLDS? Cause I am.

"My goal is to create a life for my kids that is peaceful and calm." Oh really? You mean your goals aren't to create a life for your kids that is chaotic and angry? Bad mommy. Bad. My goal for my kid is to create a life that gives him the skills he needs to live, unassisted by me, when I am gone. Hopefully to live unassisted by me well before I am gone, actually, at around 21 or 22, when he graduates college. And that means dealing with the messes. Now, that doesn't mean that we don't have a routine, because we do. Doesn't mean that there is rampant shouting, fighting and craziness around here; quite the contrary actually. But I am not striving for our home to be The Fortress of Solitude either. Life is messy. Live it. Love it. Embrace it.

Here are her other tips:

• I take my title of "stay-at-home mom" quite literally. I try to stay at home with my kids as much as possible. On the days that errands simply can't be ignored, get them done quickly and early in the day. This allows for an afternoon of relaxation spent at home, not fighting traffic and the hustle and bustle of shops.

The hustle and bustle of shops? Where do they live, Walnut Grove?

• Limit outside activities. Call me crazy, but I really believe that quantity is more important than quality.

I call her crazy and raise her a cuckoo-bird.

• Eat dinner together as a family every night. It doesn't always have to be a spectacular meal, but this is a good habit to start. A couple years ago, I read an article in Time Magazine called The Magic of the Family Meal. In it, I learned a few things, like the fact that young children pick up vocabulary and a sense of how conversation is structured during family dinners. They hear how a problem is solved, learn to listen to other people's concerns, and respect their tastes. They learn to share. Family dinners give kids a sense of belonging to their family. This is where a family builds its identity and culture. Legends are passed down, jokes rendered, eventually the wider world examined through the lens of a family's values. Not to mention that families who eat dinner together tend to eat much healthier.

This is actually one I agree with - I do think it's important to try to eat dinner together. Of course in my house the conversations were rather one-sided the first, say 2.5 years of my son's life; maybe THAT is why he didn't start talking until he was well over 28 months old. I also grew up from around 9th grade on eating dinner alone most nights, since my parents didn't get home from work until after 7. While it taught me to cook, it was a little lonely.

• Keep things clean. In order to maintain a peaceful home, I really believe you have to have a clean home. Some days I feel like I spend my life cleaning. Other days I feel like my house is a major disaster area and there's no hope. But for the most part, I try to stick to a cleaning schedule (Mondays I do bathrooms, Tuesdays I dust, etc.). This keeps my neat-freak tendencies in check, and it means that I always have a relatively clean house.

I don't want to have a dirty house. More than that, I don't ever, ever, EVER want to feel like I spend my life cleaning. So I work and have a cleaning lady come every 2 weeks. When I get promoted to VP, or when I can stop paying $1200/month for full-time child care, I plan to make that a weekly visit from the cleaning fairy and never take the garbage out again. It's important to have goals, and this is one of mine.

The other main reason, aside from the fact that we would have no home for me stay at if I wasn't bringing home the bacon, that I could never stay home is that I get a little weird when left with too much unstructured time on my hands. For example - over the last 2 weeks, here is what new hobbies I developed:

1. Inventing new cupcakes. But it's a cup-A-cake; a cupcake in a cup. Get it? All the yummy deliciousness of a cupcake, in the convenience of a cup. So you can eat it with a spoon.  I made Caramel Apple Pie cupcakes - they were delicious, I brought them to my son's school in my continued effort to be the most favorite mom, and the loved them. Next on the list are Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes and Mounds Bar Cupcakes. Oh wait, I bought all of the ingredients, but have already lost interest. Yawn. (ADHD, remember?
2. Feeding the birds. It started out harmless enough. I bought a $3.99 birdfeeder, one of those shepherd poles, a bag of birdseed and fed the birds this winter. It was kind of boring, but E like to watch them out of the kitchen window, and they were kind of cute. Then spring came. And I bought a second set up for the back yard, and lo and behold, I am like the crazy bird lady now. Not only have I started identifying the little tweeters by running to google to look them up, I am going through a whole friggin tube of birdseed every 2 days in the backyard. The little pigs, I mean finches, eat their own weight x 20 on a daily basis. But I really like them, so I stock up. And spend a lot of time staring at more expensive, prettier bird feeders than my $3.99 Home Depot special. And looking at bird baths.
3. Collecting state quarters. Yes, I decided that it's critically important for my son to have a quarter for every state. I actually just thought of this about 45 mins ago while rifling through change to buy a cup of coffee. Am hoping this goes by way of the cupcakes very soon.

As you can see by the above examples, if I had too much additional time on my hands, lord only knows what kind of mischief I would be into. How many half-started craft projects, half-assed hobbies, and how much MONEY I would be spending in my pursuit of quantity over quality.

Oh, and how could I forget - I blog now, too.