“The best thing a girl can be is a good wife and mother. It is a girl's highest calling. I hope I am ready.”
― Nancy E. Turner
While I was a student at THE University of Alabama my main goal in continuing my education was not to attain a MRS degree. As a matter of fact, I wanted to be a lawyer. I was not particularly concerned with being the first of my friends to get married at 22. I wanted a career and great shoes. Both of which I had. I graduated in 2000 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History with a minor in English. My last semester in school I met Jason who would later become my husband and the father of my beautiful children.
I married in July of 2004. I waited nearly half a decade after college and was 26 at the time. Looking back we were still insanely young. In May of 2007 I was blessed with my first son, Hunter. At the time of his birth I was the Assistant Director of Alumni Programs at Spring Hill College. I traveled a lot. I also had a great deal of evening and weekend events. Although I loved what I did my job was consuming me and taking away time from my husband and child. We kept up at that pace for a couple of years but soon I burned out. I was over involved in the community, working too much and trying to be a maid, cook, nanny, chauffeur, mother and wife. It was too much for me and something had to give. Not long after I was given the opportunity to stay home with Hunter for the last few months before he started "real school" at UMS.
Staying home was a completely new concept for me. I was FINALLY able to keep up with the laundry, dishes, general cleaning and errands. Our weekends were no longer over run with chores and grocery shopping and we were eating better because I had time to cook for us. Sure there were days when making sure Hunter was having fun took priority over folding the whites but now that I had time to do it in the middle of a Wednesday it was ok. I was more relaxed because I wasn't cramming 5 full days of work into 2 weekend days.
Then we had two. Now that Steuart is here my first priority isn't a little time at the park or folding sheets. It's feeding the baby. Changing the baby. Bathing the baby. Washing the baby's clothes. The baby consumes all my time and here and there I try to fill in the gaps and keep up the house and everything else.
I think the great misconception is that stay at home mothers can sit around all day, catch up on the DVR, read a book and hang out at the gym. This couldn't be further from the truth. I barely have time for a shower or to get dressed. Most days I am lucky to put on yoga pants. I get up between 4:30 and 6. I start drinking coffee immediately. I feed and change the baby, start laundry, unload the dishwasher and load it again, wash bottles, clean the counters and stove top, get lunch and snack ready for hunter, get his bag together for school and lay out his clothes, let the dogs out and water them and try to have half an English muffin. That is all before 7:30 am. Follow that with several more loads of laundry, making beds, steaming floors, scrubbing sinks and toilets and tubs, dusting and vacuuming and cleaning windows. And that is all before 1. Follow that with a shower if I'm lucky, carpool, random errands and then folding more laundry. Oh, all the while getting dinner ready, feeding, changing and bathing a baby. It's enough to make anyone insane but this is my job now. I would love to go to the gym for a couple hours a day. I can't leave work that long. I don't have outside help so if I slack on the job it doesn't get done and things fall into a state of chaos.
This is the hardest job I have ever had. Hands down. I have a much greater respect for my mother now who did this with three kids. I have a great appreciation for my husband who works harder so I can work at home. I find now that I care more about my coffee maker and less about shoes. And I get excited about Wednesdays at the grocery store because that's when the new specials start. It's like a game now to see how much I can save on my grocery shopping. Rather than being buried under paperwork and emails and voicemails I'm covered in spit up and desitin and snot. Life has changed. I'm not a lawyer. I'm a stay at home mother and I work my ass off from 4:30 am- 11pm. Seven days a week. And I am GREAT at what I do.
So, next time you are talking about how "she has time to do that because she doesn't work" THINK AGAIN. My job is just as important as anyone else's and I work just as hard if not harder. I don't have to wear a suit anymore. I traded that for tempo shorts or yoga pants but I have earned the relaxed dress code. And I don't sit around eating Bon bons.
I will never forget the words of Julie Moran, "You can have it all. Just not at the same time."
