 |
| These moments are what I will miss most when I'm at work. |
Days spent at home with my girls, are days that I have taken advantage. Granted I've always known how lucky and blessed I have been to get to stay home. That it's a privilege that many do not get. But at what cost, at what sacrifice am I willing to ignore the obvious...
The pay sucks.
I have never discussed financials on the blog, but I'll tell you as of late, it's been a struggle. Starting small, like a whisper, and growing and growing into a scream, a din I can no longer ignore. It's become obvious and clear that I need to return to the workforce, and not just in a seasonal part time capacity. But in a full time, sign over my other goals and aspirations and dive into, what millions of moms everywhere are doing now... Working.
 |
| Afternoons at Target with blue icee mouths. It's easy to take these days for granted. |
Maybe I sound like a brat. Stomping my feet and crossing my arms. Maybe I've been pampered or lazy, but returning to the workforce is not something I want to do. It's not something I'm looking forward too, but it's something that I'm going to do. For my family.
Yet in thinking about returning to work, I've been thinking about the value of the Stay at Home Mother. What is the value? The cost? The price tag of the infamous Stay at Home Mother?
Is it strange that I have a hard time pleading my case to stay home when the sink is full of dishes? When the laundry is piled up, both dirty and clean. When the kids rooms look like Toys R US on Black Friday. How do I then plead a case that I'm in fact valuable and cost effective as a stay at home mom?
 |
| Dancing like no on is watching. You can't put a dollar amount on these moments. |
It's been another tough transition as I returned to work on Thursday. Getting used to mom being away for the morning routine, drop off and pick up, or after school activities. The girls are slowly getting used to it again, and I wonder how they would do if this was on a full time basis. The thing is, I actually enjoy doing all the menial tasks of motherhood. This was not the case a few years ago, but now, in my groove, I feel like I've finally got it down. That I'm now a top performer in this SAHM gig. I'm a school volunteer, a room mom, a soon to be Girl Scout troop leader. But none of these wonderful experiences pay the big bucks, or any bucks for that matter.
How do we put a price on the SAHM? Am I being selfish, that I'm only thinking about all of the experiences and life I'm going to miss out on. I know a lot of working moms, and I feel that sometimes this blog is almost offensive in the way that I go on and on about being a SAHM and how hard, or how challenging it is. I almost envy the working mom who has known no other way, who finds comfort in the role she has carved out for herself. The working mom who is confident and proud of her career and her children.
I cannot put a price on the years I have been able to spend with my children in the most formative years of their lives. I cannot set a monetary amount on our time, the days spent on the couch in our jammies watching Nick Jr. The mornings where we had cookies for breakfast, or a quick run to Starbucks for tea and cake pops. Great memories made, experiences had, imperfectly perfect days. I don't know what lies ahead. I don't know if I'll be able to find work. Who's going to hire a SAHM who has been out of work for almost 6 years? My hope is that I'll be able to find my way, develop my new self, and have as good a grasp on working mom, as I feel like I do being a SAHM.
There is no monetary value, no price tag that can be attached to motherhood. Motherhood is in fact what we make it. We take the good, the bad, the ugly, and the imperfect and make it our own. There is no price you can set upon that. All we can do is swim within the riches of what motherhood brings us.
There is no job around that can pay me what motherhood has paid me for the last six years. Unfortunately that pay, doesn't convert into dollars.
