(***NOTE to my husband - it is NOT YOUR FAULT that I have to work. I know it stresses you out to hear me talk about wanting to be home with the baby (I don't expect you to work magic, snap your fingers and create a rainfall of hundred dollar bills). That's really all this post is about so please don't let it stress you out. If you think it might, stop reading. You've been warned. See, I'm trying to be a good little wife!)
I know that being a full-time, SAHM (stay-at-home-mom, for those of you who've never seen that before) is probably one of the HARDEST jobs in the world. I respect and admire any mom who has held that position and kept her sanity...in some form or another.
But one thing that SAHMs don't have to experience is being away from their child for 40+ hours a week. Every week. Every. Single. Week.
I'll be honest: it SUCKS.
I am so, so, SO grateful to my mother for giving up her full-time job to work only one day per week so that she can stay home with my girl. My mom has sacrificed A LOT in order to provide childcare for us and she's earned the relationship that she has with the baby. I appreciate her more than words can say, for everything she does and the things she doesn't think I notice. For one thing, I can't imagine my daughter being with someone that I don't know very well all day, every day. For another thing, childcare is so stinkin' expensive! If I could afford childcare in the first place, I wouldn't have to work. And this post would be non-existent. There's a happy thought.
But, I do need to work. Unfortunately, the good people at the banks actually expect us to pay them BACK the money they gave us so that we could have cars to drive. And did you know that electricity isn't free? Go figure.
Sometimes I wish we could go back to the days when people just traded sheep for clothes. Or something like that.
Anyway, while I do have Fridays off to spend with my girl and you can't possibly understand how grateful I am for those days, it seems like most of the fabulous toddler activities are on other days of the week. Story-telling time at the library? Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays. Dance class for 2 1/2 year olds? Mondays and Tuesdays.
Not much on Fridays.
Sure, there are some things on weekends, but we use our weekends to spend time together as a family, to take the girl to DISNEY and UNIVERSAL and SEAWORLD and spend more of this stuff called money that we really don't have to begin with.
And before you start judging and telling me that if we would just stay home and not go out and spend money I might be able to stay home with her, take a deep breath. Time and time again, offers have presented themselves in the form of part-time jobs doing things that I LOVE. Yet, even if we stop eating out entirely and scale back our bills, we STILL can't afford for me to not work full-time. Part-time just doesn't even cut it, so staying home with her completely just is not an option.
Stupid cars. Stupid money. Stupid banks. Really, who woke up one day and said to themselves, "I'm tired of trading cows for carrots. I'm going to suggest at the next Town Hall Meeting that instead of giving them my cows, I'll give them some green paper for their carrots. Huh. Wonder if they'll go for that."
Apparently "they" did go for that. I'm not convinced that was the brightest move, people. Not convinced at all.
So here I sit at my desk, doing my job (okay, not doing my job at this exact moment, but you get the idea), thinking about my daughter and her smile and her hugs & kisses and the funny things she says and does all day and her joy in dancing and her laughter as she plays with other kids and how I'm missing over 40 hours of her life every single week.
I want to take her to play groups, but I haven't found any on Fridays. I'd love to homeschool her, but I can't expect her to "go to school" at night and on weekends. Not to mention the fact that I don't want my only time with her to be spent "schooling." I wish that I could take her to dance class and story-time, but they're all Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays. I want to experience everything with her, I want to be there to see her dance and swim and play and laugh, but that's just not realistic financially.
If I ever get the chance to stay home with her, as difficult as I know that might be, I will not ever take it for granted. Because as hard as it is to stay home full-time with a toddler, it's harder still to say good-bye to that beautiful, sweet little face. Every. Single. Week.
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The only that I can say is that I agree 100 percent with you, I 've done
ReplyDeleteboth and neither one is easy. :-(
My neighbor has the golf clubs out at this very moment. I'm so upset I want to go strangle him with it...hope that got your mind off of this.
ReplyDeleteGod knows what He's doing...remember? Trust Him. There's a reason for carrots not being money. I don't know what it is, but there's a reason.
I know you miss her. But trust God. He's right (remember the other day when I said I wanted to throw down with God, and you told me He'd still win...you're right).