SAHM

I am the mama of a little boy, and as great as it is to get to stay at home with my son sometimes people don’t realize what that actually means. I’m not kicking back and just doing whatever it is I want. Some people forget the sacrifices women give up. I want to share with you what it’s really like for us moms who have chosen to stay at home with our kids.

My son is about to be a year old; until he was 6 months old I couldn’t even think of getting a part time job. Now I work part time as a sales associate, head cheer coach, and a part time stay at home mom. I juggle a lot, I occasionally work to pay for the fun extras I buy for my son (ex. Clothing, diapers, toys, etc.) we cloth diaper our son so and as it is expensive in the beginning I like to contribute to the financial part of life. But until he was 6 months old that was never even a thought in my head. I never wanted to leave my little man, but at the same time I had never not had a job since I was 16.

I was always working before I had my son; I never questioned the overtime and the late hours, I was in for it all. But when I became pregnant, my fiancé and I decided I didn’t need to work after he was here so we didn’t have to pay a babysitter, or have him to far away from home. It sounded like a great plan in the beginning; I didn’t actually realize all that it toom being a SAHM really required till he was here. In the beginning it was easy, we would cosleep while dad was at work, and in the morning we would do a million things together. Although he wasn’t moving around on his own or getting into everything, I was on a pumping machine every two or three hours making sure my son was fed properly.

As he began getting older it just got harder, he can now stand and walk all on his own, we are past the bottle phase and no more boobies. My day begins at 7:00 AM where I then make my coffee, take a shower, and eat my first meal of the day within the first hour.

My son wakes up usually between 8:00 & 8:30 AM every other day we do bath time to help the morning grog; if no bath it’s straight to diaper changing and on to breakfast.

8:45 AM to 9:30 AM is then time for morning snack and kids cartoons that helps him learn new things while I fix him a healthy breakfast and drink my coffee. My son is not the pickiest kid out there but when he doesn’t like something or if he is full he decides to throw food everywhere. So depending how breakfast goes depends how long it will take to clean up.

From here it’s trying to do chores while having a little boy at your feet or on the hip. I begin with cleaning up the dishes I cleaned the night before, cleaning up the dining room, and bathroom as I live with 3 boys and they are definitely messy. My son will usually go down for a nap around 11:00 AM on a good day. Napping isn’t his favorite time of day so sometimes it’s not till noon.

This is only half my day; I could continue but I fee this is enough to see just a bit of the work and effort we are putting in. We don’t do this for ourselves though, we do this for our kids. The little ones who don’t have a say quite yet, to protect them from the people and the choices that they can’t make for themselves. To make sure they will always remember how loved they are because we show them that we want to cuddle and love them all day long. They are our whole world and will one day be the adults raising other little kids. I want to show my son that he can do, and be anyone or anything he wants to be, for that to happen I have to be there for him and show him this world isn’t always that bad.

Stay at home moms don’t get enough credit for the things we do, we’re not a decoration or someone who just caters to everybody else. We work to keep the place our family lives in up to shape, we cook meals for not just ourselves but our whole household, and we make sure everyone is living comfortably. We fight the stereotypes about having such an easy job, and our life is a cake walk.

The only alone time we get is after everyone else is asleep; if we’re not exhausted by the end of the day. We don’t get to eat a whole meal to ourselves because our child(ren) is always waiting for their bite. People are always telling us how grateful we should be although they have no idea what it’s really like.

Don’t get me wrong working moms are just as important they’re going though a lot just like we are. Moms are always giving up something for their kids, and we all deserve the same respect. We as moms deserve more, we deserve to know that we work just as hard.