Going from full-time journalist to the sole stay-at-home parent was quite the swing. But I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
If you have been around this blog for any amount of time, you know I am unapologetically in favor of women staying at home with their children. I think that the role women play in the lives of their children and husbands is formative, encouraging, enriching, challenging, loving – I could go on and on.
But all of that encouragement came from years of figuring this out through trial and error. It wasn’t easy to make the switch from career woman to homemaker.
I knew I wanted to be a journalist when I was a freshman in high school. I knew I wanted a college degree. But what happens when you work so hard for something for so long, and all of a sudden, you’re on a path that forces you to learn new things?
What happens when you wrestle emotionally with loving your family but letting go of a job you also love? Or you try to find a balance between the two?
These are my reflections of a working woman turned stay-at-home mom.
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Why Did I Become a Full-Time Mom?
I have always known I wanted to stay at home with my children. When my husband and I began talking about our plans for marriage, I introduced the idea in those same conversations. He was on board.
I wasn’t influenced by my own mother. I wasn’t listening to the culture around me telling me to delay marriage and focus on my career.
This was something that I worked out with God and knew, wholeheartedly, I wanted to pursue.
Knowing your “why” is critical for long-term commitments that impact your life in almost every way. And isn’t that true of motherhood? There is so much that is now no longer up to you – your sleep schedule, when you complete chores and tasks, how long you hang out with your girlfriends, and how often you and your husband go on dates.
When you know, without a shadow of a doubt, why you signed up to do X, Y, or Z, it’s a reminder in the hard times. It’s what will get you through.
On the other side of the coin, though, because I gave up my career, I now have time to devote to my family. I’m not up against a deadline. And I won’t hear about what an inconvenience my family is from a boss that isn’t family-oriented.
Because if we’re being honest with ourselves, not all careers and supervisors are family-oriented.
Letting Go of My Career
Defining a job and a career is very important. A job is a temporary position that pays the bills. It usually isn’t a long-term position, or you don’t expect to advance very far from the position.
A career is a dedicated employment track that usually requires education, training, and other time commitments outside paid hours. You dream about this when you’re little. And you usually stay in the field for 10, 20, 30, plus years.
I let go of a career. I spent eight straight years (high school and college) taking journalism-related classes. I worked for magazines and newspapers while I was in school. I won awards for my work in college and went on to win awards for my work professionally.
My personal life was dominated by my work. As a breaking news reporter, I covered traffic accidents, house fires, and severe weather events. I woke up early to cover local events on the weekends. I worked late to cover city government meetings. By and large, my schedule was dictated by what was going on in my community and left little wiggle room for last-minute personal commitments.
I was thrilled to give that up because I was dedicated to serving my family, not my community. My priority was, and always will be, my family. Understanding my why truly got me through those first few years of staying at home full-time with my children.
If you’re struggling to understand where I’m coming from, here are other points to consider if you’re looking at ditching your career and becoming a stay-at-home wife and mother:
– I want to give all of my available time to my family. I want to go on spontaneous date nights with my husband instead of taking on a project or a story with a 24-hour deadline. Do your current work commitments allow you the flexibility you want?
– Are you comfortable with someone else forming foundational bonds with your child?
– Are you comfortable with someone else developing care tactics and routines for your child?
– Childcare and modern conveniences can add up financially. Could staying at home benefit your family, or even save you money?
Struggling with those questions helped me explore parts of myself and who I wanted to be. The “tests,” if you can call them that, helped me figure out who I was and what I was willing to pursue. All of it is hard work, but what was I willing to work hard for?
I also let go of how I thought my life was going to turn out to embrace what it was. I truly thought it was going to take me longer to find a husband. For a while, I thought I was going to be a working mother. There was a sort of flex to my life that was out of my control, and it took me a few years to ride those waves and really settle into a routine.
During those flex years, I grew to be friends with women who were older and wiser than I was. Some of them worked while their children were at home, some of them didn’t. I asked all of them for advice and realized something –
Their advice was the same.
At the end of the day, it would be best if I could stay at home with my kids. But I will do a good job as a mother either way.
Sometimes when you’re facing new challenges, you realize how little you know and how you are scared just to begin. That was stay-at-home motherhood for me. I didn’t know what I was doing! Business hours are all hours when you have a baby at home.
Getting encouragement from trusted, older women who said that I could simply handle what life threw at me was a game-changer.
Maintaining My Skill Set
To this day, friends and family ask me to counsel them on marketing campaigns or write something for them. I say yes when I’m able.
I love that I am able to help my friends and family with the skills I worked so hard to hone. But what’s more, I’m happy I’m able to continue writing!
If you are a Bible-believing Christian, you may have heard of the Proverbs 31 woman (if you’re not familiar, read the latter half of Proverbs 31). She was an industrious woman, an example to Christian women running their homes. She worked tirelessly to clothe and feed her household. And she ran businesses and managed investments.
One of the other key ways I manage my skill set is by looking for opportunities to employ my decade’s worth of experience from the comfort of my own home. This blog, these ebooks, and writing gigs for family and friends are all ways I can keep my skills sharp.
Finding the Balance
Everyone has their opinions about motherhood. One of mine is that mothers need time away from their children. And that time away should be spent on doing something fun, not something like running errands.
Trying to find the balance of devoting my life to my children but not feeling guilty about enjoying a cup of coffee with a girlfriend or a trip to the bookstore without them took me time. And to be honest, I’m not sure I have a good reason for it. I just know that for me personally, I need a few hours every other week out of my house. Alone!
I also love my side gigs and home-based businesses. Again – unapologetically. Not for my personal religious beliefs or because the “boss babe girlies” gave me their stamp of approval. I keep investing time, money, and energy into them because I enjoy it.
Honestly, I’m not sure there’s a formula, rule, or line in the sand that tells you how to find balance with young children. Maybe it’s simple advice that’s similar to what my mentors told me –
Do what works best for you and your family.
My family stays busy, hosts playdates (almost every week if we had it our way), says, “We love you!” to friends as they leave, raises chickens for eggs, bakes their own bread – we do these things because in some way or another, that’s what’s best for us.
Why aren’t we applying that same logic when it comes to staying at home with our children? Even if it’s only for a season – do it if you feel like that’s what’s best for you and your family.
I’m Honored to Be a Part of Your Journey
I don’t know how much help this blog post was to you and your SAHM considerations. But if at any part of the journey you find yourself referencing this blog post, I hope that you leave feeling encouraged and empowered to support your family first.
This is outside the bounds of my usual homemaking content! Here are a few other blog posts you can check out to get an idea of what I usually write about. They’re some of my most popular posts!
Must-Read Books for Stay-at-Home Moms
Sample Weekly Homemaking Routine
For Even More Encouragement…
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