Since I’ve been a mom, I haven’t always been a stay-at-home mom. I worked until Drew was three and Gabby was one. It was a very tough decision to quit my job. I always knew I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, which probably made it that much harder to work full-time while having babies, but I also loved my job. I had a highly coveted job, working with excellent people and having a lot of success doing what I was doing. There were many reasons we decided that I should quit, and it really has turned out to be the best decision for our family.
It’s really hard to spend your life on a track of personal success and then walk away from that. I spent all my years in school working to go to a good college. I applied myself in college to graduate from THE Kelly School of Business. I spent my summers with internships. I busted my butt at my jobs to get the next promotion. And then one day, after getting my dream job, I just said goodbye. I will never, and could never, regret that decision but I have been seriously plagued with thoughts of my future.
This year Noah started preschool. He’s only there two days a week, long enough for me to workout and shower. However, it’s a small reminder that there is a day in the not too distant future when all of my kids will be in full day school. And then what? It’s not that I couldn’t fill my day with the gym, running errands and taking care of things around the house. Not to mention that I aspire to be more involved in things at their school when I don’t have to worry about childcare for Noah.
Life when you are raising a family is EXPENSIVE. It’s even more expensive when you live in a community like I do where our kids go to expensive camps, they participate in countless activities to keep them productively engaged and the constant desire for THINGS (particularly me who LOVES to shop). Not to mention college which is a few blinks away. I am a smart, capable person. I have to find someway of contributing to our finances, other than the depletion due to my shopping habits. But what does that look like?
I didn’t stop the trajectory of my good career for my kids to come home after school by themselves or to not be able to volunteer in their classrooms. But how do I find a gig that helps the family, doesn’t infringe on the life I want to have – be the mom I’d like to be. This dilemma haunts me.
I'm a mother, wife, daughter, and friend. Until recently I was also an employee. Now that I'm a full time mom, I've decided to make my thoughts, concerns and feelings public.
