Confessions of a Stay-At-Home-Mom (SAHM)!

I thrived in the corporate atmosphere, thoroughly enjoyed it for eight years and then came a time when I felt that there was another role that needed my attention. That there are two tiny people in the world who need me much more than the 3,00,000+ employee strong organization I worked for. I felt the need to seize the moment to fully enjoy myself with the two people I mattered the most to. It was difficult to let go of my career, of losing the person I became in office, of losing my financial independence.

People asked if I had a plan, if I was planning to join somewhere else or start something of my own, but for the first time in my life I had nothing planned, no agenda, no objectives to meet, no deadlines to run after. It felt surprisingly good, absolutely refreshing. I won’t say it was all fun and laughter, I do have my moments of doubt. I do have my ‘good days’ and ‘bad days’ as a Stay-At-Home-Mom (S-A-H-M). On rare occasions, I do miss dressing up for work and clacking in those glossy stilettoes. There are times I miss being among like-minded colleagues and I definitely miss my own money but never, even in those moments, have I regretted the decision I have taken. There are never any regrets when one truly follows ones heart!

Over the months, I have discovered various simple joys of life, connected with old friends, met a lot of new people, learnt new and varied things, picked up on new hobbies and in the process I made acquaintance with an all new ‘me’. I chanced upon a whole new world of possibilities I never knew existed. It is like opening a fresh new notebook and having the choice to do whatever you wanted to…write, paint, sketch or make paper planes out of. The options are endless. Additionally, I don’t have to worry about performance appraisals, project deadlines, meetings, e-mails and calls. No more Monday Blues (every day is a Monday or a Sunday depending on how you look at it.)

As a S-A-H-M, the hardest thing I learnt to do (and still trying) is to not have an agenda or a to-do list on my mind all the time. Throughout school, college and office we are trained to multi-task, project plan, keep everything organized, deliver as per timelines come what may and in the whole process we forget how to just simply relax. These days I am learning the art of doing nothing (dolce far niente) from my kids. It’s therapeutic!

A lot of times you may have read how hard it is to be a full-time mother and that it is the toughest job in the world! It sure is a difficult, complex, ever-evolving, challenging role, sometimes harder than a corporate job, if we must compare it that way. But, lately I have also come to believe that it is not really a ‘job’. Rather it is a ‘privilege’, a ‘luxury’. This is the only time when my kids are the most impressionable, the most delicate years of their life, when their mom means the world to them.

These are the precious years when we have all the time in the world for each other and I know fairly well that these years are going to fly past sooner than I know. Nothing seems to give me more joy than making my kids laugh, colouring with them, pasting stickers on the wall, pretend-playing and reading children’s stories with them. Sometimes I feel like I am re-living my childhood all over again.

Now, can I really call that a job? When I am having so much fun and not getting paid for it?

(To all the working moms...Kudos to you! I am really amazed by moms who are managing it all...Career, a Home,  Kids and slightly jealous of the ones who have grandparents staying together to provide full support.)

Would love to hear from you...please do leave in some comments.

(This post is also available on mycity4kids.com and has received over 1.7Lakh hits.)

The Game of Parenting!

Today morning, just as I open the fridge to take out some vegetables, my one and a half year old arrives and starts fiddling with the bottles on the fridge door. I see him pull out a bottle of chilli sauce. I ask him to put it back, he obliges and I turn my attention to the vegetables. Just as I take the beans in my hand, there is a loud crash! The big new bottle of tomato sauce has been smashed to bits. The poor bottle looks like a twisted, bludgeoned creature, lying on the floor. There is sauce splashed all over the kitchen floor, shards of glass everywhere and a shooting pain in my foot. I feel like venting my anger on my toddler but I stop and remove myself from the ‘crime scene’ to tend to my poor foot, while hubby steps in take our toddler away.

As I clean my wound, I observe myself firstly simmer and then slowly cool down as I make my way back to the kitchen to clean the huge mess. I would have reacted impulsively had I not recalled that I had lost my privilege of acting out as an instinctual human being the day I became a parent. Also, my acting out would probably not make my little one learn any lasting lesson about glass bottles being breakable.

I have learnt (the hard way) that for small children to process and internalize, even simple instructions need to be repeated (maybe a dozen to even more than a hundred times) before they finally follow. The hard part is not to repeat, but it is rather tough to stay calm, consistent and never lose patience in the process of repetition. I am not immune to it either and have heard myself start statements with “How many times do I have to tell you to….”

Another important aspect of parenting is Unconditional Love, irrespective of the behaviours our child shows. Our love for them is not so fragile that it can change and shift based on their accomplishments, acts of mischief or academic achievements. We may or may not like certain behaviours but we love them all the same. It does not matter how many times or how many ‘walls’ they make me climb, they are always the most loved.

However, our love for them does not mean a lack of Discipline. In fact the greatest gift we can give to our children is Discipline, but that too does not need the extensive use of our vocal cords or limbs. That would indeed be the worst for our children.

Even in my limited experience as a parent I have realized the importance of patience, practice and passion in mastering the science and art of parenting. The same applies to anything else we would want to master and it is true of parenting, only more so.

Just like in a video game the levels keep changing and getting tougher, the same thing happens to us as parents at every progressive stage of our child’s development. A game is always interesting and enjoyable and so is parenting, but this is one game you never want to lose!