Staying at home, without working remuneratedly, to take care of the children? Our grandmothers did it because then it was what was done. Many of our mothers did it (mine worked with a young man's salary, but from his first daughter ever again) and some of the women do now, probably with different results at the level of expectations, personal development and feeling of having your own time and your own life.
Times have changed and staying at home to take care of your children, although it is what many people (women and men) want, have very little social recognition. So little, that many women feel they disappear from the world, or something like that, as a woman who stayed at home to take care of her children and confessed that "If I could go back, I wouldn't have chosen to be a mom who stays at home".
His name is Megan Blandford and left her words and experiences on the DailyLife page, in which she says that she had not planned to be a mother to stay at home, but somehow ended up being for 6 and a half years.
At birth, her first baby prepared to enter the world of chaos that involves working and caring for a baby, but as with many women, instincts emerge and fight against what is supposed to be right, or what is expected of a mother in many social circles, which is nothing more than exhausting maternity leave and returning to work. A few weeks after starting work he felt that this was not the place where he should be, with a girl of weeks crying looking for his father or mother, and he quit returning to work to stay home with her.
There began what she called "the principle of me sacrificing everything to make my family happy." Something that he considers to be normal and totally logical, but at the same time unhealthy and in some ways crazy. And the proof of this was that his mental health was seriously affected.
Not everything was bad, of course
As he explains, he was very positive: he saw his children grow, reach every new milestone, he could spend the days reading them stories, hugging them for hours when they were sick and taking them to museums, parks and zoos.
However remember feel very alone. Very alone and with more and more feeling of being lost and disappearing in that place where he always had to do the same, at the service of his family.
This is how he remembers it when one day, playing with his daughter to make animal sounds, he came to think that if he had to make one more sound, he would scream. The girl asked him to imitate a horse and she could only cry. "No, mom, a horse neighs," his daughter told him.
See how her husband went on with his life
Even came to get mad at her husband, in a way because he could go on with his life, but she couldn't. He was going to work before the children woke up and returned for dinner, when everything was done. And on weekends he did reasonable things for what he considers a working father: sleep a little more, mow the lawn, help a friend with something ... things that made her continue to do the same as the rest of week.
In time, when her second child began to take a nap in her crib, and not in her arms, she could finally have that moment of time and took the opportunity to tell her husband that she really wanted to work. He confessed that he wanted to spend more time with the children, and the solution became clear.
He started working: he finally left home
Since that time, a year has passed in which she has been working as a full-time writer. A year in which he says he has recovered, fulfilling his creative side and contributing financially at home. In addition, she has the excuse to be able to say that she is not available at every moment of the day and can sneak away for lunch with a friend, and her children they greet her "as if she were someone and not one of the furniture that is always at home".
She has found new interests and fed the old ones, has had moments to travel alone, knowing that her husband takes care of the children; He has seen the way to live outside the four walls of his home.
She explains it because he needed to get his life back After years of feeling that I had lost her, from two painful pregnancies, from problems with breastfeeding, from huge ups and downs during pregnancies with an end that is what unites all mothers, caring for the souls of those who are so close that they are almost part of them, but that they are not.
The difficult thing to express in words something that can generate rejection
And he tells everything with the fear of provoking rejection:
Will my children feel that I don't love them knowing that I don't love every minute of being with them, even though I love them madly? Will women who want to stay at home get mad at me but have to go to work? I do not know. But each option has its advantages and disadvantages and you can not imagine how many cons there are until you live it.
But it is now when he is happy. Now that her children are happy too, but she can be too. Of course, he sees the positive thing about taking care of his children, but he considers it a sacrifice that is not worth it: now he can make decisions that also affect him and so they can be perfect for the whole family and not just for others. Therefore, if I could go back, I would not do it again.
Maybe there was a lack of communication?
Now comes when everyone makes the relevant assessment of the words of Megan. There will be those who say that "staying at home is the best, because that way you can take care of your children and that it is not so much because this has been done by every woman for centuries", and there will be those who say that "it is best to work, because the woman has that to have economic independence, it must be able to be realized and it must be happy so that their children are also happy ".
The reality is that there is nothing that is better. That is, as she well says, everything has its pros and cons, and the decision has to be made based on what a family needs and what each of its individuals needs, taking into account that taking care of one or more children It means giving in many moments, many things. Why caring, raising and educating is an unavoidable responsibility, of the mother and father, which forces them to stop doing many things.
I am not a mother, but I am the father of three children and a couple of a woman who decided to stay at home and who at many times also felt that she was only dedicated to that, that she was alone and that she did not talk to anyone ... it is the price of living in a society that has been created so that the normal thing is that both work, but in which the conciliation is a chimera. In that situation, a woman disappears in her home because there is no "tribe", because if you stay at home, you breed in solitude, probably in a very different way from that carried out in other societies (and in ours a long time ago ), in which women come together and unite precisely to support each other.
Come on, I understand Megan in her confession, but I get the feeling that it ended up exploding when I could have looked for a way out before that. She drowned between the walls of her house because she felt that she was no longer a priority, she completely gave up her time when she needed a little respite, and did not know how to communicate it or seek support from her husband or other people. Normal to say that if I could, I would not do it again.
She missed communication because she became angry with her husband. There was a lack of communication because there are women who love to stay at home to take care of their children and they are clear that at some point they will be able to do things they used to do, but there are others who cannot postpone them for a long time, who do not enjoy so much at home and need feel that they do not lose their lives for the benefit of others. And the former are not better than the latter, nor are the latter better than the former, only that she should have felt it that way.
Thinking that his obligation was drown your dreams and concerns to make your family perfect He let himself go in such a way that he felt himself disappear, losing control of his time, his happiness, and his life.
And he was not able to find solutions on time: someone who took care of their children for a while, someone who could go to his house to chat, other mothers with whom to share concerns, the husband, who took care of the children on the weekend to she could do other things, a reduction of his day (which also confessed that he wanted to spend more time with them) for her to work part-time ...
I do not know, my wife had moments like that, as I say, but we have always talked about it and she has been looking for ways to find time for her: study a distance career, do pilates, go to dinner with friends, a concert and things like that , which allow you time to see other people, share experiences and know that can be loved and taken care of without compromising stability or love at home.
But this is something I see reading his story and maybe even wrong ... because nothing is black or white and the idiosyncrasy of each family is only known when it is inside.
In the end I am left with what I have commented a few paragraphs above: instinct led him to do something he felt he should do, but then it became something he thought he should do, but he no longer felt. And that was the beginning of a motherhood in which dedication was transformed into sacrifice.
Photos | Oleg Sidorenko, PHOTO CIA, PHOTO CIA on Flickr
In Babies and more | The difficult thing is to raise a child at home, How sad to be criticized for taking care of your children, Ten things not to say to a mother who does not work to care for her children (I) and (II)
