Stay at home mum - please !

The modern woman has it all… loving husband, dutiful kids, clean house and a wonderful, well paid, challenging creative job. Yay.




Bull!

It just doesn’t happen like that.

When both parents in the family work full time, and engage their focus on work related things for 40 hours or so per week, then something has got to give. It’s usually the kids (and sometimes the marital relationship too).

Kids need the focus, the energy, the time from at least one parent – for a big chunk of their day.

Nobody is superwoman – you can’t give everything to work and still be there 100% for the kids. OK you say – let’s compromise. Let’s can wait until the appropriate time – until they are 3 years old, until they start school, until they start high school… Sorry, buteven though their needs for you may change, the demand on your time and focus does not.

One thing we shouldn’t compromise on is parenting.

I work part-time. Because financially I have to. My son is 14. Independent almost in a lot of ways. But somehow, since being on long service leave, my relationship with him has never been better. And my mental health and never been better. I am free to give him the time and focus required, and know that I still have time in the week somewhere to do the things important to me. It’s working so well, I’m exploring avenues of income generating that don’t require me to work so much (I’ll let you know if that works out).

I’ve watched kids for years. From pre-school to high school. And right from the very young, to the not so young, what I notice is the ones whose parents attentions are otherwise focussed are the ones that get into trouble, look lost, get too independent and grow up too fast (for their own good). The ones that ride it out the best – are the ones whose parents are available to them. Who make time to join in at their sports days, spend the weekend doing stuff with them, are home when they get home from school, but most importantly - have the personal energy to actively parent !

So do what’s best for your kids. Limit your work to part-time (if at all) and don’t let it take over your focus or energy either. Look at ways to reduce your financial needs to accommodate this. Do you really need all those new clothes, that extra car, an extra large screen tv, that new furniture. These things that we go to work for – are stealing our children from us.

So stay at home mum.


Please.

PS. Hey, this doesn’t mean “live only for your kids” that can be just as bad ! – more on this in future…..