As the pace of life gets faster and our "to do" lists get longer, people tend to live in default, a mode that results in making decisions with less thought and care than they would if we lived in a simpler world with fewer options.
Please note that I in no way mean to say that every mama could or should be home with her baby for the first five years. Every family is unique, personally and financially. There are single moms who do not have the option of staying home because they are the primary breadwinners in their households.
Yet I have no doubt that it would be in the best interest of every child from birth to five whose moms are able...mentally, physically, and financially, for their mothers to be their primary caregivers all day, every day during those first years.
It would be better for the family unit as a whole if mamas would devote this time to establishing and building loving relationships with their children, without the distractions that inevitably result from working full time away from them.
Better health and functioning in families would bode well for society as a whole.
So many women are in a position in which they feel that they have to work outside of the home to meet the needs of their families. The truth is though that in many situations, that decision was made well before baby's birth.
This might have involved the choice to buy an expensive house that they now have little time to live in, or the decision to buy a fancy car to keep up with others who were doing the same. More generally, the choice may have been one to live a lifestyle centered around materialism, as opposed to embracing the beauty of a simpler life, one that is less rushed and busy, and that allows moms to focus more on the things and people that matter most.
I was that person with the job and the plan to keep working while raising my children. I scoffed at my Mama's claims that I wasn't going to be able to go back to work after the birth of my first child. What did she think, that I was some kind of weakling? Other women did it and so could I. I had gone to college to be a teacher, and for goodness sake, we had a house to pay for. These things, from my perspective, made her claim seem simply out of this world.
And then she turned out to be at least partly right.
I had my son in May 2003, and enjoyed my maternity leave and summer off. In July, the countdown began, the countdown to leaving my nursing infant every weekday so I could go out into the "real world" to do what strong women do.
I did go back to work, a place that I had enjoyed prior to becoming a mama, but where satisfaction was no longer to be found. I hear people tell new moms that it will get easier; truly, I didn't want it to get easier. To embrace that ease would have been to deny my maternal instincts, the most powerful, meaningful part of who I was becoming, to embrace a life of less.
After a couple of months, I put in my resignation. I remember a meeting with our principal and assistant principal, in which they tried ever so kindly to encourage me to stay. They reasoned that children often need their mothers more when they become teenagers than they do when they are small, and that I might want to consider working until that time.
I did not agree.
I've since reasoned that a good, stable, and loving home environment in the early years is likely to produce a grounding and security in children that will enable them (and us as parents) to weather the teenage years more effectively.
A good foundation is vital to the strong construction of anything, right?
We haven't yet had the opportunity to determine whether or not my prediction was correct, as my oldest will be only (ONLY!) eleven in May.
And now back to the story...we cushioned my transition to home financially by starting a home daycare, which was a fairly seamless transition for me professionally because of my degree in Early Childhood Education. Having friends over every day was a blessing for my children as well.
By the time we got around to having our third child, we were able to afford to live comfortably without the extra income that my job had provided so we closed our home daycare, which enabled me to focus completely on our growing family, a transition that I was excited to make.
If you're one of those moms who feels that need to be home with your kid(s), I encourage you to consider your options. In all likelihood, your skill set looks very different from mine. Think about how your talents and skills might transfer to something that you can do on more of a part time basis, or at home full time. Do your research, and most importantly, take it to the Lord in prayer.
This, sweet mama, is one of the most important decisions you will ever make.
Sometimes the lives that we had planned are quite inferior to the lives we could be living.
"Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." (Proverbs 3:4,5)
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