The Unnoticed Career

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During lunch yesterday, my father asked me when I would be returning to work. 

My reply was, “Not yet.  Gavin’s still too young.” 

To which he eyed Gavin critically and remarked, “He’s rather clingy to you these days.  Perhaps it’s time for you to let go.”

Let go?  Who am I to decide when to let go?  Gavin will let go of me when he’s good and ready.  I am not about to withdraw myself from him a day earlier than he’s ready.  That is my parenting philosophy – to be present for Gavin when he needs me.  I don’t believe it is for me to decide “when” he should start learning to be independent.  Gavin has displayed that he has the ability to decide for himself when he is ready to let go of Mummy and start exploring so I’m certainly not about to start dictating terms when he has yet to turn one.

So I said, “Who’s going to look after him if I go back to work.”

“Your mother in law can look after him.”

Is he for real?  This is my father – the one who agreed with me when I said that a child should be the parents’ responsibility.  The grandparents have already done their duty raising their children.  Now it’s time for them to kick back and enjoy their grandchildren – play with them, take them shopping, and, yes, even spoil them.  That’s what a grandparent does.  Heck, that’s what I intend to do if I’m ever blessed to become one.  There’ll be no more poopy diapers for me.  Okay, maybe a few but I certainly don’t expect to be changing them on a daily basis when I earn the title of “grandma”.

Other Mums and Dads may have different opinions on these issues and that is their perogative.  It doesn’t change the fact that I promised myself when I was a teenager that when I had children, I was either going to be the one looking after them or I wasn’t going to have any.  Now that I have been given the choice to stay-home if I choose to, or go to work what decision do you think I would make?

This leads me to two important issues that have been plaguing my mind for some time now. 

1. Why are we so eager to force our children to grow up before their time? 

I’m not talking about tying baby to my apron strings – he hasn’t even turned one!  On the weekend, a father to a four month old baby girl put it rather aptly when he said, “So many people have been telling us not to carry the baby or she’ll get so used to it we’ll have to carry her all the time.  When she grows older, she won’t want us to carry her any more so when am I supposed to get a chance to carry her?” 

My point exactly – there is a time and readiness for everything, especially during the developmental phases of a baby.  Gavin is at the stage where more often than not, he doesn’t want to be carried!  We choose to carry him because we want to keep him out of trouble!  When a baby wanted to be carried, we’re told, “Don’t carry.”  Now they don’t want to be carried, but we insist upon it.  Isn’t that ironic?

2. Why are stay-home Mums made to feel so unworthy when they are doing one of the most important jobs around?

We’re raising the next generation and helping them to be healthy, respectful, loving and confident individuals.  I think Martha Sears had it right when she said, “The world needs my children.”  The world needs children who will grow up to be adults who are kind, thoughtful and loving.  Who else would be dedicated enough to teach this than a child’s own parents?  Especially when you consider that a child learns through observation, they pick up on how they are treated by their parents.  Gavin is important to me and so I give him what’s important to me – my love, my time and my attention.  Through my actions, I teach him that this is how he should treat other people.

Another thing I resent is when I am made to feel as if I sit around and do nothing, especially when I get asked stupid questions, like, “So, what do you do all day?”  What do these people think I do?  Do they think my son prepares his own food and cleans up after himself?  Do they think he bathes himself, plays by himself and falls asleep on his own?  In a stay-home Mum’s job we’re on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, so cut us some slack.

“To the world you are someone, for someone you are the world.” 

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Other posts that might interest you:

• Gavin’s New Career Aspirations
• A Work-at-Home Stay-at-Home-Mum
• Career Aspirations: Race Car Driver?
• Reasons Why I Don’t Like Being a SAHM
• Choosing to be a Stay-At-Home-Mum

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