i've worked and stayed at home, and in my experience, staying at home is much easier for me overall. everyone's situation is different (some people's husbands, families, friends, etc. play a huge role in helping raise their children, and others have husbands who travel or are deployed and are virtually raising their kids as single parents), so i don't think it's right to make a generalization either way that working moms or stay at home moms have it harder. most of the challenges i've experienced as a stay at home mom i also experienced as a working mom--it is just seems to never end when you are with your kids 24/7.
all that to say--being a mom (make that a parent) is hard!! as much as love my two rowdy boys, i've found myself losing my patience all too much recently. it culminated at qdoba today when neither of my boys were listening at all. parker kept hiding under the table, being loud, running around and doing everything but eat his burrito. the restaurant was packed (including several casual friends at other tables) and as i was trying to pack up our half eaten lunches to take home to avoid any more embarrassment, paxton fell off the bench he and parker were using as a race track and hit his head on the ground. crying ensued and i could just feel everyone staring at the frazzled mom trying to wrangle two disobedient children to the car.
i felt like a failure as a mom. maybe i should give myself more credit for being brave enough to take two kids to church and out to lunch by myself (james was working), but ugghh. as much i would like to say this too shall pass, avoiding eating out for a few weeks does not teach my kids respect and obedience. in constantly working on molding my boys, there will be struggles and frustrations. all i can control is my reaction. my prayer for today (and every day) is that God gives me the grace, patience and love to respond in a way that shapes Parker and Paxton's hearts and actions to be more Christlike. we all are still definitely a work in progress but thankfully we serve a God who is bigger than all of our shortcomings! love yall.
(this pic was after baths tonight...still just as rowdy as at lunch!)
4 comments:
I think it's great that you've done both! You can give insight on staying home and working!
I posted an extremely similar post when I first started staying him. I found that being a working outside of the home mom was so much harder for me. Juggling my career and my family, and my home was so much more difficult. Being at home has allowed me more time to get things done during the day. Granted, I am babysitting 3 days a week. so not every day is easy. But I agree that this is so much easier than leaving for work each day and coming home to a family with needs and a house that is dirty. PLUS I am the one teaching and influencing my daughter.
When I feel myself get frustrated, I tell Ava that mommy needs quiet time, and I go sit on our stairs and pray for patience. It works 100% of the time.
I was originally drawn to your blog because I have a son named Parker too. I also recently became a stay at home mom. Although I'm loving it, I do have have some days where I feel like my 2 kids are ganging up on me. I love reading your blog to see insight on how other SAHM handle things like keeping kids entertained, losing patience, and finances.
Love this post because I can so relate! My boys have been in this crazy disobedient phase and I constantly feel like a frazzled mom! Sooo... I'm slightly nervous about making the leap to staying home 24/7 but I know it will be better than balancing this crazy along with work crazy {right?!} :). Anyway, let's try to get our rowdy boys together for a playdate {aka - wear them out!} sometime soon!!!!! That would be so fun!!
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