Sometimes, as a stay-at-home-mom, I really struggle with how prosaic and mundane my life has become.
I have two masters degrees. I’ve learned to read five languages. I’ve translated The Iliad and Genesis and Beowulf and debated theology and metaphysics. I’ve travelled, and taught, and built websites, and won prizes, and written two drafts of a novel. And now I spend my days doing laundry and dishes and changing diapers and trying to fit in me-time and writing time around keeping two small children alive. Sleep and showers optional.
And the thing of it all is, I BELIEVE in the value of staying at home with my kids. Nobody forced me to do this. In fact, it’s an expensive luxury for me NOT to be working and bringing in an income, and it means that we can’t always make ends meet. I BELIEVE in being here for my boys while they’re really little, grounding them in the idea that home is safe and steady, that Mama and Daddy will always be there when they need us. Besides, how could I bear to miss all their little moments? Crawling and standing and first words, smiles and tears and staring raptly at the washing machine. And even after all the times I’ve struggled with the routine and the endless chores (and the weeks when it seemed like there was way too much poop in my life) and the sense of being trapped in my own home, I still believe this was the right thing for us.
The only mistake I made was thinking that because I believe in doing this, and love my kids, that would make it all easy. (I did, you know. In retrospect, I realized at one point that I really did believe (before our first was born) that my love for my children would make it all effortless. Ha, ha ha, ha ha.)
Sometimes it does, thank God. Sometimes, when my baby wakes up at two in the morning crying, all I care about is making sure that he’s okay, and if I get to go back to sleep afterwards, that’s a bonus. Sometimes I’m walking my oldest to nursery in the morning, and holding his hand as he walks happily beside me, reading the numbers off of license plates and naming the kinds of trucks that go by, and for those twenty minutes everything is just fine. Sometimes the three-year-old and the one-year-old are both climbing on me, having a grand old time, and I can’t help laughing, and looking around and noticing that what I wanted most in the whole world has come to pass: I am a mother.
And I remember the five long years when I didn’t know if I ever would be, and I am warmed and relieved and grateful and full of love and gladness.
Probably the one thing that has surprised me most about being a parent, is how often I now have overpowering conflicting emotions about things. It can be true at the exact same time that I love my kids so much I would walk into fire for them, and if I have to take care of them for one more minute I am going to lose it. I can be completely fed up of changing two kids’ worth of diapers, and terrified of starting potty training. I can be resolutely holding my baby tight to keep him still while he gets a shot, and crying inside as he wails from the pain. The struggles come and go; there are hard days and peaceful days, happy minutes and crisis minutes.
I guess that’s just how it is when your heart is beating in someone else’s chest.