Being a Stay-at-Home Mom

One of my goals for my blog that I had in its inception is to use it as a cathartic outlet for the various thoughts that come through my mind. However, I have steered away from getting too personal for a variety of reasons, but would like to delve into one thing that weighs on my mind greatly from time to time.

When I was in high school, I was the hyper-motivated, obsessive bookworm. I always had to be the best at everything, much to the annoyances (I'm sure) of those around me. My Holy Grail was to be my class's valedictorian, and I worked very hard to try and achieve that goal. Up until my senior year I was poised to be that person, but then I came to some very important realizations about who I was. In order to become valedictorian, I would have to take two classes (and do well in them): AP Physics and AP Economics. I did not like these classes AT ALL. They were tough, boring, and a bit over my head. A short time before I would have gritted my teeth, sucked it up, and taken the classes, but something inside of me said no. Why torture yourself and be very unhappy for a whole year to reach a goal that you very possibly would not be able to meet? I thought very hard about this, because I had wanted to achieve this goal for a LONG time and had worked really hard to get to where I was, but I realized that my happiness (and possibly my health) were not worth the expense that would have to be made. So I did something that was difficult: I accepted my weaknesses--that there were some things that I just wasn't good at (which was a very tough thing to admit)--AND THAT IT WAS OKAY. I still did manage to graduate from high school with a 4.0 and 3rd in my class, and sometimes I do look back in sadness that I did not achieve what I had wanted, but I know that I am a happier, better person for it.

Fast forward to college. I was still motivated and still wanted to do very well academically, but I started to realize that there was more to life than chaining yourself to books. There were experiences to be had and lives to live, and I decided that I would do that, too. So I stayed up till 3 AM during the week, I crammed for (MANY MANY) tests, I put off studying, went to concerts on a weeknight, drank when I shouldn't, got into conversations, and had fun. I still did well in school, managing to graduate magna cum laude, but I started to experience some of the same frustrations that I did in high school. The major that I had chosen for myself--Biology--put me in contact with many hyper-competitive, driven people. I would say most of them were planning to go to medical school or research. Then there was me. I had absolutely NO desire to go to medical school and I absolutely HATED research. I was afraid of blood (NOTE: in my Anatomy Lab when it came time to crack open our dead cat's sternum for dissection I had to cover my ears, close my eyes, and have someone else do it. It made me sick.), did not like the potential life style that doctor's would have (long hours away from family), and I though research was BOOORING. I, however, loved the actual material in Biology (and still do), and I thought that the best way to use this was as a teacher. High school. Now this put me, in my eyes, at odds with the other Bio majors, because I felt like I wasn't as good as them because I didn't have plans of being a doctor of something, and for awhile I was tempted to give up being a teacher and try to do something "better" with my degree so that I would feel validated in life and so that I would look like I'd done something with myself and my degree. Just like in high school, though, I came to another life-changing realization about who I am as a person. I realized that I am not person who wants to do something because everyone else is. Just because 80% of Biology majors (I have no clue if this statistic is correct, but it seems so based on experience) go into the medical or research field doesn't mean that I have to do so as well. I had a love for something, and it was important to express it in MY way, not the way that 80% of those like me do.

So I became a high school Biology teacher.

Fast forward once again till Summer 2006. I had recently found out I was pregnant with my first child. I had been working as a high school Biology teacher for two years in a rural school. And I HATED it. (The school thing, not the being pregnant thing.) It was kind of depressing in a way, because I had spent five years in college (four for my degree and another one getting certified to teach), numerous years in pre-secondary school, and two years out of school pursuing a dream that I had ultimately come to realize was not for me. I still loved the material...science is cool...but sadly I did not like the bulls**t that comes long with being a teacher. Parent-teacher conferences, meetings, recertification, standards, discipline, I still have nightmares about it (no joke). I did have something that I knew that I was going to like and love: a beautiful baby on the way. I grew up with a stay-at-home mom, and though there are some things that I'm sure could've been better, I always loved having my mom there in the mornings, at home with me when I got home from school, and throughout the summer. I never had to experience the pain of being left by my mom at daycare and loved having the experiences that I could only have if she had been there. And I knew that I truly wanted to be there with my baby; partly because I wanted out of this job that I had come to loathe, partly because I had started to realize that I preferred the simple life to the high-stress, fast-paced work world, and much because I didn't want to miss a single minute of my baby's steps through her own life. It killed me to think that I would be there for first smiles, coos, steps, words, laughs, and many other things. I wanted to experience them firsthand rather than have them be retold to me by a daycare worker. And so, with much discussion between my husband and I, we decided that I would be a stay-at-home mom for as long as it was financially feasible.

I grew more in love with Livers every day. I was not one of those picture-perfect mothers who is all rainbows and moonbeams the second she sees her offspring. It was a gradual but growing love that increased more and more, and I started to dread finishing off the last six weeks of my school year before I officially entered SAHM-dom. So much so that decided I couldn't stand to go back at all. So I didn't. I made arrangements with my long-term sub, and she agreed to take care of business for me if I gave her some plans to follow. It worked fine from our end, but I had to break my contract to do it, and as a result I cannot teach (legally) in the state until July 2008, which doesn't bother me because my time away from teaching has cemented the idea in my head that I will NOT teach again unless there is absolutely no choice.

Now, how exactly does this tie into my discussions about high school, college, teaching, and my realizations about who I am as a person? The problem that I sometimes tackle in my mind is this: am I a stupid person and am I wasting my life by being a stay-at-home mom? This creeps up on me all the time, and I hate myself for it. I feel like I should be Miss Do-Everything Working Mom with the perfecthouseperfectkidsperfecthusbandperfectjob (that's a lot of perfect) who still has time to do all sorts of wonderful things for herself and who has a well-rounded, fulfulling everything. I feel guilty for spending 5 years in college and to be sitting on a degree. (Which was brought to my attention Saturday while picking up ribs at Sardi's--a former teacher asked what I was doing these days--I said taking care of my kid--he said what was I doing with my degree--and I said just that, sitting on it, to his shock.) I feel like that same girl in high school who felt like I should take classes that I hate; that same girl in college who felt pressured to be a doctor or a researcher even though she knew she wouldn't like the sacrifices to life involved. It is tough, because I know in my heart that this is the right decision for me right now. I absolutely love being home with my daughter. Sure, it can sometimes be boring because I don't have anyone to talk to much of the day (she can't hold a good conversation yet) and doing the dishes 18 times a day can get old, but I would much rather be spending time with her than with some snotty high school kid who hates me and anything I have to say about science. I have problems reconciling who I am with some sort of preconceived notion of who I feel the world thinks I should be. I want my daughter to be proud of her mommy and my husband to be proud of his wife. And I don't want to feel guilty because I am at home instead of working.

It's getting late, and that's all I got for now. This is something that I hope resolves itself more every day, and I'm sure eventually it will.