Friday 17 April 2015

Confessions of a Stay-At-Home-Mom (SAHM)!


I thrived in the corporate atmosphere, thoroughly enjoyed it for eight years and then came a time when I felt that there was another role that needed my attention. That there are two tiny people in the world who need me much more than the 3,00,000+ employee strong organization I worked for. I felt the need to seize the moment to fully enjoy myself with the two people I mattered the most to. It was difficult to let go of my career, of losing the person I became in office, of losing my financial independence.

People asked if I had a plan, if I was planning to join somewhere else or start something of my own, but for the first time in my life I had nothing planned, no agenda, no objectives to meet, no deadlines to run after. It felt surprisingly good, absolutely refreshing. I won’t say it was all fun and laughter, I do have my moments of doubt. I do have my ‘good days’ and ‘bad days’ as a Stay-At-Home-Mom (S-A-H-M). On rare occasions, I do miss dressing up for work and clacking in those glossy stilettoes. There are times I miss being among like-minded colleagues and I definitely miss my own money but never, even in those moments, have I regretted the decision I have taken. There are never any regrets when one truly follows ones heart!

Over the months, I have discovered various simple joys of life, connected with old friends, met a lot of new people, learnt new and varied things, picked up on new hobbies and in the process I made acquaintance with an all new ‘me’. I chanced upon a whole new world of possibilities I never knew existed. It is like opening a fresh new notebook and having the choice to do whatever you wanted to…write, paint, sketch or make paper planes out of. The options are endless. Additionally, I don’t have to worry about performance appraisals, project deadlines, meetings, e-mails and calls. No more Monday Blues (every day is a Monday or a Sunday depending on how you look at it.)

As a S-A-H-M, the hardest thing I learnt to do (and still trying) is to not have an agenda or a to-do list on my mind all the time. Throughout school, college and office we are trained to multi-task, project plan, keep everything organized, deliver as per timelines come what may and in the whole process we forget how to just simply relax. These days I am learning the art of doing nothing (dolce far niente) from my kids. It’s therapeutic!

A lot of times you may have read how hard it is to be a full-time mother and that it is the toughest job in the world! It sure is a difficult, complex, ever-evolving, challenging role, sometimes harder than a corporate job, if we must compare it that way. But, lately I have also come to believe that it is not really a ‘job’. Rather it is a ‘privilege’, a ‘luxury’. This is the only time when my kids are the most impressionable, the most delicate years of their life, when their mom means the world to them.

These are the precious years when we have all the time in the world for each other and I know fairly well that these years are going to fly past sooner than I know. Nothing seems to give me more joy than making my kids laugh, colouring with them, pasting stickers on the wall, pretend-playing and reading children’s stories with them. Sometimes I feel like I am re-living my childhood all over again.

Now, can I really call that a job? When I am having so much fun and not getting paid for it?

(To all the working moms...Kudos to you! I am really amazed by moms who are managing it all...Career, a Home,  Kids and slightly jealous of the ones who have grandparents staying together to provide full support.)

Would love to hear from you...please do leave in some comments.
(This post is also available on mycity4kids.com and has received over 1.7Lakh hits.)

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