The struggles of a stay at home mom

Never in my whole life I have imagine to be a full time mother in the future. When I was younger I always dream to be working at an office, get home and get a kiss from my kids and husband. That was always been my plan all along because I don't want to be dependent to my husband when it comes to finances. But destiny has a different plan all along.

I am already a regular employee at the company I am working when I got pregnant. Although it was unexpected but of course I accepted it wholeheartedly. The company I am working with is very considerate and doesn't have problem with my situation. I applied for all the benefits I could get and continue working until I took my maternity leave. I was back after 60 days but it has been so hard to leave my newly born child. That time, my mother was there to take care of him for the meantime until we found someone who could fully take care of him. My husband was working abroad too so there isn't someone who can take care of him. Meanwhile my mother in law wasn't in good condition as she was diagnosed with chronic kidney failure. That lead me no choice but to resign from work after 3 months after getting back to it.

It has been more than a decade since I decided to be a full time mother. Honestly speaking, I could say that I love it from the bottom of my heart but I would be hypocrite to say that I didn't had a hard time going through it. Thus, today I am gonna share the struggles that I faced all through out my full time mother journey.

No day off (24/7 duty)

When you are working in a field or an office there maybe a day or two for rest days, however being a stay at home you don't get any of it. The obligation for your family should be 24/7. There is no time for rest. I experienced this most specially when my kids were just around 2 or 3. Their age difference was only 1 year and 9 months, so I was like taking care of two babies. It was really hard. I am breastfeeding my youngest while doing my best to attend the needs of my toodler then. The worst part was when one of them is sick. I remember one time that my eldest got sick, and we have to take him to hospital in the middle of the night, the only problem was that I can't take my youngest inside the hospital so we have to bring my mother in law with us to take care of the baby while me and my husband took my eldest inside the hospital. It was a very stressful night but then God has given me a lot of strength to overcome it.

Budgetting is too hard

I used to earn money so most of the time I share the expenses with my husband at an early stage of us being together. Though my salary is way less than him I make sure to contribute when it comes to our finances. Me being an independent woman. But that change of course when I was no longer making money, instead I became financially dependent on my husband's income. At first it was all good since we were living in my in law's house. We also share the budget inside the house and we don't have any investment that time yet so I don't have any problem when in comes to budgetting. Of course as years gone by, the kids are growing so as the expenses too. Taking care of our finances is really making my head ache most of the time. I have to make sure I delegated our expenses well or else we'll end up empty wallet.

No social life

I used to go out with my friends back when I was working and doesn't have a child yet. Like the usual gathering that you do with your colleague most specially after payday expect it that someone will make a plan of going out and of course it is fun chilling out from time to time after a stressful duty. However, when I became committed with my little family, I began forgetting all those stuffs and even ignoring some of my friends. I wanted to focus on my new career that is why I hardly meet some of them. Another factor is that, I live far away from them so it was really hard to meet each other. We can only update on fb very minimal too as I don't update my status there much. Besides taking care of my little ones really takes up my time so updating my status on any social media wasn't my priority.

Depression

I often felt depressed at one point in my motherhood journey. As you can see, being a full time mom takes a lot of extra effort in order for you to be successful. But once you didn't meet the standards, you suddenly questioned yourself. Am I doing the right thing? Or is this supposed to be like this? Sometimes I asked myself is this what I really like? The hard part was that since I am not open with other people from my circle, the burden only surrounds within me. It was an inner battle that I could only win, because if not I would end up cray cray.😅

My final thoughts

Despite all the challenges I have mentioned above, I could say that everything I have been through within almost 12 years of being a stay at home mother is definitely worth it. The fun, excitement, struggles and challenges in all those years keeps me stronger and continously gives me experiences and memories that no one can ever take away from me. There is no certain amount that can compensate the hardship I have been. But seeing the milestones and little accomplishments of my children, I could say it was really worth it.

Disclaimer. All the things that are written in my article are purely based from my own experience.

All images used are from Unsplash