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I have three fabulous children and a terrific husband. I was recently laid off and have decided to try the stay-at-home gig. We'll see how it goes!

Sunday, October 27, 2013

I Am Not in Control

I have rediscovered my control issues.  I've always known I have something of a need to have things my way, but that has become more apparent in the last few weeks and has entered a realm I hoped it would not; motherhood.  My husband has been traveling more than usual so I have become far more responsible for our children's schooling and activities.  

Our oldest has always been a good student, in that she loves to learn and has always tried to do well.  This year, she has been struggling more with math and has given up trying.  That drives me C-R-A-Z-Y!  We've been working through her struggles and I thought we were making progress.  Then she came home on Friday with three papers/tests where she missed at least half of the questions!  

My son has had behavior issues lately.  Nothing serious; normal 4 year old stuff, but it's frustrating and requires incredible vigilance to stop the behavior.  It's constant time outs and screaming that my punishments are unfair.  

And the baby has been going through some strange screaming phase where she just can't help but scream for 3 hours every morning and indiscriminately at other times of the day.  Nothing I do can make her happy.  She's not hungry, not tired, not thirsty, doesn't want to play, be read to or even watch TV.  She just wants to scream.

All of this combined is making me nuts.  After five days alone, it all snowballed and I was visibly shaking I was so stressed.  I got away to my hiding place (the bathroom) for a few moments, took a deep breath and finally figured out my problem.  I felt like a failure.  Worse than that, it was my lack of control that led to the failure.  My children's behavior was all my fault.  My husband is a great father and when he's home they don't behave that way, so the obvious conclusion was that I am not a good mom.  I was failing my kids. 

Two days later I was still trying to cope.  I finally remembered that I should pray about it.  I prayed for God to take away my control issues and to help me feel like less of a failing parent.  As I prayed I could literally feel the heaviness trickling away.  It was awesome.  I realized that I was doing everything I could, but I was not in control.  Ultimately, God is in control and he could work miracles.  I needed to learn to let go.  In fact, it was probably my stubborn need to be in control that was causing some of the problems.

We picked up lunch on the way home from church and were planning to go have a 'family fun day' picking pumpkins.  Lunch was a little stressful.  The kids were poking on each other, the baby was screaming and it was a mess.  I ended up looking down at my plate, dipping french fries in ketchup, shoveling them into my mouth while I continued a mantra of, "I am not in control.  I am not in control."

Long story short, the outing was a marvelous success.  We had a great time.  I am still working on letting go.  The less control I try to have over everything, the better things are.

Friday, October 18, 2013

Part 3: Socioeconomic Status

Response to "The Opt Out Generation Wants Back In", an article in the New York Times.  Part 3:  Socioeconomic Status

Most of the women interviewed for "The Opt Out Generation Wants Back In" appear to be part of families in upper-middle to upper income families.  I wish the authors of the article had interviewed some middle-income women.  Most were still able to put their kids in fancy New York private schools after they quit working.  Those women were easily able to find jobs when they were ready to go back to work because they were able to network within those circles. 

I do not fall into that category.  Neither do most of the SAHMs that I know.  I want to know how women in the middle to lower-middle class feel after 10 years of being a SAHM.  Is/Was it difficult for them to get back into the workplace?  Do they even want to?  Many of the SAHMs I know stay home because what they could earn wouldn't cover the child care costs.  Some have chosen to stay home because they feel it's the right thing to do and are willing to suffer the financial difficulties.  We were lucky enough that my husband's salary was able to keep us at a similar life style, but giving up that "extra" income was not easy.

I stayed home with our oldest when she was 6 months old until she was a year old and it was BO-RING!  We had just moved to a new state.  We had no friends, no family and NO money.  I didn't go to work because I couldn't find anything.  Eventually I ended up working odd shifts at Kmart to make ends meet.  It was awful.  I want to know how women like that feel after ten years of staying home.  The women interviewed for the article went back to work because they were bored.  After their children got old enough to not need constant supervision and their homes were completely remodeled, they needed something else to do.

I want to know what women who opted out of working to stay home, regardless of financial hardship, feel after ten years.  The article does mention talking to some women in this category, but just said they "often struggled greatly" to get back in the work force.  That's important to know, but were they happy?  Many of the wealthy women were not happy or satisfied with their lives.

Those who did go back to work stated they needed more money to save for their children's college education.  Now, I am a firm believer that everyone should get either college educated or get some other technical degree after high school, but I don't think I'm responsible for paying for my children's post high school education.  I hope we're in a position to help, but I think my kids will appreciate it more, if they are responsible for getting it themselves.  The way our economy is right now, we should be more concerned with our retirement.  My husband and I worked hard for our degrees and we're very proud of that.  We may not have gone to Ivy league schools, but our education was still top notch and didn't send our parents or us into a whirlwind of debt.

Luckily most women, regardless of socioeconomic status, agreed that they did not regret their time as SAHMs.  That does give me hope.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Treating Them Differently

I always knew it was common for people to treat their second child differently than their first.  It makes sense.  You have more experience and less time.  I didn't realize just how differently we've treated our kids until a recent trip to the beach.  Our family loves the beach.  My kids are total beach bums.  They would spend all day every day at the beach if we would let them.  All of our kids first saw the ocean when they were about 18 months old, and all three practically jumped in.  They loved the waves crashing into them even when the water splashed in their face.

When she was three, my oldest got to spend about 3 days at the beach and it was difficult to get her to leave.  She loved to go in the water and we made sure one of us was with her every second.  The first time my son went he was far more interested in playing in a dirt hole than anything else and we let our oldest hang out in the water by herself as long as the water didn't get above her ankles.

During our most recent trip we let our oldest and our 4 year old son just go in the water.  At one point the waves were going over their heads and while we were near them, we weren't close enough to grab them up should they get pulled under!  And the baby was allowed to sit in the water without us holding onto her.  We were next to her the whole time just not on top of her.

It's crazy how the baby is getting an almost completely different upbringing.  The important stuff has stayed the same.  We expect her to say please and thank you and to be nice, but she gets to eat way more junk food than the other two did and is allowed to get a lot dirtier.  We also expect more from her.  I was laughing at my husband the other day because he was talking to her like she was a 10 year old; explaining why he expected her to behave a certain way and giving her detailed instructions on how to throw her lunch trash away.  That's right, our 17 month old can throw her lunch trash away.  

It's funny to think back at how stringent we were about food and toys and TV.  Our oldest didn't even get a french fry until she was 3 and almost never watched TV.  The baby loves it.  We never had anything against french fries.   We didn't want them to be the only thing she would eat, so we put off letting her try one.  We have since learned that we control what our kids eat, not them and letting them have a few french fries every now and again is not going to stop them from eating green beans.

As far as the TV goes, we still don't let the kids watch too much TV.  They probably watch more than they should, but we have three kids.  Sometimes the only way I can get dinner made in less than 2 hours is to turn it on.  I don't feel bad about that.  50 years ago, if you needed the kids to leave you alone, you'd just send them outside.  That's not really something we feel comfortable doing now.  We are still very picky about what the kids watch especially if the baby is watching.  Some things have to change as our family changes.  They important things like love don't change.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

More Soap Box

I am so glad I have a blog and so is my husband.  When I see something on television that completely outrages me, I can write about it instead of talking his ear off.  So, check out the Soap Box page.  I've added to it.