Stay At Home Mom

Whether or not to become a stay-at-home mom is such a controversial topic.  On one end of the spectrum you have the mothers who look down upon the women who "choose" to continue working once baby arrives.  On the opposite end you have the women who chastise other women who make the decision to stay home and take care of the house and the baby.  And somewhere in the middle you have the other 80% (obviously not a real statistic!)  of the world. The people in the middle have no thoughts or opinions on it.  Either they don't care what you do, they don't have the option to stay home so they don't know what its like to consider that, or they don't have the option to work for whatever reason.

Growing up my mom always stayed home with us.  I always remember thinking it was so weird when other kids said their mom's were at work.  I was extremely grateful and happy that my mom could volunteer in my class, tag along for field trips, and pick us up from school everyday.  Sydney and I always thought it would be fun to go to that place with the playground and all those kids daycare but only if our mom could come and only if we didn't have to stay longer than an hour or so.

As I got older and college, careers, and families became closer than childhood I just assumed I would always work.  I knew how hard my mom always worked for us and that she NEVER got a break and still doesn't so being a stay-at-home mom wasn't appealing to me.  I can remember HEATED arguments and debates with co-workers over stay-at-home moms.  They felt that women who "chose" to stay home were lazy, had no self worth, or were incapable of providing for themselves.  I always flew off the handle at that statement because from my view it was apparent to me that my stay-at-home mom was the backbone of our family.  She kept it together. Without her we would have lived in filth, bills would not have been paid, meals would not have been cooked, billing for my dad's businesses would not have been done, and none of our life problems would have been solved by talking it over with mom in the car. But even though I was a huge supporter of mamas who stay at home I had no desire to be one myself.

I understand completely that some households run smoothly and all is fabulous when mama has to work but when I found out I was pregnant a switch flipped in my head and there was no way, no how was I going to be returning to work once I had this baby.  Its was a scary decision to make but to me it wasn't even an option.  Thankfully I have a great husband who can support our family financially, we aren't too bad with money so we were prepared on the savings front, and God happened to bring a successful business into my life that has blossomed into more than I ever could have imagined and I don't even have to leave my house.