As I start to transition back to work after my career pause as a stay-at-home mom, I’m reflecting on what I’ve learned and how I’ve grown during this period of my life.
This period of my life was the most growth I’ve experienced. It’s forced me to look inward and take a hard look at what kind of parent I want to be and how I want to show up for my family.
It’s been a time of growth, changes and navigating through life’s uncertainty. In a way, you can say that I’ve evolved into a different version of myself. Some people say not to lose yourself in motherhood. In response to this, I believe we find our most authentic selves in motherhood. During this period, we trim the fat and start to prioritize what matters most to us because we can’t afford to waste time or lose time with our most precious littles.
As I reflect on this past 1.5 years, I’m sharing my lessons learned and personal reflections in hopes it may help others on a similar journey.
10 Lessons Learned as a SAHM
1. There are good and bad days like any job, but the ups and downs are more sporadic and less predictable as a SAHM. Although I did not expect being a SAHM would be a stroll in the park (literally and figuratively), the ups and downs of being a SAHM are quite erratic and unpredictable. One morning, you can wake up to the happiest kid in the world who cooperates and everything from diaper changes to eating breakfast goes smoothly. Then the next day, you might wake up to an angry little monster who gets upset by the smallest of things (at least to us) and EVERYTHING from diaper change to how how his banana was cut will trigger him.
2. The journey can be lonely. Being a SAHM can be one of the loneliest and isolating job. A few months into it, I realize how much I missed connecting with other working moms through my full-time job and being able to just talk to coworkers about random life things like bonding over our favorite TV series or sharing what we did over the weekend. I’ve learned how valuable it is to create your own community as a SAHM, whether it is through playdates or meeting other moms at local parks. I have found my community through our local playground and joining various local online mom groups on Facebook. This has helped me feel less alone, although I still desire more connection with other adults. When I am in need of more social time, I will usually schedule playdates over the weekends with friends or other parents.
3. Prioritizing mental health is essential. I thought being a great mom meant prioritizing my kid over everything else sacrificing my own wellbeing. I quickly learned that my mental health comes first because if I’m not taking care of myself, my son will get the worst part of me and I am no longer being the best version of myself. Throughout this period of time, I leaned on my therapist for support to get me through those tough moments. I found myself feeling mentally drained and emotionally challenged. I absorbed a lot of the emotions from my son and I couldn’t help but feel so depleted by the end of the day. Focusing on my mental health through therapy, journaling and exercising has been the best investment I’ve made in myself.
4. You can burnout just like in any other job. In the beginning, I felt so much weight off my shoulders when I was laid off due to no longer having a boss managing me and feeling distracted by work when with my family. So I put all of my effort into being the best mom possible, which meant taking out my son to new places regularly, cooking new recipes each week, and being 100% on the entire time we’re together. While all of these things are great bonding experiences and an expression of my love, I soon burned myself out after a few months. I could no longer keep up with trying new recipes each week. I ran out of places to take him and quite honestly, I got exhausted planning a different activity or field trip each day. So I dialed it back and gave myself the permission to be monotonous. We stuck to the recipes I knew he loved. We went to the same neighborhood playground that we soon made friends at. And we narrowed it down to 2-3 of his favorite places he liked going to. This kept it easier for me to keep up with and provided variety to his week.
5. Time management is everything. Once I became a mom, time management meant a completely different thing to me. Not only did I need to manage my own time, but now I’m juggling and anticipating the needs of another human being. Establishing a structured predictable routine for my son was so important to me so I had to stay on top of his nap times and eating schedule to prevent meltdowns. It also meant I had to be very diligent about how I spent my limited free time. I found myself using my free time to be productive (ie. grocery shopping, cleaning, etc.) and never gave myself time to just relax. Managing my time effectively enabled me to have control over my time and prioritize what’s most important.
6. Investing time in reading parenting books and listening to podcasts will pay off ten fold. In the first year of motherhood, I prioritized newborn books such as sleep training, what to expect and postpartum recovery. Once our son turned one, I began to shift my reading list to toddler parenting books such as How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Good Inside. Also, listening to podcasts and subscribing to parenting accounts has been super helpful. A few of my favorite include After Bedtime by Big Little Feelings and Good Inside by Dr. Becky Kennedy.
7. It’s okay to ask for help. I prided myself on not asking for help when I first started as a SAHM. I felt a lot of shame and guilt when asking my mother-in-law for help due to the fact that I didn’t have a job. It’s like I had to prove my worth as a SAHM now that I no longer worked. So, I worked hard to keep a tidy home, keep on top of meal planning, and being engaged all the time with my son. After all, what was my excuse for asking for help when I didn’t “work”? After a while, I soon realize that I myself and our son really benefited from a break. It not only strengthened our attachment so he could become accustomed to another caregiver but it also gave me dedicated time to catch up on my own life or just spend more 1:1 time with my husband.
8. How we feel about ourselves will reflect in the way we show up for our children. This is the main premise I took away from Dr. Becky Kennedy’s book. Our perspective about ourselves and our children change EVERYTHING. It changes the way we approach disciplining our children. It changes the way we feel about our children. It changes how we feel about ourselves. Our self-talk and the way we talk to our children will become how our children talk to themselves. If we repeatedly tell our children “you’re naughty!”, they will identify as being naughty into adulthood. Knowing this, I’ve made a point to become mindful of my own self-talk and critical judgments to avoid this from being passed onto my son.
9. Change is inevitable and happens quicker than we think. We all know change is part of life. But it becomes apparent how quickly change happens in a short span of time when you become a parent. As a SAHM, I have grown attached to other neighborhood kids and caregivers. Seeing them grow up and go off to preschool one-by-one has sparked a lot of mixed emotions for me. I didn’t realize how attached I would become until I started to realize that the change was permanent. We would stop seeing the same kid to our neighborhood playground on a regular basis. This made me think of teachers and how they get a new set of kids each year, and life just goes on. In a full-time job, change is less obvious in the day-to-day grind. There’s also no way to predict how long you’ll be working with the same colleague – it could be months or years. In contrast, as a SAHM, you know the change is inevitable and your children will eventually grow into the next milestone in their life.
10. Slowing down life. I saw on Instagram a post that read “having kids slows you down but maybe that’s what we needed.” Having kids definitely teaches you to slow down and have patience. Too often are we rushing through our day and not fully embracing the present moment. Becoming a SAHM forced me to let go of strict schedules and being in control of the future. In a way, it’s been a meditative and transformative experience to slow down and be present in each moment. Our kids are never worried about the future or the past. They are care-free and in the moment. This grounds us as parents and reminds us to slow down as well.
What lessons have you learned as a SAHM?
