Why I Chose to be a Stay-at-Home-Mom

I was never one of those girls whose biggest wish was to be a mom, who dreamt of full-time homemaking and childrearing.

A conversation with a mom friend recently reminded me of my reasons for choosing to being a stay-at-home mom. It's interesting to think about the various scenarios moms find themselves in...

(*When I say "work", I mean paid employment by an external party. I believe raising children is the most important and hardest work there is.)

• Some women must work full-time to help pay for (or be the sole provider) necessities like the mortgage, car payments, utilities, and food.
• Some women feel some cultural/religious/societal obligation to give up or bypass educational and professional pursuits to focus on raising children.
• Some women choose to work full-time because they feel happier and more fulfilled doing so.
• Some women figure out some arrangement of part-time work and part-time childcare by others to try to have the best of both worlds.
• Some women like me choose to temporarily leave my full-time career that I worked very hard for and absolutely loved to stay home full-time to raise young children.

(I'm sure there are other scenarios I haven't mentioned.)

I'm very aware of the privilege of my choice, that not every woman is in a financial situation to choose to stay home full-time to care for her children. It is the hardest job I've ever had, harder than I ever imagined before becoming a mother.

I've complained about it, become depressed about it, cried about it, and dreaded it...but as I am coming out of postpartum depression when I was buried in very negative thoughts, I am remembering that I am grateful for my choice. I didn't just fall into it. My husband and I very conscientiously chose this traditional arrangement of him as sole breadwinner and me as full-time stay-at-home mom.

So here are my reasons:

• I want to be the main caretaker of my children, not outsource childcare.
• I want to see all their milestones firsthand, not hear about it from a nanny or daycare worker or even my own mom.
• I want to build deep close relationships with each of them so they will want to confide in me (and their daddy) when bigger challenges arise later.
• I want to become closely acquainted with their personalities and idiosyncrasies.
• I want to be the first to teach them all sorts of things, from basic things like the alphabet to Gospel truths to things I love like Indian food and Latin music.

One part of ME that I've tenaciously hung onto through all this mothering - actually through every transition in my life since college - is my career coaching business Launched by Linda that I started 13 years ago. Right now, I only have a few sessions a month which require a lot of support from my husband (which he gratefully has always given willingly) and often causes a lot of stress to arrange around our family routines, but it gives me great joy to continue to use and increase my professional skills. I feel incredibly honored to be hired by clients to not only help them along their career journey but also get a very intimate peek into their inner psyches, fears, goals, insecurities, hopes, and strengths. Remarkably, my business has grown every year and new opportunities come frequently to coach, write, and speak about career development. I look forward to seeing how the changing job economy will open up opportunities I can take more advantage of when the kids are in school and I have more time to return to my professional pursuits.