I miss work. I miss the feeling of accomplishment that comes with it, I miss the daily challenge.
Not that I don’t have ‘work’ as a stay at home mom, this is after all a 24/7 sort of gig. And it is also probably the most fulfilling and contentment-inducing job out there, but damn it it’s just not the same!
I don’t regret giving up a career to raise a family, I honestly don’t, hell I’d make the same choice again in a heart beat, but there’s a lot that comes with this new role that you can’t truly understand till you feel if. I may be exactly the same person with the same personality, but people and society just see me differently. There’s a change in perspective, a paradigm shift, when you go from ‘working person’ to ‘stay at home mom’, and even though I know that’s not who I am, living and interacting in this society just makes me see myself the way they see me.
I know, I know, mothers matter, mothers work is useful and necessary, stay at home moms are not ‘lazy’ or myopic. In the end though, saying all that stuff is easy, trying to internalize it so you don’t feel inadequate is a whole other story.
