Now that our youngest child is approaching 8yrs of age, I find myself wondering where do I fit in now? When everybody was younger and Thomas was living home it was easy to define my role. I was/am The Mom. The Stay at Home Mom. Overseer of all my children. Taking care of everything for everybody. Now that the girls are older and Thomas isn’t living at home anymore I find myself in a state of not knowing what to do with myself. I’m tired of cleaning ~ I used to clean like nobody’s business trying to keep up with these stupid standards I had in my head, but now I don’t have those standards anymore and I just keep everything nice. However these days we’re in the middle of a kitchen ceiling renovation so things aren’t as “nice” as I’d like them to be. So getting back to fitting in, I feel like an anomaly of sorts. I do know other SAHM’s who are at or around my age and I have this thought in my head that I’m the only one having a hard time that I’m still home, wondering where I fit in. I should ask them how they feel, but I think there’s a part of me that’s afraid they are going to say how happy and fulfilled they are staying home and meanwhile I am not.
Then I tell myself that I’m exactly where God wants me right now and I just need to let go of my anxieties concerning this and know that He has a plan. I’ve been applying to jobs for months now and I haven’t heard boo from any of them. Right there that should tell me I’m supposed to be home right now. I just don’t want to be. I wonder how women did this stay at home thing many years ago, it wasn’t expected that they return to work after the kids went to school. They just stayed home. I guess they had many hobbies or something.
With everyone getting older I’m not needed as much. I know they still need me, heck I still need my mother at times. But there are more times that they are so independent of me I’m left wondering what to do? And as whiney as I may sound don’t be mistaken I don’t even miss the days that everyone was small and totally needed me. No, I don’t miss that at all. In fact I cringe when I see some mother at the mall or grocery store and she’s trying to shop with all these small kids around, or the mom in the school yard trying to keep an eye on everyone after school. No thank you.
Maybe I need a happy medium? I just need to find that. Or a job.
Menay O; mom to 4, Christian and thrift shopper on the side... 