As Mother's there are always things we face with our Children that are Never Ending it seems. Around our house its laundry, dishes, cleaning the toy room, and cooking meals. Trenten often asks, "Didn't we just do dat momma'?" Yes we did, and as we Mother's have all come to learn... we'll do it again, and again, and again. The responsibilities that come with Motherhood are endless, you don't get to do them once and be done. It's a day after day task, and is not meant for weak.
I have had the joy of reading a book, "The Mission of Motherhood" by Sally Clarkson. I'm still not completely finished, but boy has this book stirred the pot around our house! I'm surprised Adam has not taken it and hidden it from me, but I will not regret the realizations this book has made me come to. Yet, its dealing with those realizations that makes it hard.
My greatest ambition from the time I was 5 years old, was to me a mother. I'm talking the all out minivan soccer mom profile! My mother was a stay at home mom through the majority of my raising. Both my parents strived for me to go to College, get married only if I must.. they did not want me to follow in my mother's footsteps of Graduating High School, getting married, and start shooting out one baby after another. Yet, in the end the way I did it wasn't much different.
The greatest dilemma that I face as a mother, is the strong desire and calling within my heart that I have felt before Trenten ever arrived in this world to stay home with my children, to make my home my primary responsibility, and to teach my children myself. I constantly feel guilty because I would literally need a 48 hour day to complete everything I have to do right now. At the end of the day I feel like my boss's at work are happy for a job well done, my professor's are happy, I'm able to make all A's in a full load of college classes, the church is happy because there's someone to ride the bus, help in the kids department, and sing every once in a while. Yet the people who suffer the lack of my time, and would probably give me a bad grade if we were on a grading system would be my Husband and mostly my precious 2 little boys.
The guilt of that is hard to swallow. When your children scream and cry every morning because you leave them behind to go to a job, and teach other children who can't even behave in a classroom by themselves... you start to wonder what am I doing? Why am I putting them through this? Let's see, I bring home around $10,000 a year, to bounce my children to a different family members house every day in the wee hours of the morning because I can't even afford daycare... does this make sense to anyone else?
Don't get me wrong, I love my job. I love the people I work with. The reasoning behind taking the job to begin with was that it is in the teaching field, and that's what I'm going to school for. It's just when you feel like your children are the ones sacrificing everything because there are not enough hours in a day, where will there ever be peace in that? When and where does that Dilemma end? When they're grown and gone and I'm left hoping the one day a week that I was able to spend any time with them was enough?
The way my schedule is now M-F I'm gone by 6:15am. On Monday's and Wed. I have night classes at TVCC in Athens. On Wed. I have tutoring before class at 4pm all the way until class starts. I get home from that class around 10pm, and I have not seen my children at all. Monday are not much better, I come home from work, cook dinner, and then leave for my class. They are usually in bed by the time I get home that night also. Tuesday's I have assignments due in my Internet class, which usually take a couple hours to complete and turn in. So even though I'm here, they do not get any of my attention really. Thursday's thru Saturday's Adam works. So I get off work, go pick the kids up, come home cook dinner, bath time, and I usually have homework to work on also. So my children maybe get thirty minutes of me before they go to bed.
I am certain that there are other mother's who feel my pain. Who struggle with the same. I am just consumed with guilt right now that my children are paying a heavy price for my decisions. Please do not feel if you are a full time working mother, that I am knocking you right now for being just that. I am just saying, that I can't find the balance in it anymore. I don't want to wake up one day when my kids are teenagers or out of the house, and have nothing but regret because I didn't make an impact on their lives everyone else around them did!
The icing on the cake for what I need to do came this week when I took both boys for the yearly check ups and vaccinations. The Pediatrician went over several things with Trenten and said, "You know his fine motor skills are really lacking. If your not going to work with him on these areas, than maybe you need to put him in daycare.. because they will." Not what I needed that day!
I made the decision this week to no longer argue with Adam over what to do. I have decided to just take it to God in Prayer. As of right now, we have 2 plans I am praying for A! Adam knows that I am blogging about this, and he asked if who ever reads this would give some feedback. So Please, tell us what you think.
Plan A
Adam is going to apply for different jobs and try to have a higher paying one by August. If so, I will be able to stay at home with the boys, and continue working on finishing my degree which will still take 2 more years at A&M Navarro.
Plan B
Adam doesn't get a different job, or any other supplemental income and I return to my job in August. Trenten will start Pre-K at school where I work, and Jonah will have to go to daycare.
