I became a full-time stay at home mom when I got pregnant with my middle daughter. My husband was working an absurd number of hours at his family’s car dealership (think late retail hours, six days a week) and we both knew that his job would always come first. The choice to have me do the stay at home mom job with our children was really the best decision for our family at that time. I don’t have any regrets about that decision. I really loved it. Being a mother in general is not the most rewarding job on Earth (I’m just keeping it real) but there was something about being their sole care giver as a stay at home mom that worked for all of us. My husband could focus on his career and we still got to have a family at a fairly young age. The stay at home mom dynamic worked for a long time.
After nine years of exclusively being a stay at home mom and staying home with my children, I decided I wanted to become a Barre instructor. While transitioning from the stay at home mom schedule I generally worked once a week and substituted for other instructors throughout my first year. After that first year I decided to become certified to teach Cycle. I added more classes to my work schedule but not much changed. Those transitions were fairly easy. They involved some later nights working on playlists and planning classes, but my life and my family’s life stayed pretty much the same. I was able to add to my stay at home resume and adjust to no longer being a full-time stay at home mom.
Then about a year ago I decided I was going to launch my own blog. I had to learn how to start a blog, and I spent almost a full year with a designer and a developer working on my brand and designing the blog of my dreams. Things definitely started to get a little crazier at that point. I needed time, I needed quiet and I needed to focus. It didn’t turn my life upside down, but I was out of the house more than I had ever been. If you’re thinking of learning how to start a blog, especially if you’re also a stay at home mom, you definitely need the time and commitment to do it.
Now here I am a little over a year later. My blog launched in February and just a month ago I decided to get into the CBD oil business. So, in the last three months I have launched my blog business and my CBD business. I’m essentially working three jobs; instructing, blogging and CBD. My husband is still running the family business which has quadrupled in size since he started running it with over one hundred employees working for him.
It’s really nothing short of chaos in our house. Who’s taking which kid where and when? How many more days can we eat these leftovers? Can you pick up Chipotle (it’s 9pm)? The turtle needs kale. The kids lost their retainers (again), can you take them at 10:45 a.m. tomorrow (such a convenient time, right?). Frank lost his glove for baseball and forgot his hat. Lexi needs us to move her out of her apartment before graduation. Did you remember to get the dog sitter for next week?
The transition from being a stay at home mom in Pennsylvania hasn’t been easy. My kids were used to me being available pretty much all the time. My husband was used to me being available all the time, too. I was the sole parent that did the field trips, sick days, read to your kid at school day, snow days, the orthodontist, the doctor, teacher in-service days, you get the point.
I think when you have children and you make the decision to work outside of the home from the beginning, it’s the only thing your family knows. Processes and schedules and roles for each family member are put into place from the start. Believe me, I know working moms still carry most of the weight of the children, but dads have to help so mom doesn’t get fired for calling off work too much or being late/leaving early all the time. There has to be some shared responsibility. The roles in my household when Gianna was born were very clear. He worked, I was a stay at home mom and took care of the kids. I remember one morning laying on the floor of my bathroom with a stomach bug, literally unable to lift my head, and my husband tried to go to work and leave me with a six-month old and an eighteen-month old. We both took our roles very seriously.
When one parent “does it all” for the kids (and that’s all everyone has known from the beginning) and then that shifts, there’s bound to be some bumps in the road. I had to shift from my stay at home mom schedule, and my kids still don’t love that I’m not at their beck and call, but I think it’s teaching them a great deal about modern families. The likelihood of my girls being stay at home moms or my son having a wife stay at home isn’t as likely as it once was. I think it’s important for my girls to know that they need to talk about how the work of caring for children and maintaining a household will be split before having children and make it clear that responsibilities will be shared. I want my son to know that he will have to share the work in a two-income household when he and his future wife decide to have children. Times have changed.
After some serious “come to Jesus” moments and conversations, my husband is supporting me. He’s actually going above and beyond now to help more with the kids and the household responsibilities. We’re finding a rhythm around here. We always get done what needs to get done. We’ve also both learned to let some things go which isn’t easy considering we’re both Type A personalities. It’s a completely different dynamic and we’re kind of figuring it out as we go. It’s a partnership that evolves day to day with roles interchanging and evolving. It’s also made us hold our kids more accountable for cleaning up after themselves and doing things that at 11, 12 and 22 they should have been doing anyway.
I would say transitioning from a stay-at-home mom to a working mom has been one of the toughest things I’ve done, but also one of the most rewarding. I love what I’m doing now. I needed to do this and I knew we’d all figure it out (or most of it at least).
