Day 6: STAY AT HOME MOM, SYSTEM WORKING MOM - Part 3

........The last point I would like to share here is in regards to what I recently realized I have been accepting and allowing that has been sending me into reaction mode instead of taking responsibility through changing.......

 

In the recent times, I noticed that, whenever my partner or someone mentioned that I have so much help and I’m doing nothing, I immediately went into the reaction of anger and frustration as an experience of myself within myself. At first, I blamed my partner for not seeing just how much I am responsible for in terms of raising our children. I felt he undermined and belittled my responsibilities as a mother whereby, how he working in the system perceives his responsibilities as of much more value than my responsibilities of raising our children. This honestly pissed me off that he did not recognize nor respect my efforts. To make this worse, because I have someone that helps with cleaning and at times (if needed) with children, this perception of me by others as lazy and having too much help  and too much time to do nothing increased and this only heightened my reactions of anger and frustration towards such people including my partner. They had no clue how little I slept at night only to wake up to a busy day.

I was compared many times to other mothers that have no help and yet, they can do it all alone. I tried doing this by myself, it just did not work for me, us. With little sleep and caring for children plus a big house, this took a toll on me both physically and mentally as well as emotionally. At the end of each day, I was so exhausted to do any more, in as much exhausted as I was, my reality did not allow me to rest. I had had/have an infant that needed/still needs me throughout the night. My babies are not perfect sleepers. My eldest can now sleep throughout the night but my youngest still needs me to wake up several times a night to feed her. I received books, online education on how to make a baby sleep the whole night without interruption, well, my little one digests food fast and within sometime, it’s all out and she needs to feed some more. I mean, in as much as others wanted to support me to support my daughter to sleep throughout the night, my reality was different. I stick to my reality and I support my child(ren) the best way I know how in any given moment. This quickly took a toll on my body and a few times, I had a complete burn out, others, I fainted and even once, I had to go to ER because I suddenly I couldn’t walk and my world seemed to be crashing down around me, I was petrified because I did not understand then that, this was exhaustion and thus went to ER.

But for me, what was the worst was who I was becoming towards my children. Being exhausted all the time, I became quite emotional and had anger outbursts at times. Any little thing agitated me so much, I was too tired to interact with my babies and this ‘crashed my heart’. It became quite a battle to remain stable within myself and direct my reality from within stability. I did not enjoy who I was within and hence without. I knew something had to change. My partner also being extremely busy with his work responsibilities left him little to no time to help me out. He is away almost 16 hours a day, so one can imagine how equally exhausted he gets at the end of each day. Our quality of life in terms of our relationship towards each other and our children was diminishing and so we decided to have long term help especially cleaning so I can focus only on the children. This has been a tremendous step we took towards supporting each other.

So why then am I still reacting to people perceiving me as ‘doing nothing’ even after I see clearly that, I was overriding my physical body to the extent of blacking out because of just how much was doing? Was it because I now have help and I don’t do much house work? Hmmmm…NO.

I realized that, it’s actually been because of my whole entire approach to my responsibilities as a mother. It has been who I have been within it all. Let me share here another example of myself to further elaborate this point. A while back, due to many circumstances, at some point in my life, which was after graduating from Uni, I had decided to be a career woman. I thought to myself, a husband and kids may not be a life for me unless I met a man responsible enough to be a father. This decision came because I had dated men that were quite irresponsible and so I made an assumption that, many if not all men are irresponsible, the father figures in my life were not responsible either. And so I was not willing to settle for such an irresponsible man even and thus the no marriage and not kids for me ‘theory’.

My path of chasing down my career did not prosper as one can imagine living in an environment where there’s thousands upon thousands of university graduates all aiming for a job in a jobs starved country. For over 2 years, my plan was not becoming a reality for me. I became disappointed many times. I was willing to work for any salary as I was as broke as can be! As some would say, I was flat broke. No shelter and no money for food, I walked to go for interviews as I couldn’t afford transportation by bus, I was desperate, I mean who wouldn’t be. By this time, I had met my current partner back then but I was not willing to relocate from my country because I still hoped that, I can make ends meet and embark on my career. Well, I remember there was some pressure from my partner to relocate and it wasn’t until after a few months that I gave in, found ways and means and voila, I relocated, and after a couple of months, got married and a year later, the first child was here. Before the first child, my partner and I had a mutual clear agreement that I will be a stay at home mom.

So the problem begun when I started comparing myself to my University mates. Some had gone further and acquired masters degrees, and a few even up to PhD levels. So within myself, thoughts began creeping in about if I’d made the right choice to be a mother. When I saw just how much further my friends were in their careers, I began to feel sorry for myself, I begun to diminish myself and my responsibilities as a mother. I began to perceive my parenting role as a ‘nothing’, not a job, has no reward in terms of money, career, and recognition. Id backchats like, all I do is sit and play with babies day in day out.

I had regrets on choosing to be a mother. Regret because I felt that, I had to give up so much of myself, in fact all of myself to care for another. I felt like I lost myself completely within this responsibility. I was a completely different person when my first child arrived. My life changed overnight! I felt like, my life, my freedom had been robbed. I literally felt like ‘I’ DIED. It was obvious that my reality, my life had changed completely, but yet, I was not willing to embrace this change, I wanted to push it away, far far away so that I can have ‘me’ back, my freedom back, this just happened in my mind even though my reality screamed otherwise. I imagined what my life would have been like had I succeeded in being a career woman. I kept comparing my life to that of my childless friends fully immersed in their careers or chasing one. I felt that I missed out on that life. I felt I would have become ‘so much more’ having a career as opposed to being a mother and a stay at home mother in this case.

This perception of myself as a mother as less than, inferior to the working woman, mother or not, is what has been stirring up my reactions of anger and frustration whenever my partner mentions the words, ‘you are doing nothing’.  These words resonate within myself as a mirror of how I have actually been perceiving myself within my role as a mother which has been, ‘I am just sitting around with kids doing nothing’ being a mother is nothing because I am not out there working in a system where all value is based on money and not life, thus myself as well as masses out there perceive being a mother as valueless as there is no form of monetary reward, that I am not a strong woman.

Another point I have created and held within my mind that has been influencing the perception of my role as a mother as a nothing role, is that of, associating interactions with people who work in the system, corporate system as more valuable interactions, more valuable relationships that will make me ‘get noticed’ (EGO) in comparison to interacting or associating myself with children or childlike stuff day in day out! So here again, another example of how I have diminished myself and the potential I can embody and live as the absolute point of stability of an example of what it means to raise a human being that will consider and regard all life from within the principle of equality and oneness as what’s best for all, which begins with me stopping being elsewhere and actually starting to embrace the whole responsibility of motherhood.

so, I realized that, to me the most important aspect about being a mother is who I am within myself within it all. who I am within myself while fulfilling my responsibilities of being a mother to my children be it during play time, bed time, book time, outdoors time and any other time/moment I spend with my children. I ask myself, is who I am within myself stable, HERE and ready to embrace the entire moment am with my children or am I existing elsewhere in my mind worrying about career or working in the system to make money, comparing myself with other mothers and end up competing with them on who's job/responsibilities are more valuable than the others or am I being a mother to get recognition and praise from others to boost my ego and much more. I understand that, each mother faces different responsibilities in how they care for their children.

Bottom line is, it shouldn't be about a war between system working moms and stay at home moms, but rather about who we are within ourselves as mothers and how we live and interact with our children. This is so important as this is the very point that will determine the very foundation of a child that will become the future adult as what a child will learn, will mimic/copy from us as mothers/parents/adults and therefore, we should stand and live as the best example of what care, respect and honor of another human being is all about and not make it about judgment, comparison, beliefs, perceptions etc as this only diminishes our ability and potential to live HERE as the best example our children can emulate to also become the best they can become in honoring life as themselves and others. It should be about assisting and supporting eachother to raise our children into adults that regard, honor, respect and care for the  life and all that is here, regardless of whether you work in the system of stay at home with the kids.
 

For the world exists as it does today due to our parents not having known any better and their parents not having known any better and thus from generation to generation, the sins of our fathers is what we teach our children to live by today and this is one of the major reasons why our world isn’t changing, because we as parents have not changed. For how will this world ever change if we as parents do not teach our children changes that we ourselves have and a living by? Changes that have been walked and lived in regards to what’s best for all?