Starting a family is daunting enough but even more so when everyone tells you that your life is about to end.
And maybe it does change, irrevocably. But it doesn’t end as such.
Sure the late, carefree partying and accompanying sleepovers the next morning are a thing of the past. So are sleep-ins and well, let’s be honest, sleep as well. Flexibility and me-time all but disappear and are replaced with a sleep deprivation that pretty much lasts until your kids start school. Last minute trips away for a romantic holiday are a distant memory and leaving anywhere on time is near impossible.
Hopes of a successful career fade exponentially the longer you stay at home and technology will outpace you. Returning to work at some unidentified point in the future is daunting.
But, then again, you have brought a new, innocent blank canvas into the world. One that you will grow, nurture and love. One that will provide you with moments of absolute bliss, hysterical antics and smiles that light up the whole world. You will know what it is to love, with your whole heart, unconditionally and fiercely. And staying home with them will be very appealing.
I’m not going to tell you that being a stay at home mother is wonderful all of the time. That would be lying. Nor is being a working mother amazing 24/7. Especially when you consider the extra guilt they feel for not being at home with their children. Being a parent can be monotonous, repetitive and there are definitely moments when you feel like you’re ramming your head against a brick wall.
Your house will never look tidy despite your best efforts and Pinterest feeds will taunt you with frequent regularity as you try desperately to reach ridiculous heights in cooking, craft and home organisation. A word of advice, if it looks too good to be true, then it probably is.
There will be days where you feel as though you are a failure, an ineffectual parent and a rubbish role model. You will feel like throwing in the towel but some small gesture from your children will make you smile and your spirits will lift.
All around you little people are forging their own paths, asserting their independence and then their frustration when life doesn’t go according to their plans. You’re there to help steer them in the right direction and to help them to their feet when they make mistakes, to learn from them and gain the courage to try again. This is a unique time in their lives, and yours as well. A time you will look back on with fondness and laughter though perhaps thanking the Lord that you are no longer so sleep deprived and overwhelmed, and you will miss tripping over their toys left strewn all over the floor.
The time will fly, before you know it and you’ll pack their bags and send them off for their first day of school, the beginning of the education tunnel that will see them leave you at the other end, off to make their own mark on the world. And then you will enter another new phase of life, leaving this one behind.
So yes, having a family will end your carefree life, it will enrich you and those around you. In amidst the chaos you will discover your strengths, work on your weaknesses and learn to love yourself, and those around you for who they are, not what they do. And along the way you will revisit your own childhood and finger paint, play at the park, play with play dough and build sand castles.
And you will appreciate it much more this second time around.
Originally posted 2015-09-30 12:00:29.