I never wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.
Even before Caleb was a thought, I pictured myself in an office, not in a living room. Staying home felt like throwing away my education, my ambition. After almost three months of maternity leave, I was restless. I wanted adult conversation, a reason to change out of pajamas. When it was time to go back to work, I was relieved.
That was six months ago. It may as well have been six years.
We can’t afford for me not to work, but lately, the idea of staying home has been gnawing at me. I see other moms taking their babies to the park on a Tuesday morning, making crafts, snapping photos all day. They get to be there for everything. I get eight hours of absence.
Caleb is passed between my husband and my mom while I’m gone. He’s loved, but I still feel like someone else is raising my child. I missed his first full roll-over because I was at work. I will miss more. And every time it happens, it feels like a small theft I can’t stop. Sometimes I wonder if he even knows I’m his mom, or if I’m just one of the people who rotates in and out of his days. That thought cuts deep.
The guilt is exhausting. So is the juggling — mother, wife, employee, daughter, friend, sister. The house, the errands, the relationships. I try to read, to blog, to keep pieces of myself alive, but they keep slipping away. The person I was before motherhood is fading. I’ve traded her in for someone who is always tired, always torn between too many roles, always falling short.
The truth is ugly: I envy stay-at-home moms. I envy their time, their presence, their front-row seat to everything I’m missing. And then, on the rare days I feel strong, I flip it — telling myself maybe they should envy me. I’m building a career, a retirement, an identity outside my child. That’s not nothing.
I want to be there. I can’t be. But maybe part of loving him is also showing him what it looks like to work for something bigger — for him, for our family, for the life we’re building. Maybe the “firsts” I miss are just one kind of memory, and the ones we make together will matter just as much.
Motherhood: equal parts ache and abundance.
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