I’m A SAHM, Yes That’s Me

I’ve been a Stay-At-Home-Mum (SAHM) for the past year. More like a year and half really, since I stopped work at the end of Oct 2011.

And yet, every time someone asks me what I do, my first instinct is to cite my previous job status and employment.

Don’t get me wrong – I like being SAHM. It’s having to deal with the reaction of others when they find out I’m a SAHM that I don’t like.

I recently attended a birthday party where an old schoolmate asked me what I was doing. When I told her I haven’t been working for more than a year, her eyes opened wide as she looked at me and asked, “So… you just drive them around all day?”

Ouch.

I felt compelled to tell her that I do some freelance work (which I’ve taken some teeny-tiny steps towards doing this year). But I was immediately a bit annoyed with myself for doing that. Should I really be judged by my economic value and output? My professional standing? The things I do outside the house? And why in the world did I reinforce that thinking with my response?

The sad fact is that the SAHM is not valued in our competitive, materialistic society. The government is constantly talking about bringing non-working mothers back into the workforce. I have friends asking me if I’m still being a tai-tai or whether I’m bored out of my mind and ready to go back to work. I have my parents looking anxiously over my shoulder, regularly asking whether I’ve decided on my next career move. I get the occasional comment about it being a waste of my education to stay at home.

It gets to me, for sure. And yet, I still choose — at least for now — to stay at home. Because I will miss the kids if I don’t. But more because DD and I decided that these are our kids and it’s our responsibility to raise them ourselves. This is especially since the hubby has a very intense job where he works long hours more often than not, so it appeared to us more important that one of us should spend more time with the children. That person is therefore me.

Truth is, I’m not always convinced that I’m the best person to raise my kids. I’m not very nurturing by nature, am quite a scatterbrain and I really suck at art & craft. I’m sure someone else would do a better job. But God gave them to me — and me to them, poor kiddos — so we’ve all just had to make to best of it.

I was happy working part-time, leaving the children with my parents on the days that I worked. But then a confluence of factors upset the happy balance: my dad went back to work and my mum felt she couldn’t cope with two kids, my helper suddenly had to return home at short notice, my boss wanted me to go back to work full-time, my office moved to a much more inconvenient location. I volunteered to stop work to take charge of everything and have been home since.

It’s been challenging on many levels. I’ve learnt patience like I never knew I had. I’ve learnt to enjoy hugs and give them out more freely. I’ve learnt to be more generous with praise and encouragement. I’ve dug deep and discovered a creative side to myself that I never knew existed. I’m still a push-over when it comes to discipline but I’m learning to have more of a backbone.

But it’s also been rewarding in many ways. I’m grateful for the opportunity to do things, learn things with them, just because I’m there. So I relish the spontaneous walks in the park because we want to feed the ducks. The spur-of-the-moment dips in the pool, simply because it’s hot. The moments we can spend ogling a huge furry caterpillar that walks across our path, or chasing birds in the courtyard. The teaching moments that happen often in a by-the-way fashion just because the opportunity presents itself. The ability to instantly correct, instruct and train. The occasion to model values that I want them to adopt. The time to teach them about God. Because I’m not busy having to squeeze every moment out of being with them, we can have our slow days, times when they just want to sit on Mummy and do their own thing. Just because I’m there.

And I thank God (and my dear husband) for the opportunity of letting me just BE THERE, for them.

What would make me choose full-time employment over being home with my young children?

I thought about this when reading the book Bringing Up Bebe and learning about the French creche system. I remember thinking that yes, if there was high-quality childcare with highly-trained professionals looking after the kids better than I could and serving them higher quality of food than I would serve at home, and all for free, then maybe it would make more sense for me to go back to work.

Since we don’t have that, I guess it’s up to me to fill those gaps by being Mummy.