Lessons From A Stay At Home Mom-Four Weeks In

I took a deep breath on a Sunday night and opened up my iPhone to write. Next week my husband started his job and I would be left, alone, for most of the week. My husband is a regional trucker. That means he’s home on the weekends and gone during the week, I was told.

However, in my experience, he would come home sporadically, often only giving me a single hours notice which lead to some hilarious running around the house trying to clean up every crumb and put something on the table for him to eat.

I reflected on the irony of this current situation. My husband was a stay-at-home dad while I was the breadwinner. And well we both were unhappy, he would complain a lot and so would I. And now we are switching.

It’s my job to keep the home in order, my child and myself fed, and my dog well cared for, all on my own. And I have to admit I was a little intimidated at first.

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But with responsibility, comes, well freedom. The freedom to choose how to spend my time. What activities my daughter, dog and I were going to do.

Where I live the zoo is free on Mondays for county residents, and free activities are offered by our metro parks and libraries, parks, and splash pads, it’s a stay-at-home mom’s paradise.

Not to mention the lovely women who are involved in our church, and the lovely activities offered there! I’ve even made a friend!

And despite some of the chaos of getting adjusted in the first month  I absolutely loved it. 

I read a book for my mothers book club, “The Screwtape Letters”, I also bought a cake mix and a can of frosting and some bread flour because I thought it would be nice to have a fresh loaf of bread and a nice cake in the house, although I’ve decided to ask some other stay at home moms for a better frosting recipe.

In other words, I have all the freedom in the world. I don’t feel tied down, I don’t feel unhappy, I feel totally and utterly at peace. I can choose what to cook when to cook, and what to do with my time so long as it is within the confines of my child’s and dog's needs.

This is not how I expected to feel though. I expected to feel a sense of being trapped. I expected to feel like my life was not my own and that my only purpose was to serve my family, and to lose my “identity”. I expected to feel incredibly lonely, and well bored.

But what I feel is pure and utter freedom. I honestly haven’t felt this free since, well college. It gets hard sometimes to do things I want to do (write, read) while balancing what I have to do (cleaning, cooking) but that’s to be expected.

And this is when, during my second week as a stay at home mom  that I learned something really remarkable. I felt a deep appreciation for my husband, and all the little things he does when he’s home.

He keeps the changing table filled with diapers. He makes sure the dog bowl is filled with water. He helps with the laundry, the trash, and walking the dog, making breakfast. I never understood how much he really did as a stay-at-home dad until I started having to keep up with all these things myself. 

And even though he’s working, when he’s home he still helps me, but he doesn’t complain anymore. When I rolled out the trash cans for trash day I set them on a little bit of an incline, and well they fell over spilling the trash everywhere. My husband noticed this and instead of getting angry at me, he taught me where to place them. 

I think we are learning to appreciate each other more than anything else. He's learning to appreciate the time he has with us, and I’m learning to appreciate how much of a help he provides for me.

And we’re learning to spend our time more wisely. Every weekend is a celebration of how excited we are as a family to be reunited. And actually I learned as the weeks went on I truly couldn’t predict when he was going to be home, but I got to see my husband a lot more than what either of us expected!

I’m also learning to be more independent. I used to depend on my husband to make all kinds of decisions, but now being on my own it’s my job to keep everything together and do what works for me. 

I found that keeping a strict cooking/cleaning schedule didn’t work very well because of the unpredictability of my husband's schedule. I didn’t know when he’d be home!

So I cooked and froze easy meals to prepare for when he unpredictably comes home and I keep up with the cleaning by cleaning a little bit everyday. 

I’ve also had to learn to ask for help when I need it. I have a mentor on X named Jeri who sends me wonderful recipes as well as cleaning advice. I also found a lovely babysitter through my church who helps me once a week and will be helping me more after our dog's surgery, and I asked our neighbors for help with the dog. I also asked my mother for help as well as a friend of mine for advice when I needed it.

I’m slowly but surely creating my own “village”. And another lesson I realized is that I have been using social media and my job to replace real human connections. I have people in my life who love me, who are simply a phone call away to make plans. I also have a beautiful child who believes I make the sunrise each morning.

And over all, despite feeling overwhelmed at times, (after all children don’t come with an instruction manual) I have never been more fulfilled and happier.

Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.