Being a stay at home mom was not what I dreamed of when I was in college, majoring in business administration and marketing. Back then my dream job was to work for Hallmark's Shoe Box Greeting Cards, writing funny and sarcastic cards. I hoped to some day meet "a nice young man" (my mom's words), get married and have a family. I figured we'd send our kids to day care and I'd head off to write hilarious greeting cards every morning. I'd pick the kids up after work, make delicious dinners that everyone would eat without complaining, and have a spotless house because our kids would willingly pick up toys and help keep the place clean. However, I didn't want a white picket fence as that was too cliché and would need repainting too often.
Fast forward a few years and I met a nice young man named Eric. He asked me out on our first date while I was at work. No, I wasn't writing Shoebox Greeting Cards yet, but I was working in the lingerie department at JC Penney, which was providing me with great material for when I landed my dream job. After a couple of years dating, we got married and bought a house in the suburbs. The house had a chain link fence, which required no maintenance. I now had a job doing collection work for a company. While I was always professional on the phone, I may have polished up on my sarcasm after many of those collection calls.
After four and a half years of marriage, we had our daughter, Danielle. We found a wonderful home day care just down the street from us. Marilyn had 7 children of her own and loved Danielle like one of her own. She was patient and cheerful and after doing day care all day, she worked at a nursing home in the evenings. We loved Marilyn.
But something inside of me changed. Each weekday morning I'd mutter an expletive as I shut off my alarm clock. Dropping my baby off and heading to work was difficult. I wanted to be at home seeing her change and grow every day. I wanted to be there for all of her "firsts". But we didn't think we could make it on one income. I asked about working part time at my job, but it wasn't an option. So I started searching for a part time job. Remember when the Classified Ads in the Sunday paper was how you found a job? Each Sunday morning I would comb through those ads and never find a worthwhile part time job. Then one Sunday morning when I woke up, Eric told me that he already checked the ads and circled one that he thought fit me. I asked if it was part time and he it wasn't. Didn't he know that part time was important? What full time job could possibly be the right fit? Then I found the job he had circled:
Eric isn't referred to as a romantic very often, but this was truly one of the sweetest things anyone ever did for me. It still took a few weeks to convince me that we could actually make it work on his income alone. But twenty years ago today, May 22, 1998, was my last day at work and the day I became a stay at home mom.
In those first years at home, I made a daily to do list, making sure I was still being productive. That fell by the wayside once that "9 month expansion plan" happened. Over the years I have occasionally questioned whether being home with the kids was the best thing for them. I've had people question what I do all day, especially once the kids went to school. I've wondered what we could have done with the extra income I could have brought in. But I always come back to the realization that the decision we made works for our family. That is all that really matters. And life at home with a husband, three kids and a dog has provided plenty of material if Shoebox Greetings happens to call with a job offer.
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