Stay at Home Mom

Are you a Stay at Home Mom just like me? “Stay At Home Mom" (SAHM) - I am forced to use this term until someone – please someone!- come up with a better name for us. Even the terms Housewife or Home Maker or Mess Manager doesn’t sound appealing enough for me. Maybe “Home Executive” is a bit ok.

The day of a SAHM neither begins nor ends. It goes on and on and on with endless chores to complete. It is a work which demands from us 365 days a year, 7 days a week and 24 hours a day. Are you really happy to be in such a demanding job? But one sure happy thing about this job is that you will never get fired from it.

Common household chores

Cooking food for the family
Bathing kids
Folding Laundry
Cleaning the house
Clearing the clutters in drawers, shelves etc.
Washing dishes
Picking up toys shattered around
Tucking your children into bed at night

If you have kids, you understand the expression “piles” of laundry - unending, unconquerable piles. The simple truth about laundry is that it is never done. This depresses me. More to the point, it annoys me.

A clean kitchen is nigh impossible to keep in a house of kids. Crusty cereal bowls, dried up juice glass, the crumbs on the counter, the spills on the floor
…… and with every sticky footstep the pressure builds.

Doing these chores repeatedly makes us get bitter and feel unappreciated. Isn’t it? Some sort of frustration creeps in. You start feeling like a SERVANT. Being a stay-at-home mom isn’t easy. Days spent without a single adult conversation, quieting your child’s screams in the store, cleaning bloody knees, carpooling, disciplining, changing diapers, packing lunches, cleaning house and planning meals may leave you wondering, “Is this really worth it?” The “I’m just a mom” syndrome attacks routinely, suggesting the world is moving on without you while you watch Barney with your 3-year-old. The demands upon a SAHM’s time are limitless. That’s just the truth. So unless we consciously choose to create space for our own-selves, we will find ourselves suffocating beneath the weights of legitimate but overwhelming demands.

Of course, we all crave an exciting and passionate life. At the same time, we believe that staying home to raise children is a priority and a gift. You surely can win over these conflicting feelings. Here are some points for you to remember and think to yourself during your work at home:

• You are the nurturer.
• You set the emotional and physical tone of the household.
• Your children feel safe around you and derive comfort from your attention to their needs. Your husband does, too.
• It is an expression of love each time you do an act of service for another person.
• Through every chore you convey that you care about them and that they are important to you.

These thoughts will definitely make you feel like a GODDESS and not anymore like a servant.

Mother's Wisdom

Wisdom is the fruit of experience. Good decision comes from experience but experience comes from bad decision. Every mother is bestowed with Mother’s Wisdom. SHE KNOWS.

• She has uncomplicated faith that there is something special about her child.
• She is unfailingly good natured.
• She doesn’t wait until something goes wrong.
• She isn’t scolding when she is doing it.
• Anything anyone else can do, she can do it better for her child.
• She accepts all nitty-gritty truths.
• What her child wanted from her, she wanted to give it to her child.
• She has prescient observation.
• She never lets anyone forget her child’s accomplishments.

A mother is a large hearted, sweetly eccentric woman, warm in her affection. I am sure, SHE KNOWS.

These are very serious in the tone of their explanation. For a more light hearted explanation, just read ahead........

My mother taught me TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE - "If you're going kill each other, do it outside - I just finished cleaning!"

My mother taught me RELIGION - "You better pray that will come out of the carpet."

My mother taught me LOGIC - "Because I said so, that's why."

My mother taught me LOGIC . . . #2 "If you fall out of that swing and break your neck, you're not going to the shops with me."

My mother taught me FORESIGHT - "Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you're in an accident."

My mother taught me IRONY - "Keep crying and I'll give you something to cry about."

My mother taught me about the science of OSMOSIS - "Shut your mouth and eat your tea!"

My mother taught me about STAMINA - "You'll sit there 'till all that spinach is finished."

My mother taught me about WEATHER - "It looks as if a tornado swept through your room."

My mother taught me THE CIRCLE OF LIFE - "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out."

My mother taught me about BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION - "Stop acting like your father!"

My mother taught me about ENVY - "There are millions of less fortunate children in this world who don't have wonderful parents like you do!"

My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION . . . "Just wait until your father gets home."

My mother taught me about RECEIVING . . .. "You are going to get it when we get home!"

My mother taught me MEDICAL SCIENCE . . . "If you don't stop crossing your eyes, they are going to stick that way."

My mother taught me to THINK AHEAD . . . "If you don't pass your spelling test, you'll never get a good job."

My mother taught me ESP . . . "Put your jumper on; don't you think I know when you're cold?"

My mother taught me HUMOUR . . . "When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don't come running to me."

My mother taught me how to BECOME AN ADULT. . . "If you don't eat your vegetables, you'll never grow up."

My mother taught me about SEX . . .. "How do you think you got here?"

My mother taught me about GENETICS . . . "You're just like your father."

My Mother taught me about the WISDOM OF AGE . . . "When you get to be my age, you will understand."


This is a popularly forwarded humour............but well portrays a Mother's Wisdom. SHE KNOWS.

Resist the Super-mom myth

Are you a modern mummy who is a pro in multi-tasking? Yes. Today’s mummies can mix up a bowl of cake mix with one hand while sticking a plaster on a toddler’s knee with the other, breastfeed a baby and attend phone calls. Mummies juggle juggle juggle various works endlessly. But finally, everything seems to be incomplete or half-done. We strive to be the ideal Super-mom.

Today’s mothers are overwhelmed by the demands of modern life. As Marg Stark writes, “Mums adore their kids but sometimes hate being a Mother”.

A paradox, isn’t it? Why is it so? Because we can’t meet the exhaustive standards required of “a good mother”, according to today’s definition. We are conflicted about the yearnings of our hearts and guilty about having mixed feelings when we love our children.

Mums are really frustrated with all sorts of modern expectations.

We are responsible for how our kids turn out to be. Yet, we are also limited in the discipline we can use. In other words,” Society doesn’t trust me to spank my kid responsibly, but I’m the one society blames if my kid gets out of line.”

Haven’t you felt the same thoughts revolving in your head several times? Any way, Parenting is much harder today than when we were small. We parent by referring to a child care book, rather 10 child care books each contradicting one another. At some point, we turn out to be intensive mothers.

Intensive Mothering is demanding, child-centered, expert-guided, labor-intensive and expensive. Media keeps bombarding us with messages about must-have products to achieve perfect parenting. We become victims and go on a buying spree. Media try to make the most out of our motherly love. We buy educational toys, CDs and all baby stuffs just becoming a prey to the Commercialization of Parental love. We throw gala-like birthday parties for our kids and teach them to overdo and overspend rather than appreciate simpler and less fabricated delights.

Why not try to put a Full-Stop to all these? Instead, parent the private way. Slay the beast of expectations. Stop believing that experts have methods that will work for you. Relearn to be you. Kids love the real “You”.

So just resist the urge to become Super-mom and be what you are.

“Teach your kids not the little virtues but the great ones.
Teach your kids not thrift but generosity and an indifference to money.
Teach your kids not caution but courage and contempt for danger.
Teach your kids not shrewdness but frankness and a love of truth.
Teach your kids not tact but love for one’s neighbor and self-denial.
Teach your kids not a desire for success but a desire to be and to know.”

“A child’s love is unconditional. There is nothing on this earth that compares with the feeling that you are the balm a little person carries with her through an entire day in the big, scary world that exists apart from you.”

Yes, I am not a Super-mom, So what?

(Reference and quoted from ‘What No One Tells the Mom’ by Marg Stark)