What really kills me is women who don't want to spend much time with their children. I have friends that work full time and even hire daytime sitters on the weekends. Kids need their parents. Bottom line. One friend told me she doesn't feel guilty because children don't have a long term memory until age 4 or 5. What?! Hello! So maybe it is your biological child, but someone else is teaching them right and wrong. Another adult is teaching them love, kindness, and the rules of our society. Someone else is teaching them to sit, walk, run, ride a bike, play candy land and hopscotch. She would argue that she was raised by the mother's helper that lived with them, while her own mother was off to luncheons, fundraisers and PTA meetings. Just because you were raised that way doesn't mean it was the best for you.
Full time SAHM's how do you do it? In my mind this truly is the hardest job (to do well) in the world! You have to have endless patience and put yourself second 23 hours a day. I work 3 days a week. The two days I'm home I just love and treasure, but they also exhaust me and test my spirit. During certain phases its a constant battle not to loose my cool with my toddler. But I know how important these days are to my children and I put myself second all day long on those days. Sure I tackle laundry, cleaning and food prep while my children play on their own, but I also spend quality time with them. Whatever they want to do I make sure to devote solid, uninterrupted time to. No computer, no cell phone, no other distractions. Just me and my child reading, laughing over a silly game we invented or having a picnic for stuffed animals.
In the spectrum of my whole life, my children's early years (birth to age 5) are a drop in the bucket. I agree they are the hardest years. Sleep deprivation, less than 1 hour a day just for me, a messy, cluttered house full of toys, a car with crumbs everywhere, tamtrums, whining, etc. Its hard! But these years are flying FLYING by. My baby is already 5 months old. My daughter is almost 3. Before I know it we'll be free of nap schedules and able to more easily adventure into the mountains together. I constantly remind myself to enjoy these small toes, savor my children needing me, breathe in their smells and take as many hugs as they'll give. Because tomorrow is promised to no one and a day will soon come that my children will outgrow their perch in my arms.
