Friday, September 2, 2011

Momma's that can stay home should, Children need you even if you don't know it.

I was a stay at home when my older kids were little, at the time I never really thought about working. It was how I was raised, no one in my family had really ever gone to college. My Grandmother, Thelma, had had to be a working mother but since she had died, when I was so young, that was a distant memory and not part of my life fabric. I loved being an at home mom and never really thought about not being one.  My children were 12, 10 and 8 when the sawmill Poppie had worked at our whole married life closed, he had worked there 15 years. We made a decision to stay in the area after the mill closed, we did talk about leaving but in the end chose to stay.  My choice was partly based on the fact that I wanted my kids to be raised in the same place and not to wander from school to school. Poppie partly because one of his best offers was where his family lived and he didnt' want to be closer to them.  We, in the end, made the choice to stay, was it the right choice?  I think in the end yes, but there were times I am not sure I could say that.  One of the things that staying in the area meant was that I had to get a job.  Poppie set up a junkyard business and tried to run one but due to state laws and a zealous neighbor we finally gave that up.  I got a job at first with Human Services, then a job as the manager of the Visitor Center in the next town down, I then worked at a helmet factory on the assembly line, before it actually was an assembly line. I finally after three years of wandering got a job at the local 911 dispatch center.  I truly loved my job and worked there just short of 8 years. 

I never really contemplated having to work, it was needed at the time and after all my kids were not babies, when I started but in hindsight I did them such a disservice when I went to work.  I went from being there when they got home to not being there. I did shift work at the 911 center so wasn't always there.  Poppie at the time was home or at work depending upon the year.  He had worked at a post mill and then a gravel pit after we folded up the junkyard, then he worked at a sawmill in the next town down.  He was hurt for the first totally debilitating time in 2002 and had his first back surgery then.  he went back to work after 3 months and has hurt again shortly after and had his second back surgery in January of 2003, he never went back to work, and had his final back surgery in the fall of 2003.  We had a hard couple of years, he learned patience and began his journey of no longer being a workaholic to becoming a man that had limitation.  I think he still doesn't get the concept but I am a good baby sitter, and he really does need one. We did what we needed to do to stay in our home town, and the bottom line is you really have to love it here to stay, as there is very little work and no money to be made if you do work, so love of the area and lifestyle has to be high on your priorities to live here.

I look back and know that not being an at home mom, when my older kids were in their teens, has had lasting effect on their lives, maybe I wasn't good at doing both, being a working mom and trying to raise them, or maybe it was that they had had an at home mom and then she was gone.  They sometimes had an at home dad but he was learning and wasn't prepared for what that entailed.  I do regret that I in important ways failed my kids when I went to work but I couldn't have changed it at the time, they needed to eat.  We did lose the home they had lived in when they were small, we had to move to our smaller piece of property in 1997 but in many ways the move was a beginning of a better life and out look.  We still live there now.  It was actually only the next property over but their childhood home is no longer standing.  We started over in 1997 but the kids were already for the most part on their way to being adults. I can't change the past, and I do have regrets, but regrets don't do anyone any real good.  I do know that I got a second chance to raise another set of children and I know from experience that if you can be an at home mom, and not just until they go to school, do it.   They don't stop needing you there when they go to school.  I make mistakes everyday of my life but I never make the same mistake twice...... tomorrow.

1 comment:

Please leave a comment, I value your comments and appreciate your time to read my blog....