Am I Ashamed to be a Stay-at-home Mom?

A few months ago, I went to a small high school reunion that included people from one history class. It’s been a minute since high school, say 7,884,000 minutes to be exact, but who’s counting. I spoke with people I hadn’t seen since high school and it was a great time. However, a simple question caused emotions in me I didn’t know I had. A former teacher of mine asked, “So, what do you do?” I reluctantly said, “I’m a stay-at-home mom…..but I also am the Editor for Tampa Bay Moms Blog.” Somehow, I felt the need to justify that I wasn’t just a stay-at-home mom. But why did I feel embarrassed, reluctant, ashamed? Was I ashamed to be a stay-at-home mom?

My Past Success

In school I considered myself to be a high achiever. Advanced Placement classes in high school and graduating towards the top of my class with honors. Moving on to college, it was more of the same. After college, I was able to move into a good career and achieve my Masters of Business Administration. I owned my own house at 23. I was by my own definition, “successful”.

In my late twenties, I got married and then after a few years had my first child. I continued to work full-time until I was set to come back from maternity leave with my second child. Our childcare situation had changed where my family wasn’t able to cover watching my kids for 5 days a week for 8 hours. So my husband and I made the decision that I would stay-at-home.

I was really happy about the situation. I would get to spend time with my kids and not worry about balancing it all. Little did I know it would be the hardest “job”, I would ever have! We were fortunate, in that we both saved from well-paying jobs and real estate. Therefore, that afforded us the blessing to be able to make this decision.

So essentially, I worked really hard for a long time to be ABLE TO STAY-AT-HOME. In today’s world, it can be hard to achieve this.

So why was I ashamed to be a stay-at-home mom? That’s the ultimate question.

Redefining Success

I think it’s in part because of my “definition of success”. For so long, I was conditioned to believe success was making good money and buying “things”. Taking pride in the glamour of a title or large paycheck. Instead, I needed to change my mindset. To realize that I worked hard to get where I am today. #seasonsandreasons

I went from a full-time in an office job, to a full-time work from home job to a stay-at-home mom and now I’m working part-time from home. I get the luxury to stay-at-home and work part-time. Right now that’s my journey. For some people, they have a full-time gig that fulfills them and makes them a better person and parent as a result. Hello Hubby!

Everyone’s definition of success is different and that’s ok. My definition may change tomorrow but for right now, I’m living in this moment and remembering that I wanted to get here and that I am successful!