In my personal experience, it was difficult going from not only a working person but an entrepreneur. I went from running my own business that I worked full time and built from the ground up. I went from a day to day life I could have expectations of and mold how I choose, paying for all of my own bills and necessities to now having the biggest job transition of my life that no one could have ever prepared me for. I can say I have always had a strong maternal side to myself and have taken care of babies and kids since maybe 10 or 11 years old but having your entire day for the rest of your life now become that; is a change only one knows once you have had to resign from the life you had before motherhood. At this moment I am currently 8 months postpartum and counting, becoming a SAHM; I never thought was in my cards. I always thought it was going to be so easy going back to work, so easy to allow others to watch my baby that I grew from my bones and blood for 9 months, so easy to keep on as it was; but its not as it was, is it? I worked at 3 weeks postpartum and that was one of my biggest regrets looking back on my postpartum journey. How dare I allow myself and others persuade my decisions into doing what felt so unnatural in that moment. Who was I pleasing? I felt I had catching up to do. And to think some mothers are forced to go back fully at 6 weeks??? I couldn't imagine. I did it to myself though and had to undo all the things; I felt like I was going against my own word, and that was difficult to navigate as well.
Choosing to become a SAHM, I am eternally grateful for my partner to be so supportive and understanding regardless of my own confusion and contemplation. I was never raised witnessing SAHM's around me, not my mother, nor her mother, nor her mother, were in a position to just soak in the transition of a lifetime. It just was not a norm that I could not only relate to nor know how to enter and move through. I have times where I have guilt of being a SAHM, feeling like I'm not doing enough to also be a provider and such. Society is so pushy, pushes women to hurry and figure it out, get back to the life you will not ever meet again, pushes us to go back to work, to fit our old jeans, to get back to society and not be SOOO consumed in motherhood. I thank my dear mom friends and my partner that remind myself that this is what I not only desire but know is best for my family and health, my work is always available and this is temporary time that I won't be able to get back but work will always be waiting. I expressed to my friend that; it is universally known that as people, we do not tend to remember life before 3/4 years of age and I believe that God intended it to be that way. Perhaps that time is solely for parents to be allowed to absorb all the change that occurs so quickly and find their groove in the constantly changing current and flow of your little ones first life experiences, every year moves faster and faster it seems. To soak in the experience raising and molding a tiny human so dependent on no one else but the two it was created by, you only have a baby for the first 4 years of their lives. Treasure the time that no one else will be able to recall except the ones who spend that time with them.
This is not to speak down on those who went back to work or allow others to watch their kids, I guess maybe I am speaking to a fairly niche group of people who can't fathom or relate to allow men to provide for them solely, to those who grew up with the trauma of not being able to know what it is like witness and experience SAHM's. It is a very difficult transition of acceptance when you've been molder to be hyper independent but now in this very moment you suddenly desire to be all the things you've never seen. This is also to say being a SAHM, as it being the 180 of job transitions, it truly is an overlooked and under appreciated job. This has been the most challenging yet rewarding job I have ever embarked on, yet I learn more every day and no one is given a manual on how to do this. This job calls for being judged, ridiculed, not only on your actions but your character... I can't imagine that being allowed in a job description. To all the mothers working, SAHM, grieving mother, etc. to all the mothers needing to keep on keeping on, my love and support is with you.