© Sarah & Tyler
Stay at home mums don’t have spare time as others would like to believe. I had thought that once I was a stay at home mom I would have so much more time to see my friends. But in reality they still work and even if I do manage to catch up with them what do we talk about? Not sure they know what happened on Woolley and Tig last night – Says Sarah
My name is Sarah, I’m 27 years old and a full time stay at home mom to Tyler (2 and a half). My partner is Matthew, 28 a full time window fabricator. I live in a village in Yorkshire where I was born and raised.
Now if you had come to me 5 years ago and said “Sarah in 5 years’ time you are going to be a stay at home mom” I would have laughed in your face. No way was I going to be stuck in the house all day looking after kids, letting so man be the bread winner that would not make me happy. How times change.
You see back then I had a picture in my head that all stay-at-home moms did was sit down, drinking coffee and watching Jezza, how wrong I was.
Let me explain how I became what I am today.
I found out I was pregnant 2 months after I started seeing Matt, not ideal but what can you do? We were about to become a family.
All way through the plan was for me to go back to work part time. At the time Matt was working lates (2pm till 10pm) so the plan was I would go back on mornings. Unfortunately my place of work didn’t agree and said I could either finish at 8pm or 9pm.
Now it’s a 2 hour bus ride to and from my old job and there is no child care for looking after kids that late. After much discussion it was decided I would be a stay at home mom, and it was the best thing I ever did.
I have never watched Jezza, my typical day is hectic, I don’t have spare time. I get up with little man about 6am every day, 7 days a week. I make breakfast for me, Matt and Tyler. Then spend half an hour trying to get Matt up for work. While Matt spends a bit of time with Tyler before work, I rush up to get dressed for the day.
Once Matt has left for work (at 7:30am) I start cleaning up.
The rest of the day is taken up by cleaning, going to the shops, playgroups, other activities for Tyler and cooking.
Things tend to calm down around 5pm (tea time) during 7:30 am and 5 pm I may have sat down for 5 minutes here, 5 minutes there, but about an hour the whole day if you added it up. After tea Tyler and I read books till bath and bed time.
After Tyler is asleep I come back down and clean again. Its 8/9 pm before I can chill, so no a stay at home mom does not just sit down all day.
Stay at home mums don’t have spare time as others would like to believe
I had thought that once I was a stay at home mom I would have so much more time to see my friends. But in reality they still work and even if I do manage to catch up with them what do we talk about?
Not sure they know what happened on Woolley and Tig last night.
I have lost most of my friends since becoming a stay-at-home mom and the few I do see are also stay at home moms.
Now you may think from the last part it’s lonely and boring and it can be, if you let it. During the day I don’t have time. At night time I am admin on Emma’s group, one of the best mum’s groups there is. So my nights are spent with Matt and 500+ friends.
I’m not saying being a stay at home mom is easy, being round kids all day, yes you do crave adult company. The lack of sleep is another very hard factor. I’m luck as I only have one child, I cannot imagine how hard it can be if you have more kids.
Kids TV can be mind numbing at times.
My advice to all future stay at home moms, make sure you have friends that stick by you and all ways have an out let for your stress. We carry the world on our aching backs and need somewhere to vent
I think that there needs to be more done to promote the options out there for stay at home moms to get out and make new mommy friends and to help get some confidence back.
Do I regret being a stay at home mom? Not at all because I get to see every moment of my sons life.
