I’ve been a stay at home mom for 3 years and right now I hate it. I’m exhausted! I feel like I’m so far underwater with everything and the tide just keeps raging in and I can’t come up for air. I enjoy being home for my family, but I don’t enjoy the duties that come along with it. When I’m working – I feel more adapted to deal with all of the crap that is handed to me, because I’m getting paid for it. At home I don’t. I just try to take it and smile as if I enjoy it and that’s really hard to do.
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When it comes to cleaning my house, that’s where I really struggle. I feel like I’m cleaning all the time. When the house is clean I take pride in the house. I enjoy it, I’m more relaxed. But then — EVERYONE starts making a mess and I just get so angry. I guess it’s supposed to happen! If no one made a mess, we wouldn’t have to ever clean right?
When my house is clean, it becomes a magnet for the kids to come storming down to make a mess. When they make any mess, I get angry and start yelling. I’ve yelled at them so much, that I’ve exhausted myself. So for the past year, it’s led me to just not care. I don’t want to bother to cleaning my house! Don’t get me wrong it’s ‘presentable’ but not as clean as it used to be. I’m happier when I’m not yelling at the kids and I’m miserable because the house isn’t to my standards. I just feel like my children lack the respect for our house. That led me to disciplining them by creating chore charts, commission charts, grounding them. All of which seemed to be temporary solutions.
I’m so upset and feel like I’m at my whits end. Everything I’m doing seems meaningless! I’m about ready to hand in my mop and broom, quit being a stay at home mom and go back to work.
Then I prayed about it and GOD told me that everything I’m doing is meaningless and going back to work isn’t going to solve that! What?! Everything is meaningless? Yes, Everything is meaningless! Read Ecclesiastes 2:17-26. The toil I’m having with my hard work being ruined. Meaningless!
To summarize what I learned from that passage is this: I need to take pride in the work I do in my home, regardless if my family tears it apart. Finding satisfaction in my work, will bring pleasure and there is a time for everything. As the mother and the keeper of this house, it is my responsibility to take care of this home. The chore charts, commission charts I created… weren’t successful because my intention was to get my kids do the work for me I didn’t want to do. I need to lead by example. If I expect my family not to leave their shoes all around the house, I need to not leave my shoes around the house either. My consistency, my reminders to them everyday will teach them how to respect our home. These will be life long lessons and I need to be patient with this, because this is not something they will learn overnight.
It’s amazing how reading a few bible versus can help me see things differently now. I know that the day in and day out stuff that becomes repetitive , may not have meaning, but being a stay at home mom for my children does. I thank GOD for showing me that. I feel more at peace just by knowing this. I just now need to have HIM help me with finding motivation to do it all.
Have you struggled with a job you felt was meaningless? How did you handle it?
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Once the kids are grown and moved out that is when I will have a clean house again. 🙂 Before they were born and I was a stay at home wife the bed was always made and things were cleaner. Confession – I hate to dust. It feels like a lost cause living here in the desert. It is so more important to invest in them and their (and our) walk with the Lord than to have a clean house. Thanks for your honesty in posting this.
I secretly look forward to when all of the kids are in school and I can enjoy some serenity during the day — but I know I will miss it.
I work outside of the home full time and I don’t think that I could be a stay at home mom. My son is great but he drives me NUTS when it’s just the two of us on the weekends. I look forward to Monday morning when I can drop him off at daycare and go to work. Like I’m sneaking away to my nice, peaceful cubicle.
I totally get that! I think that’s why I blog so I can escape to my own little pretend cubicle. Having done both, I feel that being home is much harder.
Wow everything you said is what I have been feeling for years. I feel like cleaning is like quicksand…the more you clean the more dirty the house is…and that no one cares. I needed to hear all that you said and will try to have a better attitude like you. I wish I could have gone to your workshop…glad you put your ideas on your website. Thanks!
Wish you could have gone too! I’m hoping to get a spring event underway. I like your comparison to quicksand.. definitely feel that way too.