staying home

mckayleesmom wrote: ok, I am a stay at home mom, Mckaylee is 1 month old and I had origionally planned to stay home till she was 1 or so , but now I feel guilty cause now that my pregancy is over Im just waiting to go back to work as soon as I can. I do cherish the time I have with her and don't really want to leave her with anyone either, but since I was 14 I have worked 1 or 2 jobs, mainly cause I helped my mom cause my dad is a real winner. Anyways I was one of those people that couldn't wait to get the chance to stay home and now that I have it I want to work, its like I have lost my control. My husband makes enough money that I can stay home, but I also don't know anyone here and I use to have tons of friends and a good job. Im a very social person and being stationed here bites cause I only know one girl, she is another army recruiters wife, but she is kind of wacky and hooked on just about every anti depressant known to man. If we go out and our husbands go out seperately she freaks out the whole time and then we have to go hunt our husbands down cause shes paranoid.....I need some normal friends.........Am I a horrible mom for wanting to go back to work? I feel really guilty but staying at home is eating away at me.

Kirstenmumof3 replied: Congreatulations on your new baby! The first few months your baby won't be doing anything except eating and sleeping so it is normal to feel like you are going stir crazy! Especially since you have been working for so long. It sounds like you need to get together with some other moms and there babies! Are there any playgroups in you area? A lot of Churches and Community Centres offer playgroups and some fitness centres offer Mommy and Baby arobic (sp?) classes! Enjoy your time with your new baby it goes by so quickly!

Kirsten

supermom replied: No, just because you want to work, doesn't make you a bad mom. But maybe if you really don't want to leave her with anyone, you could get out and meet some 'normal' people! Try a playgroup or the local Y or even a local park to strike up conversations with other mommys who have kids, and get to start to know some others....

That way you wouldn't feel so alone and isolated. Or maybe just go back to school and take a college course or two. You'd be able to meet people that way, and get to get out of the house some, too, without baby in tow. I know every once in a while, I just have got to get away, too. I think we have all felt that way at one time or another. Just because we want to do that it doesn't make us bad mommies, it makes us human!

I think I would make a terrible stay-at-home mom because all of my friends kids are now grown (and they didn't start over with another family) and I love the social contact I get at work.......I'm just lucky because we own our own business and my DS gets to come with us all day (has since he was 3 days old, and he's 3 yo now!). For me personally, if it was a choice between watching him or working, he would win, but I would go nuts! - hehehehehe

Maybe you could do something that would allow your DH to watch your DD a few hours in the evening (like Mary Kay or Tupperware, or whatever) so that you could get out and meet others and kind of set your own schedule.

HTH and hugs and good luck whatever you decide to do!

MomToMany replied: Hugs to you! What a tough situation! I'm not exactly sure what to say! I've never been in a situation like that, but maybe you could and put up some posters up inviting other young moms over for an area "get-to-know-you" party or something. Sorry I'm not much more help.

More to you!

kit_kats_mom replied: I agree with what the other moms said. I WAH mainly because I need to feel like I am contributing to the family's income and to society. Also, I have heard so many horror stories about women who were SAHM's who'd husbands left them years later and they have no marketable skills to be able to support their families with. I think it is important to keep your skills up, even if it is just taking a class once in awhile or something. I am a firm believer in fall-back plans.

Anyway, I have been taking DD to the park around 10 am a couple of times a week and i have run into a few playgroups. Most of them are for older kids but I've been invited to join them which is nice. Our library has an infant story time too and lots of moms, dads and babies go. It's a great place to meet other moms. Finally, try doing a search on the net for other message boards and see if any of the ladies are in your area and would be interested in meeting. I met Jenn (Bailey's mom) through the PP boards and she is great. I love having another mommy who is going through the same things I am to talk too. When Katherine was really small, I basically lived on the PP boards and used that as my outlet for adult conversation.

good luck!

CantWait replied: sweetheart being a military wife I know the full meaning of needing to work cause I know NOBODY. Working is the only way I have ever gotten any human contact that doesn't involve goos and gaas, if ya know what I mean. Raising a baby all day without any adult conversation is a big task. I finish work in just a few days I haven't met any longlasting relationships there, but the time I spend there and at least associate with others is a big thing. I can't wait to stay home with my baby, but especially with my husband being gone, I dread not talking to anyone about adult topics. Although I know there's always the loving people here at Parenting club.

If you ever need to talk to someone who truly knows what you're going through right now, don't hesitate to Email .....or whatever.
Marie

mckayleesmom replied: Thanks,,,the worst part of being a recruiters wife here is that when we first moved here, there were a couple other wives but they got transferred and their husbands replacements don't have wives. There is one recruiters wife that hasn't left her apartment since we all got stationed here...She is 30 and her husband is 23 and we invited her out plenty of times but she says that we are too young to hang out with,,,Im a year younger then her husband,,,so that does't make sence...She can marry a younger guy but not go to the mall with a younger woman.

CantWait replied: I find military wives are a strange bunch

Hillbilly Housewife replied: I'm not a military wife...but both DH and I are military brats, and we both tend to stay more isolated from the rest of the world. We both have very select "close" friends, and that is who we talk with the most. We don't go out of our way to meet new people, because we,re both so used to moving around so much.

What's really strange about him and I is that we always lived in the same places...just a few months apart. My family would move in the same place, and his family woul dmove away a few months later. We followed each other around like that for a good 7 or 8 years before we actually met.

Pretty wierd!

mckayleesmom replied: Ya some of them are strange, I have never been in the whole military situation before we got married and Im still pretty clueless about alot. But they had an army recruiting atc around christmas last year. It is where you dress up in formals and they get their awards and the next day the wives go to the mall of america and the guys have a class they have to attend all day. Well besides the 40 dollars your husband spends on your food at the awards dinner you can also pay for your wifes breakfast the next day, which is held in a banquit (sp?) room. Well my husband paid for my breakfast and I wish he hadn't cause it wasn't breakfast, it was a huge wifely *****fest...All these women did was complain complain complain. Im sorry but my husband already works enough and is really stressed out, so im not going to add to it..so i got up and left. Turns out that the army wives that I knew and got along with weren't there cause they already knew what the breakfast really was and they forgot to warn me..

taf2911 replied:
Hey Zach's mom, I'm a mb too, though my dh is not. But we are both loners, I guess you would say. Like you we have a few close friends but pretty much stick to ourselves otherwise. And I have a hard time reaching out to people to make lasting friendships, I guess b/c of all the moving I did as a kid.

taf2911 replied: mckayleesmom, for what it's worth, you're not a horrible mom because you miss working. I've been a sahm for nearly 2 years now, and though most of the time I love it, there are times when I feel like I'm going stir crazy. You may find that once your little becomes a bit more mobile, that you're much busier and have less time to think about and miss work. But at the same time, I think that some women just are made to stay home, and that's okay.

I know this probably didn't help much, but I wish you the very best.

God bless!