Choosing to be a "STAY AT HOME MOM"

I am in a new phase of my life, my children are raised and are raising children of their own. I get to enjoy my grandchildren often and it brings back wonderful memories from when I chose to be a stay at home Mom. This was my chosen vocation, and believe me, it was one of the most challenging fields I could have chosen. I learned more from my vocation than most people do working outside of the home. Over the years, I have received a lot of criticism for choosing to stay at home to raise my children. Some comments were: - You must feel so unfulfilled! - How can you stand to be with your children so long? - It is a brainless job, but somebody's got to do it. - What will you ever do with yourself, when your children are raised and you won't have a job anymore let alone job skills? - So... what do you do for your job? When I tell them I chose to be a stay at home mom, I was then asked again, but what do you do for your real job? As you can imagine, especially those of you who have chosen to be that stay at home mom, and raise your own children, some of these questions were really criticism from people who couldn't possibly understand just how fulfilling being a full time parent could be. I get to be there when they loose their first teeth, or say their first words, and it isn't told to me later by the day care professional or the nanny. I get to be there to make their science fair project volcano errupt, dress my dautgher and do her hair for her first date, and the list goes on and on. What a privlege it is for me to say that for 26+years, I was a stay at home mom, and was blessed by every minute I spent with my children. Yes there were hard times, and sad times, and good times, and bad times, but that is just real life. My children are more precious to me than a job outside of the home, and as I think about it, if I had put all my kids in day care and after school programs so I could work outside of the home, I would not have made a penny, and wouldn't have been an active part of my childrens lives. I have a feeling that my comments are going to make a few people angry at me, but once again as I said in my welcome, I have the right to speak my mind. After all these years of smiling when people made unfeeling and rude comments about my chosen vocation, it is now my time to speak and show the world, that my chosen vocation was the best education I could ever have been given, and it was done right inside the confines of my own home. I learned along the way, skills that I had never even thought about, and developed talents that would have remained hidden, if I had not been given the opportunity to use them. In time, I will share some stories with you. I hope that all of you stay at home Mothers will realize that your sacrifice for your children is worth more than the fortunes that this world has to offer, because the jewels that you wear in your Mommy crown, will grow and sparkle even brighter every minute you spend with your children. Blessed be the names of stay at home mommies, and blessed be the names of those hard working husbands and fathers, who sacrifice themselves in a huge way, so their wife can be at home and raise his children! Stay tuned, there is more to come. Enjoy, Katie G