Making Time for Yourself

Just because we are with our kids full time doesn't mean that they have to be the center of the universe. As a matter of fact, when we make time for ourselves, we can do our mothering much better.

If your husband is able to relieve you on regular basis , or if you have other family members to help you out, it is great. But it is also important for your kids to know that they need to respect your private time daily.

They can be thought independence even if you are most of the time there for them. From the time my two daughters Estera and Grace were babies, I would teach them to let me do things around the house, read, pray or talk on the phone. I would of course never ignore them and spend time cuddling, tending to their needs, reading , and playing with them. However, I also encouraged them to have some time on their own (still within my view), playing in their crib, crawling around, play together, and now that they have grown; they read books or study when I need to tend to my own needs.

It gives me much needed brake and helps them not to be overly dependent on my constatnt attention giving them the idea that they need to give other people space. We shouldn't allow ourselves to become the slaves of our children just because we are at home full-time with them. We can still develop our personal gifts and talents that could even translate into work out of home. There are so many possibilities that we can explore, if we don't get discouraged by distorted views of others on what it means to be a stay-at-home Mom.

It's a Full-Time Job !

Being a parent and especially being stay-at-home mother is a full-time job. Any mother can bear witness to that fact. And it is not easy to this job well. We become nearly everything, accountants, early childhood educators, sometimes teachers, child psychologists, nutritionists , and cooks. Who said it doesn't involve any risks?

It is a huge risk. We can raise succsesful and emotionally mature people as a gift to the society; or we can create a problem in a society by releasing to it immature and very hurt people who fail because their charracter was never developed properly.

Now I admire the women who do this and also have a full-time carrer on their hands. They have two full-time jobs! Not every woman can handle both well. I'm one of them. That's why women who work outside their family should never judge the one who decides to stay at home and vice versa.