* because I'm bad at multi-tasking
* because rushing has never suited me
* because I like the simple life
* because I have an all-or-nothing personality
* because the days are long, but the years are short
* because I believe in long-term investments
* because these years have important lessons to teach me
* because in ten years my career will still be waiting for me, but my children won't
* because I will one day reap what I sow, and I want to sow well and sow deeply
* because I need extensive time for the planting and watering of those seeds
* because my heart tells me "this is hard, but this is right."
* because I don't want to miss a thing
* because I want to choose my life, not just let it happen to me
* because I want to give them my best hours
* because this is the environment that has proven the most challenging, and the most fulfilling, for me
* because through the sacrifices made I've found myself
* because I'm in a privileged enough position to contemplate this choice
for all these reasons, and so many more, I chose stay-at-home motherhood. And I believe that through my choice, I am helping to change the world.
“Homemaking is not something that stands in the way of our deeper fulfillment;
it becomes the ground that feeds it.”
~ Shannon Hayes, Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture
A note from Jamie: I come to this topic from a place of celebrating my own choice and my right to make it, not from judging others who have chosen otherwise. What is right for me may not be right for you. Might it be worthwhile to make a list of why you've made your own decision? How fortunate we are to have opportunities and the choices to make!
