How to manage being a stay at home parent!

Stay at home parent is hard enough and most of the time the spouse doesn't understand or pretends too. There aren’t very many spouses out there that truly understand how hard it is to be a stay at home parent. So the stress of just your daily life is enough but then trying to vent to your spouse on how hard it is sometimes can be even harder. Have you ever felt like this, I know I have? If the spouse is working and never at home with the children for any length of time, of course, it is going to be hard for them to understand. Maybe the answer is not to try to convince your spouse how hard it is and instead make your life easier by adjusting your daily duties as a stay at home parent and your overall lifestyle.

I remember arguing with my spouse over and over again and for days at a time because I couldn't handle being a stay at home mom. I went from a career, working non stop dropping my child off at daycare 5 days per week, to being a mom. And that exactly what I call it. I’m not against mothers or fathers out there fighting for there career and having nanny care or daycare for their children. But after doing that for over three years with my daughter and working through my second pregnancy, I realized how much I was missing and how that didn't sit well with me. So the first few months at home were great because I was at the end of my pregnancy and working daily on our home fixing it and get it ready for baby # 2 to come. Once I had our second child and I was no longer working on our house, I soon realize that staying home wasn’t like eating a cupcake.

Staying home became very difficult and soon I was losing my mind and constantly yelling at my daughter and my husband out of anger and exhaustion. What I was really doing was overworking myself and not setting any goals minus health goals for myself. It wasn’t hard to go to work every day and raise my child. That was like eating a cupcake to me, the daycare and my parents were raising her and I simply had her 1-2 times per week at home. By the time I got her and fed her dinner every night it was time for bed. At home is a constant workload, cleaning, taking care of the kids and working on my company, is what I really call work. The way it's done is creating a schedule for the week and change it a lot depending on your needs as a parent and being constantly persistence on what you do and when you do it. I still do EVERYTHING including all cleaning, laundry, cooking, lawn, hedges, trimming my 1 acre of land by weekly and much more but I don't always feel exhausted or stressed anymore.

Now, I'm not going to tell you there aren’t times you aren't going to feel overwhelmed or exhausted but it will be far less. But creating a schedule for your daily duties that need to get done and making time for yourself, for example exercising without the kids, going out for a drink with a friend, sitting at Starbucks with your fancy coffee or whatever you like to do or miss doing. The important thing is, once per week even if you don't have time to actually leave your home, make sure your spouse or parents take the kids for an hour or two or four hours, once weekly so that you can decompress. I never realized how important that is until I hit my breaking point. That point was hit a couple months ago and I just couldn't focus anymore or have the energy to make a day, a positive day. Don't push yourself to the limit of failing or falling, push yourself to the limit of happiness. Everyone has the chance for a positive rewarding life. Don't worry about what others think, worry about how you feel, everyone has their breaking point.

Stay at home parent