{"id":4674,"date":"2015-10-04T19:55:41","date_gmt":"2015-10-04T19:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/?p=4674"},"modified":"2015-10-04T20:11:54","modified_gmt":"2015-10-04T20:11:54","slug":"why-i-plan-on-being-a-stay-at-home-mom-when-my-kids-are-teenagers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/why-i-plan-on-being-a-stay-at-home-mom-when-my-kids-are-teenagers\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Plan on Being a Stay-At-Home Mom When My Kids Are Teenagers."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"10999254_10152876476225197_2238215206299895582_o\"<\/a><\/h3>\n

The difficulty of the world didn’t hit me full-force until I was an older child.<\/h3>\n

Still young and fairly innocent, I think I was seven or eight when I realized that not all kids were very nice.<\/p>\n

I was, maybe, 12 or 13 when I understood that some kids were downright mean.<\/p>\n

I was 14 or 15 when I started to become\u00a0resentful.<\/p>\n

I was 17 or 18 when I realized that bitter resentment was mainly harmful to me.<\/p>\n

I was 25 or 26 when I finally started to understand, and own, self-love.<\/p>\n

I was 30 going on 31 when I would welcome my first child and, cliche as it is, really understand what love is.<\/p>\n

Now, at\u00a035 going on 36, I know just enough<\/em> to suspect that it’s not true when other parents tell me that the easier years wait ahead, with my children currently ages five and one.<\/p>\n

Raising two girls is not a task that I take lightly, although it is a pleasure and a joy and something that I try to lighten up into; trying to bring a sense of easy fun into our mother-daughter relationship while also honoring the sheer importance of being a parent.<\/p>\n

I’m writing\u00a0this\u00a0while the kids are playing in an\u00a0adjoining room with my husband; football,\u00a0snack munching and general roughhousing in the background.<\/p>\n

My friends tell me things like more sleep lies ahead and that it will get easier and that I’ll have more time for myself soon enough, but I don’t believe all of this and here’s why.<\/p>\n

My children, hopefully, will grow into teenaged bodies that I wrestle to wake up in the morning instead of our\u00a0current game of getting them to sleep. Still, when a woman becomes a mother, I don’t think sleep is ever the same again—a cry in the night is simply exchanged for another noise, like a door creaking open for a child to sneak out of the house.<\/p>\n

This isn’t to say that my home won’t have rules, regulations and expectations, but certain things—like sneaking out and hormonally-driven cry-fests—are symbolic stages of adolescence, regardless of the generation, for a reason.<\/p>\n

I take time for myself to work now—even for brief article-writing stretches like at present—and I will in upcoming years as well. Sure, I battle for just a half an hour to exercise\u00a0or a shower without company—and things like this will<\/em> become easier, simply because of full days at school.<\/p>\n

Just\u00a0a moment ago, I had to ask my five year old to stop coming over to my elbow as I write because I’m taking a short “timeout.” Will there be a point in a few years, when she won’t care as much what I’m doing, because she’s older with her own interests, and I am only one small part of them? I sincerely hope not, but, again, all typical signs point to “likely.”<\/p>\n

Being a parent when my kids are in high school, for example, is something that right now I can only imagine and, if my images of what early motherhood were like before actually having children are any indication, my predictions are probably way off. Regardless, I don’t plan on being less of a mother because my kids are older. As kids age, that’s when they need to know that we are around as listening ears and open arms.<\/p>\n

I’m not suggesting that we all helicopter around our blossoming children, but availability should absolutely remain a constant.<\/p>\n

So, yes, I hope that our house gets a little—or a lot—more sleep. I hope, even more, that my kids are so independent that they don’t need me as much as I’ll wish they did, but I won’t for one second believe that my girls don’t need a mother anymore because they have bras instead of tattered dolls.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The difficulty of the world didn’t hit me full-force until I was an older child. Still young and fairly innocent, I think I was seven or eight when I realized that not all kids...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[643],"tags":[675],"class_list":["post-4674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-writing-and-motherhood","tag-stay-at-home-mom"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/10981339_10152709860520197_5356998063480599919_n.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4dYEp-1do","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4674"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4674"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4693,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4674\/revisions\/4693"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}