Being a new mother has involved some standard new baby change, but in my case also come with a major stage of life change when I finished my degree a couple months after the mini was born. I've pretty much been a stay at home mom since I filed all my paperwork. I've kind of talked about doing research, but I haven't really. At times, my lack of academic productivity has sent me into the abyss of existential angst. However, there are some things about now that I'm really enjoying.
As much as I sometimes freak out about how much attention and care the mini requires, I'd rather be available to her than not. Pretty much everyday there's a moment where I feel it's pretty awesome to be with her. (There's also often a long hour of wailing.)
Because the mini is a chill baby, I have a lot more flexibility than I expected to be available to people. A couple times a week, I have the opportunity to be an encouragement to someone by spending time with them. Where it is really difficult to find a chunk of time to focus on research, it is pretty easy to find chunks of time for people, even spontaneous time. Oddly enough, phone time is difficult, probably because it requires having a hand free to hold the phone. But for face to face interaction, I haven't yet spent time with someone who seems bothered that I'm holding or even nursing a baby while talking.
For most of the past three years, the goal of finishing my degree has prioritized my time for me. And basically, saying "no" was the default choice and any "yes-s" had to be carefully considered. Now that I'm done, after taking care of my family, I'm pretty free to be available to others. I really like that. If I didn't feel responsible to my degree, I think I'd really enjoy continuing to take care of my family and build up the people around me.
Comments (2)
That's great that you can spend time with people now!
But does being a SAHM make you feel a little stir-crazy at times at all? It does for me sometimes. (I felt that way when I stayed at home all day with our foster daughter.) And these last few weeks have been hard since I haven't been able to get out of the house much and all my time is consumed by taking care of our newborn's needs.
I was not stir crazy my first month, in fact the idea of leaving the house was intimidating and overwhelming. The second month I was home bound writing my dissertation while my mom watched the mini. Since my mother has left, I find that Mondays are the hardest for whatever reason and I'm most likely to go crazy then. I definitely try to schedule a few out of the house activities each week to help with the stir crazy thing, but it's a fine balance between enough activity to feel connected with the outside world and too much activity where I feel exhausted and out of wack.