The worlds best conspiracy

Here’s the thing, I am not a conspiracy theorist but there is one out that that I believe we’ve all been sold and we ALL bought into. And here it is - being a mum. You don’t get it? Ok, let me explain.

In today’s modern society, we are brought up being told that it’s not enough to JUST be a mum. That you don’t want to “lose yourself in your mum identity”. That you won’t be fulfilled being just a mum. Any of these ring true to you? I’ll be honest, pre kids I was one of these people. I didn’t think I would want to be “just a mum”. That I was going to need something else to make me feel whole. That if all I did was raise my child, I would look back on life and possibly regret it. It’s like ingrained into us that the normal and most fulfilling thing is to have a baby, take maybe 8-12months off work and then pop that baby into childcare and get back out there. But you want to know a secret? You don’t have to do that. In fact, you’ll probably find this instinctive ache at the thought of leaving your child, and that is completely normal.

Whenever I want to know if we, as humans, are kind of on the right path in life I always look back to nature to see how far removed we are from it. So, let me break it down for you. In nature, there is only one purpose and that is to reproduce. When animals become mothers, their whole world revolves around their young. Teaching them everything they know to give them the best chance of survival once they are on their own. Mothers and their young are together, consistently, until the young are ready to go off on their own. It is their life’s purpose to have their babies, care for them, teach them and then, when they are ready, let them go. So why then, if our main purpose in life is to continue on the speices, do we think that being a mother is not going to be the most fulfilling and rewarding thing we can ever do? Why are we taught that we should want to return to work while we still have young babies?

I hear all the time about mum guilt. About how if you are going back to work you never feel like you’re enough. You never feel like you are putting enough into your job yet you never feel like you are being the best mother? It’s like this twisted game to see just how bad we can make women feel. And look, if you really do want to return to work and you find your joy there, then that’s great! And if you have to go back to work because the cost of living crisis is affecting you and your family then that’s an amazing and hard sacrifice that you are doing for your family. But, if you don’t need (or want) to go back to work but feel like maybe you should, ask yourself why?

Since becoming a mum, I can say that there is no job or career out there right now that would tempt me to leave my child. There is NOTHING more valuable then being here, every day, raising my baby. You get, maybe 5 years before they start school, five years - thats it. And I am almost two years in, when I say the time flies, I mean IT FLIES. And of course there are slow days and moments I too have wished away because I was tired and over it. But nothing prepares you for the instinctive need to be with your child. For me, everything else can wait. A career can wait, it’ll still be there when my children are grown and living their own lives. The house may be messy but one day it won’t be, because there are no little feet running in mud or sticky hands touching every surface possible.

So if you are a mum whose thinking that they want to be a stay at home mother but feel like its “not enough” just know that it is. You will never regret being here for all the small, precious moments that you can never get back. Just know that you don’t have to live your life feeling guilty all the time because you are spreading yourself too thin. Know that life is short, even if we get lucky enough to make it all the way to the end, so don’t waste it doing what you think you should.

I have become so passionate about making Stay at Home Mums cool again. Lets stop making women feel not enough because they choose to stay home, raise their babies and look after the home. If that is what you want to do just know that it is enough (in fact it’s more than enough).

There is so much growth you go through when you become a parent. You are forever struggling with an internal fight between what feels so natural verses what the world says you should do. Listen to yourself, trust your instincts - we have them for a reason.

So this is where I am, right now. I am a stay at home mum, my life and my world revolves around my family in this season and that is enough for me.

Love as always, J x