Limits of a Stay-at-Home Parent

I finally admitted my limits as a stay-at-home parent. When Chris was pitched the opportunity to be a part of what he described as the coolest project at his company, a project based 60+ miles/1 hour, 15 minute drive from our house, I said no. Then I said no to the second idea floated by his bosses, a position that would have required travel, but destination, frequency and duration undetermined. Chris understood my concerns, but thought either prospect could be workable if he could pin his bosses down for the exact timeline of the project or how often he'd have to travel. But I knew that no matter what the company could have promised, supposedly shorter hours to make up for the longer commute, or more vacation time to make up for extra travel, I'd be miserable if I relented. With Chris's current travel and school schedule, I feel like I had become a 24/7 stay-at-home, single parent. I simply need him home more. A lot more. And reliably more.

I had always thought that as a stay-at-home parent, I'd have it all covered. No need for daycare, nannies, housekeepers, take-out for dinner, grocery delivery services or any other services I'd read about dual-earners utilizing to keep the kids safe and occupied and the household running. Even if staying home with kids was a career sacrifice for me, the flipside was that Chris's career options would be limitless.

With my current pregnancy coinciding with the heaviest travel and work load of Chris's project in Dallas, I've humbly learned I can't do it all, 100%, all the time. Caring for a child all day, day after day, with no relief, is physically and emotionally tiring and isolating in only a way a fellow parent can understand. Acting as a single parent wears me out and makes me anxious. Most days of the week I don't have my co-parent to back me up if I wake up sick one morning, (or, well, just pregnant). I'm left to handle Oliver's bad days by myself (come on, all toddlers have their good days and bad days and they change at a moment's notice) and don't have the only other person who knows Oliver as well as I do to debate with whether the problem is an ear infection, and worthy of a doctor's visit, just teething or a bad night's sleep. I can't be two parents at once, the one who takes Oliver outside to play on a beautiful afternoon or reads him books while the other gets dinner ready, or the one who takes him somewhere fun while the other does errands. If I had any doubts about whether I couldn't just suck it up for a little while longer, I imagined life in the fall with a new baby added to the mix and I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up the facade of the super-stay-at-home mom.

I still feel guilty about being the reason Chris turned down something he was really excited about. I feel like if his career stalls because no other good opportunities come along or he's unhappy with whatever he does end up working on, it'll be my fault. That's the emotional, wants-to-please, wants-to-make-everyone-happy side of me talking.

The rationale side of me knows there's no such thing as super mom and that for every decision Chris makes about school or work, it will have an impact on his family. It's reasonable to be worried that a job will be too demanding for him to have anything left to give to his family, as much as a well-intentioned and devoted to his family as he is. I'm wondering if maybe parents of young children just have to climb the "ladder" slower or make different decisions about their careers than their single or empty-nester co-workers do. And that's whether they have a stay-at-home spouse or not.