Is being a stay-at-home mom right for you? Four questions to sort out your thoughts

About two years ago, I decided to quit my job and take care of my children at home. From the beginning, I struggled to cross the river by feeling for stones, but now I am able to do this job happily and I have accumulated some experience. Recently, several of my best friends were about to become new mothers and were torn between working mothers and stay-at-home mothers. They asked me what I thought about this issue. Many people talk about the role of stay-at-home mothers and feel that the only thing they need to worry about is whether their husband can support the family. Economic factors are indeed critical, but there are actually many factors that need to be considered when it comes to your decision, and they are easily overlooked. As a novice full-time mother with two years of \”working experience\”, today I would like to share with you some issues that need to be considered before becoming a full-time mother, which is also applicable to stay-at-home fathers. Whether your partner supports your decision to be a stay-at-home mom should be a decision that the whole family makes together. The support of your other half is the most important. If one of the couple decides to resign and stay at home, the total family income will be affected to some extent. If you want to be a stay-at-home mother, it\’s best to sit down with your husband sometime, take out a pen and paper, and calculate whether the family expenses after having a baby can be borne by one person. Before I resigned, I worked in the management consulting industry in the United States. To be honest, I was reluctant to part with this income. At that time, Dad Su and I divided the family expenses into food, daily living, transportation, medical care, entertainment, etc. according to functions, and then divided them into must-have, nice-to-have and other levels according to the importance. After weighing the balance, The conclusion is that his income can support the family, but we need to live a little more frugally than before. In addition to financial aspects, your significant other also needs to give you emotional support, especially understanding the hard work of a full-time mother and respecting your labor. After all, there are currently a minority of stay-at-home mothers in China, and society’s understanding and recognition of this profession is not high enough. They are likely to become the target of “criticism” from neighborhood aunts, relatives and friends. I have a good friend who is a stay-at-home mother like me. Her mother-in-law inadvertently expressed her disdain for her \”just raising a baby,\” but her husband always stood firmly by her side and supported her decision. Do you have strong time management skills? As a stay-at-home mother, you are actually in charge of the family\’s daily life, and your work is very intensive. Time management skills are one of the most important survival skills for stay-at-home moms. Please click here to enter a picture description. Mothers who can manage time can improve the efficiency of housework and help their babies establish a good life routine very early. Regarding time and task management, Su’s mother has written several articles before and you can refer to them: After reading 1,000 books with her one-year-old baby, how does this mother manage her time? They say it’s easy for American mothers to raise their babies, but that’s because they’re too lazy. 10 ways to use your spare time to spend quality time with your babies. Are you a lifelong learner? When you become a stay-at-home mom, it’s easy to be drowned in the tedium of diapers, supplementary food, and lulling you to sleep every day. It passed quickly, and the thing I feared most was being out of touch with society. My previous workplace provided many opportunities to be exposed to different industries. The company often conducted large and small trainings, and I learned a lot of new things every day. When I was thinking about quitting my job, one of my biggest worries was that my knowledge base would stagnate with my children at home. Fortunately, there are many good open courses online now. In the United States,The free learning websites that Bian’s mother commonly uses include MIT OpenCourseware, Khan Academy, Couresera, and Lynda.com. In addition, TED talks are also a good source of new knowledge. There are also some free public courses in China. Search for topics that interest you and attend them every day. Spend more than ten minutes watching videos and learn something new. The most valuable thing is persistence. Keeping up the habit of reading is one of the best ways to learn throughout life. Reading for stay-at-home mothers usually depends on using fragmented time. I have had my first Kindle for 4 years, and I regularly download new books. Most of the books I read in the past were related to my major or work industry. After becoming a stay-at-home mother, although my time for reading became more fragmented, I found that I had the opportunity to read more good books in other fields, which was also a good gain. Are you good at managing stress and emotions? Parenting may be the most energy-consuming job in the world, especially before the baby is 2 years old. The needs of the mother are very intensive, and the mother is not very good at communicating with you in words. The mother faces endless challenges every day. Shit and shit, there will definitely be times when you are in a bad mood. Being good at managing emotions is a compulsory course for every stay-at-home mother. Physical health is a prerequisite for stress and emotion management. If I encounter overwhelming negative energy, I will use yoga and sleep to regulate myself. If too much housework affects the time for sleep and exercise, we sometimes buy semi-finished products or eat takeout to solve the problem of dinner. After a good rest, we can more happily accompany the baby to level up and fight monsters. The work of a stay-at-home mother is very intensive. From time to time, you need to be able to separate yourself from this role and do something of your own, so that you can have the positive energy to continue to persevere. Let dad take care of the baby, go shopping by yourself, get your nails done and buy a pair of shoes. In fact, I think both working mothers and stay-at-home mothers are temporary. There are many working mothers around me who have transitioned into stay-at-home mothers, and there are also stay-at-home mothers who have returned to work after their babies went to school. Choosing a role is not a one-and-done deal. If it\’s hard to decide, you can try to give yourself more time, less pressure, and choose what suits you. Being an emotionally happy mother means giving your children the best possible care.