I’ve just been reading ‘The mommy war inside my brain‘ post at phat mommy. It’s a blog I’ve been reading a while and probably one of the first that ignited my curiosity into homeschooling.

In the post, Shannon talks of the difficulties you face as a stay at home mum. There is always media coverage on the subject of mums going back to work and the guilt they feel, but not often is there anything from the angle of a stay at home mum, and as most will tell you it isn’t always a bed of roses.

For a start your ‘on call’ all the time, no fixed lunch breaks here (I’ve seen myself grabbing something at 10.30am for lunch for the fear I may not get the chance again!). Minimal amount of contact with other adults certainly not at the same level as our working mother counterparts. Then there is the money issue and the imaginative budgeting it takes. But, most of all it’s that feeling that your giving so much but you want something for yourself too, and even thinking this makes you feel guilty. You feel that you shouldn’t feel like this, that you should get all your contentment from bringing up your child and shouldn’t need or want anything more. Well that isn’t realistic, most women want and need more than just to bring up their children and that’s OK. Why do you think I started this website, why do you think there are so many mums starting new businesses, coming up with new ideas?

Because we all want to be more than ‘just a mum’ no matter how important or challenging that job is within itself.

I’ll end this post with the final line of Shannon’s post ‘We want to give everything to our family, but we need to give something to ourselves….‘