Walk a Mile in My Shoes Wednesday: Stay At Home Moms

I approach this week's "Walk a Mile" post gingerly, because I know the whole stay-at-home-mom/work-outside-the-home-mom/work-from-home-mom thing can become quite the heated debate, and I plan to feature all three angles at some point throughout this series. The hope for today's post is not to make moms who work outside the home feel any kind of guilt, but rather to help all of us who don't stay home full time with kids understand what that lifestyle might be like!

It's ironic that I'm featuring this today, because just yesterday, I saw a post on Facebook from a friend who is not working outside the home for the first time ever, and she commented that while she has held a dozen or more different kinds of jobs over the years, this is the first time her job has been mothering full time, and in truth, she feels a bit lost. It is a job, and for many moms, it's a whole different mindset to settle into - and that takes some time.

So, just to clarify, today's focus is on moms who stay home with their kids and don't hold a full or part time (paying) job in addition to being a mom. Again, being a mom IS a job, and I want to be clear about that! I asked my friend Jenna Holloway if she would talk a little about this, because truthfully, if I had ever had kids, I'd want to be a mom just like Jenna. (I kind of want to be like her in many ways "when I grow up," but growing up is unlikely for me, so I'll just settle for admiring her character!)

Fun facts: Jenna was actually one of my students when I worked at Indiana Wesleyan in Financial Aid! I didn't know her then, but in a fun twist, she married a guy named Nate who happened to be in Ryan's PTA class when he went through school. So after Ryan and I were married, we ran into Nate and Jenna at church, and we all became friends together. Small world! Nate and Jenna were one of our favorite couple-friends to spend time with, and then God moved them out of state, and we miss them so much! Thank goodness for social media and texting, right?

Jenna is the kind of girl that everyone wants to be friends with because she's fun, bubbly, upbeat, encouraging, compassionate (you get the idea). And she is the same kind of person as a mom. She's very intentional about parenting well, and that's why I chose her to talk about the stay-at-home-mom life. Before kids, Jenna had been an elementary school teacher, and she was just going into her seventh year of teaching when she gave birth to their first child, Tucker, and after that, she left the workforce to raise her kids. She and Nate have since welcomed a daughter named Olivia.

 (Nate, Jenna, Tucker, and Olivia)

So here's what Jenna has to say to anyone who wants to walk a mile in a stay-at-home mom's shoes!

1. The transition from being in the workforce to being a full time stay-at-home mom is not as easy as you might think!

(Disclaimer: she does acknowledge this may not be true for some moms, but of course she can only speak from her own experience.) Jenna truly loved her career in teaching. She loved all the kids in her classroom and thrived on seeing the excitement on their faces when they walked through the door every morning. It was a contagious thing for her and made her eager to teach! She was working in her dream grade in a fantastic school, and as much as her mama-heart wanted to be home with her little boy, her teacher-heart wasn't quite ready to close the chapter on impacting a classroom full of little lives.


Jenna looked around at other stay-at-home moms who seemed thrilled to have the opportunity to stay home with their kids, and she wondered what was wrong with her! For Jenna, adjustment took a while. (She also confessed she may have put undue pressure on herself to act like life was going perfectly smoothly when it really wasn't. Haven't we all done that in some way? Bless all our hearts!)

Though the transition may not have been as smooth as she hoped or wanted, in retrospect, she wouldn't change her decision to leave teaching and focus on her own kids. For Jenna, that transition was a time of growth in her personal and spiritual life and gave her an opportunity to grow deeper in the Lord in ways she hadn't expected. A group of women invested in her and prayed over her while she adjusted, and that was so helpful for her!

Now Jenna can't imagine going back to work in this season, because she so loves her at-home life. (She also has the chance to occasionally watch kids for other families, and that gives her the chance to love on others while she loves on her own kids! The best of both worlds!)

2. Being a stay-at-home mom can be lonely and isolating.

Jenna is an extrovert. (BIG time!) She thrives on interaction with other people and loves long conversations. Obviously when she taught elementary school, she received all that and more (in excess) every day! She came home tired, but it was an accomplished sort of tired that fed her soul.

Having a baby brought a flurry of activity to their home with friends and family coming in to visit, but after everyone went home and Nate went back to work, Jenna struggled with loneliness. On one hand, she loved the quiet times of snuggling a newborn, but on the other hand, she craved social interaction with adults who could speak words and not just baby-talk. Prior to staying home, Jenna never had to strive to make social interaction or adult conversation a priority. In fact, it was quite the opposite! She had to work hard to make quiet and rest a priority!

For the first time, Jenna was at a loss - trying to figure out how to foster this important part of her personality! Fortunately, she found a group of moms who were similar in temperament. They encouraged and uplifted each other and found ways to get together and just be. Sometimes Jenna showed up in sweats with dark circles under her eyes, but she always left the group time feeling refreshed and full of life.

Jenna says if you're a stay-at-home mom, find other women who are in the same season or who have walked through that season before! Allow them to fill you with their wisdom and learn from them. Don't let sweatpants and piles of laundry keep you from inviting someone over to be part of your life! And if you're the other mama - the one who has been there and survived the transition - find a new mom and walk alongside her! She needs you!

3. Your "schedule" is not your own anymore. 

Jenna said she would wake up with wonderful plans to have a productive day, and then the baby would wake up early, spit up all over himself and her, and as soon as she would get herself and the baby into clean clothes, he would have a blowout and she'd have to start over. She found herself running late all the time, and that was maddening, because in her mind, early is on time and on time is late. (PREACH!!)


For Type A people everywhere, this loss of schedule control was maddening, frustrating, disappointing, and just plain hard. But in that season, she learned it was okay to let the day just roll. No one was clocking her time with a stopwatch, and if she was late to something, the world did in fact still rotate on its axis. (Well lookie there! Jenna has learned something I still haven't mastered!)

Through all of the loss of schedule control, Jenna learned in new ways how God shows His goodness and faithfulness. She experienced a closeness to Him during that transitional time several years ago, and it continues to carry her today!

Jenna's oldest (Tucker) just started Pre-K, and now he's gone for the majority of the day. She misses him so much, although she loves the one-on-one time with her little girl. (Olivia is 2 and Pre-K will come too quickly for her, Jenna knows!) Jenna plans to return to teaching when both their kids are in school, but she is grateful for this season of staying home! Double blessing? Right now she gets to be Mom AND Teacher!


So there you go! A mile in a stay-at-home mom's shoes! Great insights that can help not just the moms, but those of us looking in from the outside as we strive to understand a bit more what they're managing. It also shows us how we can offer grace and support!

Linking up with Tamar!