I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what is the best environment for my daughter.  Let me start by saying that in my young adulthood I never dreamed I would be a SAHM.  I always saw myself as a working mommy and denied any wrong in having a child in daycare.  I argued that daycare is good for children because they get to learn new things everyday and as long as they are getting quality time with mom and dad at night and on the weekends then it is the best situation.  I also just never pictured myself being happy as a SAHM, and I thought that a happy working mom is 100% better then an unhappy mom at home.

My daughter came along…I stayed home for 3 months…went back to work for 10 months…and have now been home with her for 8 months.  My reasons for staying home were complex.  Although I had a flexible work schedule I was bringing too much stress from my job home.  The families I worked with were becoming more and more challenging and the feeling of helplessness was breaking my heart every day.  I’ve always heard the average turn around time for people working in social services is 2 years per job.  I had been in my job for 3 and a half years.  I also thought I was going back to school because with my husbands job I was only going to have to pay 20%.  That is too long and depressing of a story to get into here but it didn’t work out.

Besides the stress of work and the promise of becoming a student again I just MISSED my daughter.  She was getting to be a really fun age…18 months…and every morning as I got her dressed my heart just ached to be home with her.  I longed for afternoon trips to the park and the zoo, story time at the library, lunch dates at the mall, snuggles after nap time.  Then there were some complications with her current daycare and that kind of made the decision for me.  Enrolling her in another daycare was out of the question.  Since she was adopted and had already been through 2 caregivers plus a daycare provider I just couldn’t put her through another big change so soon.

Now that it has been 8 months the monotony of staying home is really starting to wear on me.  Being home everyday is not all peaches and cream like I thought it was going to be.  You see because my 18 month old little monkey has turned into a defiant 2 1/2 year old.  Being the full time mom of a 2 year old takes creativity and patience…two things I do not possess in large amounts.  That’s not the only reason I’ve been questioning whether being at home with me is the best for my daughter though.  She is a very social person.  Slow to warm up but once she does she has a great time.  She loves being around  other kids, adults, and big crowds.  I took her to a playgroup last week and she clung to me the whole time.  I couldn’t help but think “Am I sheltering her too much?”  “Am I keeping her from all the wonderful experiences she could be having at a child care?”  I’m sure at a quality daycare the providers will not yell the way mommy sometimes does.  But then they will probably not cuddle her the way mommy does either.  “Does that mean I am coddling her then?”  “Am I depriving her of learning life lessons without the hovering helicopter mommy watching her every move?”  “Am I depriving myself of my career? Of feeling like I am making a difference in the world?”

I don’t have any answers.  Just questions.  Even with all the questions I am content with where I’m at.  I do not regret my decisions or what I’m doing right now I guess I just need to know where all of this is going.  I don’t want to stop thinking about my future as not just a mom but a woman who has something valuable to offer society, and I never want to stop learning.  At the same time I don’t want my daughter’s world to be confined to this house.  I want her to experience new things at a young age.  Nuclear and isolated families are something fairly new to humans.  I have a strong feeling that it was not meant to be this way.  We are social beings and children used to have a lot of people around to play and interact with.  Have we gone too far with wanting to shelter our children to our own little world where we can control everything?

I obviously don’t know the answer so what are your thoughts?