Don’t even call me a SAHM.
I am a SAHW.
Yeah, I’ve got kids. I guess you could say I’m a mom. No, I’m not getting paid for any of my labor right now, except in love. Yes, I do spend as much time as I can at my house, but only because I’m not really all that into people & places. Still, I am uneasy with the term stay-at-home mom.
Is it because I am unaccustomed to being unemployed? Or because I despise questions like: “When are you going back to work?” Or maybe because even though I adore my kids and I’m grateful to be able to be there for them, I do not define myself primarily as “mom.”
Motherhood is a wonderful gift, but it’s not all there is. It’s not all I am or do or care about.
I don’t know about you, but “mother” is just one of my identities. And it doesn’t have to be one or the other. You can be a stay-at-home painter, accountant, teacher, renaissance woman/man, scientist, chef, etc… who also happens to care for children.
I am no longer paid to teach French, but I never stopped working. My work simply isn’t valued or measured in terms of how much money I get for doing it now. My husband and my children value what I do, but society as a whole does not. Ironically, though, I haven’t valued my work this much in a long time. And I don’t mean pairing socks and scrubbing sinks.
I’m talking about my self-imposed unpaid work: writing.
I knew I wanted to leave the teaching life for several years before I finally did it. Babies are great motivators for things like that. My passion for teaching evaporated sometime in grad school. But my desire to write has lurked in my mind since I furtively kept a very extra super secret journal (that my sisters probably read on the regular) in high school.
Now, I’m doing it!
- I started this blog.
- I’ve established my writing habit – every day I write, even if it’s only for a few minutes and work on getting eyes on what I’m doing.
- I’ve got three rejections on the books and three more waiting in the wings. Woohoo! Never thought I would celebrate rejections, but it just means I’m doing something. You can’t succeed without trying and sometimes failing.
- I’m finding my voice and figuring out how to go about writing for different publications. Eventually, the magic (lucky) combination will reveal itself to me.
- The more I write, the more I want to write – Ideas are springing up every day. It’s exciting. Whether I’m decluttering, grocery shopping, or cooking, I’m almost sure to be thinking about writing – the next essay, where I could send it for publication, how I could use a particular anecdote in a creative way.
I enjoyed teaching, but I never felt like this about it.
So, if you must have a label for me, call me a stay-at-home writer. SAHW. I don’t have to get paid to be a writer, although that’s my ultimate goal.
All that is required to be a writer is to write.
Boom!
I am a writer, dammit. I’m raising two kids, running a household, wife-ing, doing plenty of other things, AND spending every spare moment writing.
Because I am a writer.
Believe it or not, YOU can help me with my dream to be a writer who gets paid to write someday in the not-too-distant future. It’s super easy. You can follow me on social media and/or subscribe to get notification of new posts. You can share this post or a different one that speaks to you with people who might identify or like my style. I would be eternally grateful for your support and you would get a warm fuzzy feeling from lending a hand.
It’s a textbook example of a win-win situation.
Let’s do it!
