On Being a SAHM

While I knew I wanted children, and I wasn't always sure about working outside the home, I wasn't at all convinced that I'd willingly be a stay-at-home-mum and actually enjoy it.  I've always been a bit of a homebody, but at the same time get bored if at home day after day.  Nor have I ever enjoyed babysitting.  It has therefore come as quite a surprise to me to find that I truly enjoy being a SAHM, and in fact get a bit stressed if I think about working outside the home.

This didn't happen overnight, of course.  I fell pregnant whilst completing my MA in Egyptology.  I'd already planned to continue on to the PhD and had been conditionally accepted, pending submission of my MA dissertation.  I submitted that at the end of September, and started the PhD in October.  Since K was due in late November, I figured the timing was just about perfect, as I would only miss a week or two of classes before Christmas break, and then would have off until the end of January.  A friend told me that I wouldn't want to come back, but I didn't pay much attention to that at the time, though obviously it's stayed in my mind.  Now, I know part of the reason for that is that I knew I wasn't allowed to take a maternity leave, given that I was on a student visa.  But I also couldn't imagine being happy staying at home with a baby and stopping my studies.  I'd been working part-time at the university throughout my pregnancy and planned to come back to that in the spring semester.

On 29 November, at exactly 40 weeks, I gave birth to K.  I was transformed by motherhood, and it all seemed to come naturally to me.  I found that I was breastfeeding on demand, co-sleeping, babywearing: in short, I was following Attachment Parenting, without even knowing what that was at the time.  Even so, I didn't imagine that I wouldn't continue with my PhD, so when January rolled around, I returned to the university.  My primary supervisor was more than happy for me to bring K along to meetings and classes, which I appreciated immensely.  While we didn't always see eye-to-eye, his welcoming attitude towards me having K with me was wonderful.  I was also able to bring K to work with me, though I did work fewer hours at that point.  I've joked that K was probably confused about language, given that he accompanied me to French and Middle Egyptian lectures.  He even attended a lecture by John Baines, who thankfully was happy for K to be in there, and even joked about it when K cried after a person criticised Baines' conclusions.

As time went on, though, I was becoming more and more stressed about continuing the PhD.  I've never been a fan of archaeological theory, as much as I love archaeology.  My supervisor and I also have very different personalities and seemed to be speaking past each other a lot, leading to frustration on both sides.  So I decided that what I needed was to change supervisors.  In the back of my mind I thought maybe I'd prefer staying at home, but I didn't allow myself to think about it too much, since I was still on a student visa and therefore couldn't stop my studies.  However, I knew that something had to change, so we talked to the international student office and learnt that I could put myself as a dependent on B's visa and then switch to part-time status.  Between that and changing my supervisor, I figured that would be satisfactory.

Only it wasn't.  I was still getting more and more stressed and was unhappy with the PhD.  That continued until I had tonsilitis when K was 9 months old and then ended up having a panic attack because of worrying that I couldn't care for K if I was ill.  I didn't know it was a panic attack, nor did B, so he rang for an ambulance.  They realised that it was a panic attack and spoke to me about it, and I finally admitted how stressed I was and that I didn't want to continue with the PhD.  I'd not voiced those feelings before, but had kept them to myself.  The EMT spoke to B and told him I must be allowed to be a SAHM.  B had had no idea I'd felt that way (seeing as I hadn't told him), but he was very supportive.  We crunched numbers and figured out how we could cut expenses, and I turned in my notice of withdrawing from the PhD programme.  From then on, I've been a SAHM, and I've not regretted it for a day.  I love the time playing with the kids, getting to bake our breads, having the opportunity to home educate, and I look forward to many more days and years of this.