- Image by twodolla via Flickr
If you have been reading this blog for any length of time you know by now that I am the stay at home parent in our house. Over the summer however, my wife was home on maternity leave with our youngest son being born and all.
In September, she went back to work. It has been interesting trying to re-establish our roles in the house and get back on a good routine. Even this post is about a month in the making. I have been trying to write it for that long without success. I have been doing way too many things and putting this post off. I have another one on procrastination in the works, maybe I should combine them!
It was quite a change when she went back to work, especially for the kids. We had spent 3 months with her always home. Now she was leaving again and I had to step back up as the full time homemaker as well as internet guru, company president, blogger etc. None of these are hard, none of these are different than what we have been doing for years.
It is just different after having the family together for the summer. We have talked about it and decided that this is the best course of action for us to continue with. I do not intend to ever work for anyone again. I will work for myself and my family online and provide what we need. However, my wife will alwasys work in some capacity. she just loves being a Nurse.
So over the past couple of months we have had to redefine our lives, redefine how we do things and try to hash out a schedule that will be conducive to running the family. It is hard on the kids sometimes to go from one parent to the other and try to figure out who is right and whose buttons they can push.
Now that the holidays are over, things are settling down and getting back to some fallacy of normal. My wife’s schedule at work is now set for 4 months and it will be easy to plan for things. It will also make for a more blurry line as to our roles, but we wanted to be parents and we wanted to do it jointly.
It is kind of funny to see the kids try and go between my wife and I for things. I told my daughter something the other day that she didn’t like. When Mom called from work later and spoke with my daughter, all I heard from said Daughter was, “That’s what Dad said!” She was not very happy about the situation but that is what my wife and I as parents have tried hard to do, be consistent with each other.
I know what she is going to say about situations, she knows me. Our kids can’t manipulate one of us against the other because we are on the same page most of the time. We just have to know who is in charge during which period. Those roles are somewhat dynamic when she is home. Both of us are in charge. The kids seem to be doing just fine with that.
Thanks for reading today, please share on the social networks and leave your thoughts below!
-Justin
