Wendy from 'Inside The Wendy House' is someone who I've been friends with for just over a year (since I started blogging) - we just seemed to click and have spent many an evening in stitches chatting on Twitter. Maybe our joint love of toilet humour joined us together?
Despite being a relatively 'newbie blogger' herself, when I plunged head first into this cyber world, she was so helpful and knowledgeable. I've met her a number of times now in real life and she's fabulous. Her love for her family overflows with a passion.Plus she's one very cool mummy!
Here, in her guest post 'My Sliding Doors', she explains how, even though we are both SAHM's, our lives are so different...
Heather, the very lovely lady behind SAHM Loving It is off holidaying (lucky thing!) and has turned over her blog to a bunch of guest bloggers, of which I am honoured to be one.
I first met Heather and her lovely little girl MC earlier this year, when we organised a day out at Cheshire Ice Cream Farm. MC is almost the same age as Freddy, my little boy, and they played beautifully together. Me and Heather are similarly aged (OK I'm way older but I'll gloss over that!), both happily married, stay at home mums. But our lives are very different. MC is Heather's first born and Freddy is my fifth child.
I started out on my path to being a mum when I was just 19. In my 24 years of motherhood I have had five children now aged 2, 9, 15, 20 and 24. I have given birth in my teens, twenties, thirties and forties. This has given me a large family with a big age range and I've never been without a little one. When my family gets together there is an incredible dynamic. The older children are fantastic role models to the younger ones and provide a lot of help and support. I really enjoy my family life but sometimes wonder how different my life could have been if I'd followed Heather's way of doing things. What if I hadn't become a teen mum? What if I'd made a life for myself before becoming a parent?
Being a mother has defined who I am for 24 years. During this time I have had jobs but never a career. I was all set to go to university with a string of A grades to my name. However I didn't take the opportunity and fate saw me become a single mum instead. I'll never know who that 'me' who graduated with a degree in Sociology and Psychology grew up to be. I had aspirations to teach or counsel children with emotional difficulties. Perhaps in an alternate reality, I've made a difference, helped people, made the world a better place? I'll never know.
There is a whole world out there that I've never explored. I've never had the wanderlust to backpack across Australia or drive Route 66 in a convertible, but I wonder if this is because I've always had to worry about the fact that I had children to consider. Holidays became focused on the needs of the kids. Their comfort, safety and enjoyment, teamed with the convenience and ease I needed to cope with holidaying with little ones, soon put a stop to any dreams I'd harboured about visiting the Mayan temples or exploring the jungles of Borneo. Centre Parcs and Disneyland Paris became resorts of choice, pushing any urges to travel firmly to the darkest recesses of my mind.
My marriage has never existed without the responsibility of parenting. My relationship with my husband has never had the carefree element of spontaneity, financial freedom or the joy of selfishly immersing ourselves into each other. I already had two children when we got together and we had our third child a year before we got married. There has always been the children to consider, even if we managed to find some time to be alone, the kids have always been at the forefront of our minds, monopolizing the conversation and influencing our decisions. I wonder how our relationship may have been different had we had some together time, just the two of us. Would we have become different people if we had spent the first years of our marriage getting to know one another as individuals rather than being parents? Would I see my husband differently, have different expectations of his role in my life?
Having a child so young and with no partner did not put me in a good position financially. However, I have always been frugal and shrewd with money and with hard work managed to ease my family's way up the ladder. I started with nothing but we are now very comfortable in our own detached home. I wonder if my frugality and ability to stretch my finances would have been as important to me had I never had to worry about money? If I'd had a good salary and found my way onto the property ladder in the 80s and made a few shrewd moves, could I now be in a huge house somewhere with a fancy postcode? Would I be into designer labels instead of wearing high street and supermarket brands? Would my values be different?
Everything I have done as an adult has been done primarily as a parent. I barely had a chance to get to know myself as an individual, before I became a mother, so I truly do not know who I may have become had my life taken a different path. Would I have had a great career and earned lots of money, travelled the world and embarked on a romantic love affair with the man who would ultimately father my children? I simply don't know. And if I'm completely honest, I don't really care! You see, I have an amazing family who I live for. I have a husband that I adore, who stepped up to the mark when I needed him and has never let me or our children down. I am never bored with my brood aged between 2 and 24, there is always something going on and their needs are so different it is a non-stop and immensely rewarding job parenting them all. I find huge comfort knowing that the older kids will always be there to support the younger ones through all the stages of their lives. I may not have planned this life, but I wouldn't swap it.
I may not know who I might have become, but I know for a fact that my kids have made me who I am now...and I'm pretty proud to be that woman!
I may not know who I might have become, but I know for a fact that my kids have made me who I am now...and I'm pretty proud to be that woman!
