"What Do You Do?"

It's a question the rears it's ugly head once in a while.

It's a question that I sometimes answer with a passion. Ready for a fight that never comes.

It's a question that I sometimes answer with weakness and dread. Then I kick myself for not being proud and not fighting my corner when that question I dread is asked of me.

"What do you do?"

Such a simple question.

It should be a simple answer.

"I'm a stay at home mum" comes my reply.

It's either met with enthusiasm or jealousy...

"Oooh how fabulous!"

"You're so lucky! I wish I could afford to stay at home with the kids - they are only little for such a short time"

...Or it's met with misunderstanding or ignorance.

It happened to me again the other month.

An older brother of an ex-boyfriend I hadn't seen in years.

"So what are you doing now?" he said eagerly.

"I'm a stay at home mum".

"Ooooooh" he laughed "A lady of leisure!"

"Ha, yeah" came my feeble response as I wasn't prepared for a fight…but then I never am. "I wish!" I added on the end and then quickly changed the subject.

I'd like to think I would be ready to stand up for myself but I never am. I then spend the rest of the year month week day kicking myself for not being stronger and standing up for something I believe in. Something I love.

It makes me feel like crap.

But...

Why should I have to explain myself?

Why should anyone judge me for giving up a career to be with my kids?

Why should anyone think that being a stay-at-home-mum resembles the lifestyle of a WAG?

I don't judge women who return to work. In fact I salute them. I'm not entirely sure I could do it, especially full-time.

But this isn't going to be one of those posts that gives all the pros and cons about working versus staying at home. It's been done thousands of times over and the same divides remain. It's quite tiresome actually.

I just know that I hate being judged for the decision I've made. I hate people thinking I swan around each day meeting friends for coffee, having my nails done or going shopping.* It can also make me feel like some kind of second class citizen. Like I don't belong if you know what I mean?

The fact remains, I hate the "What do you do?" question and I don't think that feeling will ever change.

However, I love being a stay-at-home-mum (the clues in the blog!). I love that I am here for my kids and I can watch them both grow. I know that I have these feelings on my side and all the people who are ignorant to my decision can, quite frankly, do one!

If they want to think I lead a WAG lifestyle then let them. The thing is, I lead a lifestyle far more richer than any WAG. I lead a happy and healthy lifestyle with my children and that's something I'm mightily proud of.





* I still have spa vouchers I was given as a gift in March that I haven't used yet!

Which Way To Turn?

Right now I really don't know which way to turn.

I'm struggling a little.

I know this blog post will turn into a rambling mess but I need a 'thought dump'. I apologise in advance if it doesn't make sense.

Life seems to be going at 100 miles an hour but I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere or doing anything fulfilling. Maybe this is what being a stay-at-home-mum is like at its worst?

Maybe I'm not exactly 'loving it' at the moment.

Regular readers will notice large gaps in my posts over the past couple of months.

I spent most of September and the first part of October (yes, my food poisoning/stomach thing had a relapse) being really ill and it knocked me for six. To be perfectly honest, since then it's really made me think about things. I was that poorly that Matt (and I, if I'm honest) was really worried. It scared us. It made us both realise just how fragile life can be. Those times at the hospital when I was in agony and Matt felt so helpless were awful.

This morning I took TC to a soft-play centre. I needed to get out somewhere. Anywhere that wasn't shopping. I was going to meet up with the lovely Sarah who lives just down the road but she's poorly. It's a good job in a way as Sarah probably wouldn't have known what to do with me.

The song Firework by Katy Perry came on whilst I was there.

I welled up.

Then the tears became sobs.

Luckily there were only a couple of people in there and I was sat in a corner so was able to get away with it.

That song makes me think of Multiple Mummy and Matilda Mae.

It's funny but doing that in public made me realise something.

I'm feeling quite low.

Christmas is coming and everyone is getting excited.

I should be getting excited but deep down I'm not.

Yes, I am struggling.

Struggling to make sense of such a cruel world. Struggling to make sense of everything. Struggling not to be torn apart knowing that friends are suffering.

I want to make this Christmas so special for my family. It's our first Christmas in our lovely new home. We are having the whole of downstairs decorated and there is lovely colour everywhere. TC is more aware of everything this year. MC is beside herself with excitement and she's top of her class in school too. We have so much to look forward to but I just can't shake this feeling I have.

I'm also feeling like a failure. Everywhere I turn on social media I see posts and photos of lovingly home-cooked meals. I see photos of amazing crafts, brilliant messy-play, amazing days out and lots of fun and happiness.

I know most people only post the good stuff but I wonder how these people have the time to do the things that they do? I sometimes feel like my kids are living on pasta and fish fingers most of the time and we don't get out and about enough.

I know my kids are happy and loved and that's what counts but I still feel like I'm letting them down.

I'm also trying to decide what to do about my blog.

I have seriously 'lost that blogging feeling'.

I started this blog to document my life as a stay-at-home-mum and to give myself and my children memories. I've let us all down. Somedays I feel like quitting but blogging has brought me so much. It's brought me unbelievable amounts of love and support. More importantly, it's brought some amazing friends into my life.

At the moment though I don't see how I can fit blogging in. I am desperately trying to spend time with TC. He's growing up so quickly and I don't want him to grow up. Knowing he's my last baby pulls at my heart a little. My days are filled with spending time with my children. When MC's at school and TC has his afternoon nap I'm sorting washing or tidying the house. When the kids go to bed I want to spend time with Matt. We get so little time together on our own that our evenings (when he's not away with work) are so precious. I love my husband so much and the evenings are our time. I don't see how social media is going to fit in?

At the time this post goes live I have 182 un-read emails in my inbox because I really can't face going through them and the more I ignore them, the more they build up.

Anyway, I think I'm my own worst enemy.

When I'm feeling like this I cut myself off. I shy away from social media and I stay in the house a lot.

It doesn't do me any good.

Thankfully I have mainly good days but I also have a few bad days.

Luckily I recognise the signs.

I need a plan.

I need to know what I'm doing and where I'm going or I have a feeling I'll lose myself (and my blog) along the way. I need to shake off this doom and gloom feeling. This feeling that something really bad is going to happen to me or my family.

I need to feel happy all the time again.

I need to know which way to turn.

Watch this space...

Guest Post...Chronicles Of A Reluctant Housedad - Anniversary

Keith is like my male opposite equivalent. Confused? Well, he blogs over at 'Chronicles of a Reluctant Housedad' which is a mix of witty musings (and mean recipes - boy that man can cook!) on his life since he swapped roles with his wife and became a stay-at-home-dad.  

Oh and he gets extra kudos as he mentioned me in a radio interview once ;-)

We've never met but I'd love to meet him because I think he's lovely - maybe one day it will happen.

I give you Keith and his perfectly timed guest post - Anniversary...

It was a year to the day that my wife and I swapped roles. I waved her off to her new job as a magazine editor and I started mine as a very reluctant housedad to our three children, my stepdaughter, now 10, and our sons, aged seven and four.

Why reluctant? Well, I never in a million years imagined for myself the role I now occupy. I – we – was/were forced into this situation by circumstances. I was made redundant from my job as a publishing executive in June 2010. And after six months trying, and failing, to land a position that would pay the mortgage and bills, we came to the conclusion that it wasn't going to happen.

But where's there's a will there's a Successful Other Half, and so when it became painfully clear that doors would continue to be slammed in my face, my wife started looking for work herself.

At one point, it was like a race to the finishing line. We had both reached the top two on the shortlist for positions but ultimately, I failed, and my wife prevailed.

It was a hammer blow to my ego. I hadn't had a day out of work since I became a journalist of my local newspaper 28 years previously. At first I struggled to cope, not just with the attack on my self-worth, but also with coming to terms with the day-to-day effort, drudgery and loneliness of my new life as a housedad: the cleaning, the ironing, the relentlessness of the school runs, the nagging and the perceived notion that I was somehow less of a man because I was no longer bringing home the bacon.

I wore my reluctance like a badge of honour, and created my blog to chronicle the new-to-me experiences of being the primary carer.

I come from a traditional working class background, the oldest of four boys, and we have always worked, a graft ethic etched into our DNA by our hard-working mother and father. None of us have ever been driven by status, but we are all motivated by the desire, the need, to earn. I could no more claim benefits than I could nail my scrotum to a table with a rusty nail. Fortunately, my wife earns a decent slab – enough to pay the bills – so I didn't need to consider that option (the benefits, not the scrotum piercing) but I still needed to make money. I could never, ever countenance being a Kept Man.

But then my wise wife pointed out to me that even if I was in a full-time job, I would have to clear around £30,000 before tax to pay for the childcare necessary to look after our London brood.

Added to that was the knowledge that there are around 200,000 housedads like me, either by choice or circumstance, so who was I to think that running the home and raising the kids was somehow beneath me?

Suddenly, I felt like I was earning, and that my paid job was to raise our children as best I could.

So instead of moping and sulking, I took to my role as a Stay At Home Dad as if it was a new career. I'd become Chief Executive of Kendricks Inc.

I relished spending time with my children, reading to them, helping them with their homework, teaching them about the realities of life by getting them involved with chores.  And they responded. Oh, how they responded. Children are incredibly adaptable and they started to look to me for approval, advice and direction, which took the pressure off my wife to focus on her stressful job and deliver the dough that I would subsequently turn into bread for the table.

But the real breakthrough was when I started my blog, and then began to Tweet. And instead of feeling isolated and trapped in my new role, I felt supported, encouraged and connected. I've never met any of the people who contact me, and perhaps I never will, but these new 'virtual' friendships mean a hell of a lot to me.

It is, in part, because of them – because of their comments on my blog posts, their engagement with my Tweets – that I now, a whole year on, I feel very happy to reveal the five words I thought I would never, ever say.

But most of all, the realisation of what really matters, what fulfilment is all about, what my place on this Earth is – for now at least – comes from the incredible woman I married and the amazing children who are my stepdaughter and sons,.

It's because of the 'gift' my wife gave me to spend so much time with my children and the fact that my children are just really bloody great, actually, that I can truly say:

I LOVE BEING A HOUSEDAD!

I spoke these five little words to my Successful Other Half the other night after a particularly hard week at the office. I half-expected her to throw me off our roof terrace because of how hard her working life is compared to my domestic existence. But instead, her eyes pricked with tears.

Y'see, my reluctance has made her feel guilty about any enjoyment she's had being the Family Go-Getter these past weeks and months. So instead of telling me she's had a buzzy old day making decisions and thriving under pressure, she's kept her pleasure to herself lest it provoke a spew of envy from me, her D'OH (that's Domestic Other Half!).

Now, I hope, we can both enjoy each other's triumphs and highs, instead of being worried about downplaying them to spare the other's imagined feelings. It's only been six months, and we've each been on a huge journey of transition, but we appear to have reached a point of acceptance. Long may that continue.

It's been a hell of a six months, and who knows where the next six will take us, but for now, I present to those who I've befriended a gallery (at the top of this post) of highlights of the Chronicles of a Very Happy Though Occasionally Frustrated And Prone To Temper Tantrums Housedad.