Know Doubt

Every once in awhile, I doubt my decision in becoming a SAHM.

These past few weeks have seen me standing at familiar crossroads, where I struggle to find my bearings in the roadmap of Life. With its intersections, twists, and bends, I inadvertently find myself lost in its labyrinth.

I was chilling with Danielle at Starbucks the other day when all of a sudden it struck me - my tete-a-tete coffee sessions have been reduced to this - childish chatter, decaf coffee and gratuitous amounts of babycinnos with an almost-3 YO.

We talk about her day at school, we read our magazines quietly (she reads this, while I flip through Reader's Digest, courtesy of Debs *muack muack*), she doodles on her petit drawing pad, she dunks her biscuits ('da bao-ed' from home) into little papercups of milkfoam dusted with chocolate powder.

It's no wonder my knowledge of the world at large has (lately) been limited to what's on Cbeebies, episodes of Charlie and Lola (Series 1 vol. 1, 4 & 5), and how 'E' makes 'eh' and 'ee' sounds.

Or perhaps that's just my sorry excuse for not being as worldly-wise as I should be.

Has my brain been reduced to vacuous nothingness? Was my friend half-jesting when he mentioned my writing was bordering on infantile? Or was there some measure of truth to his jocular comment?

As I wheeled Danielle for our daily jaunt around the neighbourhood, I struggled to recall how I'd plan & piece together a powerpoint presentation, or work out a govt tender document, the words I'd use at work and for work. Acronyms like 'WIP', 'ROI', 'KPI', 'POP', or terms like 'branding', 'holistic thinking', 'timeline', 'target audience'. These terms - that once rolled off my tongue and punctuated my sentences - hold little or no meaning to me now.

In their place are daily/weekly timelines, schedules of library reading sessions/One O'clock club. Instead of the who's who in MNCs or the ad industry, I rattle off names of childrens' book authors. My 'To Do List' is a mess of scribblings highlighting planned playdates, grocery items, or errands to run while Danielle is at playschool.

Do I worry that I'll lose my work 'mojo'? Sure, I do. It springs to mind only every nanosecond of the day, hour, minute. Okay, so I exaggerate. But I do think about my marketability, the loss of income, my place in the corporate rat race. Pretty often.

After these 2 years are up, where will I stand? As a woman, employee, wife, Mum?

Have I lost? Or have I gained?

If I could live life in perfect equilibrium, I would. But sadly, I know something's gotta give. And I'm not sure whether I've gotten myself into some sort of emotional quagmire.

I question myself whether everything I've given up is ultimately worth it? Will my daughter remember these bonding years which will undoubtedly - save for a few photos or video clips of my 'fleeting presence' - end up as fuzzy, faded memories? Coz let's face it -- who here remembers what happened when they were 2, or 3?

Will Danielle grow up more - for lack of a better word - 'balanced', simply because Mummy's at home with her?

I wonder.

Whoever said kids who grow up with working parents fare worse than those who had 1 parent stay at home? My parents worked throughout my growing up years, and I surmise I turned out alright? Dee's mum was a widow (at 23?) with 2 young kids to care for, and a business to run. But he turned out great too. And I don't think we felt our parents loved us less just because they worked.

With Kumon classes, Montessori and all sorts of educational and enrichment classes kids can attend these days, aren't these activities far better for them since they will be dealt with by professional carers/educators -who will, undoubtedly - be able to maximise children's talents and learning capabilities?

Oh I hear you, you're saying nothing beats bonding with Mum. But hey, I grew closer to my mum in my later years. And I love her to bits. Being with Danielle during her formative years will surely not make her love me more? Will it?

So exactly what are the merits of me staying at home with Danielle?

I often feel women have to struggle to defend their choices. I'm certainly not the first mum who's found herself standing at these uneasy crossroads. A change in the times has seen a thrust in power to women. Whilst they are able to command more things for themselves now, this 'all-empowering' attribute has also become somewhat of an Archilles Heel. When we decide to stop work to look after our children, we're (possibly) 'branded' as skivers/loafers, who are taking the easy route out from the workforce. When we decide to work and leave our kids under the care of parents/maids/nannies/childcare, we're criticized for not taking on our 'mothering' duties and investing time on our children. Then, there are those of us who try our hand at juggling both, and we're (practically) 'accessed' on how well we fare, whether we're really 'superwomen'. But this critical assessment feels more like someone's waiting for us to slip up.

And slip up, we do. Because behind the 'superwoman' tag we'd all love to fall under, we're not super-beings. We're flawed, imperfect. We're imperfect mums, imperfect wives, imperfect employees, imperfect human beings.

While we're on the topic, do we take it upon ourselves to be 'superwomen' or is that label placed on us by society, expecting women to be Mrs Do-it-all?

Anyway, I could go on a lengthy discussion on imperfection and how as humans, we're practically 'expected' to err and fail. But I'm not going to go into that, nor expound its theories. I'm sure we all have our own interpretations of what that means to us, individually.

I'm not quite sure whether all this makes sense to any of you? With this entry, I'm not saying I want to dive straight back into the workforce and resume a working mum's role. I do love my time with Danielle. And the past year spent with her has been priceless.

So to be honest, I'm not quite sure what I'm really driving at, or for that matter, quite sure what I really want?

I'm just a mother who's feeling just a little lost right now. I'm looking at Doubt in the face and he's looking right back at me.

Whilst I continue to find my way out of self-doubt and into (hopefully) self-worth in all this, I blame this whole befuddling episode on the ever-fluctuating weather. Again.

But hey, thanks for dropping in. And bothering to hear me rant and rattle.

I think I'm done now.