I thought I knew

I thought I’m staying home for the benefit of the baby/toddler, my daughter. I didn’t want to missed the growing years of her, like I did to my now 8 year old boy after I started working after graduate school, when he just turned one. Yes I missed his first steps; I barely remembered the way he talked when he’s a toddler, and millions of other milestones. I thought by staying home when my daughter is young, I would never missed those “important” milestones. But in the end, does it matter?

Yes, baby/toddler years are the formative years. Yes mothers are encouraged to stay home if they have the means to, to enhance “bonding” with the little one. All the parenting books and magazines and research I’ve read tell you that you could “always go back to work when the kid’s in school”. I, however, had a different insight. Having stayed home while I have an older child (5-8 years) and at the same time a baby/toddler (0-3 years), I definitely felt that it’s the other way round – that it’s easier to leave babies/toddlers for the care of others, when there are less opportunities to be exposed to the media/bad language, but it’s immensely difficult to keep up what you want you older kids to be exposed to, if they spend their entire day outside of home, with other children, and adults who may not “tip-toe” around the kids in terms of their behavior towards the older children vs. cute and innocent babies/toddlers.

I already knew that my stretch of being a stay at home mom (I don’t really count working one day a week a proper job, even though it somewhat keeps me afloat in my field), benefited both my children. However, contrary to what I believed earlier, my 8 year old had benefited more. I found that leaving the 8 year old in after school program for 4-5 hours a day is just not an option for us. How’s he going to bond with his little sister? Who’s going to coach him on his piano? Teach him his mother tongue? Would he have time to read his favorite books quietly, and not be distracted by other activates/kids around him? Who could care as much about his development and well-being other than his own parents? Who will bring him to impromptus ice-cream/bookstore/park sessions?

Thanks to the time available in the afternoon to teach him, at least my 8 year old is up to speed with the 2nd grader in Singapore in terms of his Chinese and math level (at least from the exercises books we got for him from Singapore), and he’s learning the joy of being able to play the piano proficiently. The effort to keep up with the speaking/writing of their mother tongue for Chinese kids in America is especially unbearable, where none of the kids at school will ever talk with each other in Chinese, even though they might have to speak that at home. In a mono-lingual speaking environment such as America, it takes A LOT more effort to keep up with being bilingual. Parents in Singapore, you’re having an easier way in that sense.

I love the challenges of work – but I’m unsure when I could enjoy that challenges fully again. For now, though, my kids are still my center and my priority, and until there is a solution, I’d continue to spend the majority of my energy nurturing the most important people in my life.

 
(published on fb August 2009)