Transcript

Ellyn (00:16.374)

We touched on this a bit. We touched on this before a bit, but today we're gonna dive a little deeper into the transition from working woman to stay at home mom. There is so much to consider when thinking about it. And today we're gonna talk. Let's get into it. First, let me say it is okay to feel sad about the life you are leading. It is hard really hard and I remember this from when my oldest was born. It is so hard to lose what you worked for and feel like you're walking away from success for, honestly, the unknown. And it took me a little while to get over it. Honestly, I think that some of that was postpartum, especially with your first child is this. It's grieving to not be able to go out and feel like you're contributing to something anymore. I felt it. How about you?

lauren (01:23.113)

Oh, totally. Yeah, I not only gave up my job and I had worked hard there and to become a manager and top salesperson on the floor was kind of exciting, but then we moved as well.

And we moved from our light and airy, you know, the place was full of windows. I had a giant kitchen, kitchen counter, eating area, living room. Like I was, it was just a nice house, a happy place into a dank, dark little hole of a house that had windows, but there was a house like a foot from where they were. So, no light ever shined in them. And it had wood paneling walls, which I find to be dark and depressing. And it was a really hard transition for me. Not only did I give up work, but I gave up my home. And it was a few months until I had the baby.

lauren (02:41.893)

So I... it was a really rough transition. And I definitely mourned the loss of the life that I had before. Because everything changed, and it didn't seem like anything changed. For the better. (*laughs*) Until after the baby was born. And then, you know, then I got to have the mom life, you know, like you take care of all their little needs and you hold them and their little fingers and toes are so cute and I had waited for such a long time, and kind of struggled with infertility for a while. Having her was like, every single day when I woke up, it was like Christmas morning, because I got to go and hold this perfect little being. So that raised me out of the depression of that house a little bit. I did think about at the job and I thought about getting away like getting out of the place I was stuck in a little bit. But, you know, the longer I was a mother and the more kids I had the less I wanted to do anything else because I didn't have time.

Ellyn (04:11.423)

 When I had my oldest, I had been working as a reservist about four hours from home. So my last time of going up there was when I was seven months pregnant and I just decided I couldn't do it anymore. And that was an extremely fulfilling job. I loved it. They were great people. I worked out a really cool airframe. It was amazing and I was really sad to leave it, but it just wasn't in the cards anymore for me to be able to go and do that. And so I spent a couple of months home getting the baby's room ready and we had recently bought our first house.

lauren (05:04.689)

It was a happy house.

Ellyn (05:07.354)

It was. I loved that house. I was sad when we moved, but I had gotten the baby's room ready and so that filled some of my time. I wasn't really thinking about the transition a whole lot. The weather was kind of cold and dark. It was that time of year. We were going from winter into early spring when he was born. And so that was kind of, that kind of brought me down a little bit and I did miss my job because I really enjoyed it. But I don't think my transition was quite as hard as Lauren. And I think the reason Lauren's was so hard was because of that apartment that they lived in before they bought their house. And it was a dark place.

lauren (06:03.541)

It was. I spent almost all my time upstairs in our room because it had four windows that were independent of the surrounding houses because it was upstairs. So lots of light shining in. Yeah.

Ellyn (06:12.801)

Mm-hmm.

Ellyn (06:17.546)

Yeah, and that was a nice light, bright room. It was kind of above the messiness from the first floor. And you didn't talk about the one aspect of it that I think stuck out to most everybody. This house had a carpet. I can't remember the color of the carpet, but I wanna say it smelled like orange, not orange like oranges, but it just, it's just like the color orange would smell. It just had such an odor.

lauren (06:46.973)

Hehehehe

lauren (06:52.585)

Brownish orange. There was, it was, yeah, it was, it was a fun place. And it was also really, really narrow because it was like a regular house that someone cut in half and made into two apartments when, when that should not have happened because it was a regular house. So.

The room that the baby slept in was the size of a closet and I know and yeah it was just it was perfectly serviceable dwelling and we picked it because the landlord said that we could have a pet and we had our big, big dog then, and no one wanted to let a 80 pound dog live in their rental, no matter how nice they were and well trained. They just, people don't like that. So we just kept on looking until we found some place to let him be there and that was the only place that we found. And that guy also didn't charge us extra for having that dog there. Which you will never find. So... And it wasn't in a bad neighborhood either. Like I was... So there were a lot of good things about that place. Just not the interior. Like at all.

Ellyn (08:36.418)

It had a nice back porch.

lauren (08:38.235)

It did.

Ellyn (08:41.25)

Anyway, back to the topic of transitioning from working woman to stay at home mom. So those were our transitions and what it looked like. And honestly, we went through each of these things when we became single income families. We had to think about each of the things that we're going to talk about today.

lauren (08:43.334)

Right.

lauren (08:47.697)

A few things to consider.

Ellyn (09:09.486)

And so the first one is if you are used to bringing in a double income and you go down to a single income, you're probably going to have to tighten the belt a little bit. You're gonna have to think about your budget a little bit more than maybe you did before, especially if at the same time you're bringing home a new baby, which I don't know if anybody has ever told you this, babies are kind of expensive.

They are. It's not as bad as they say. Like I've read the projections of cost for children over a lifetime. And I have to say, I don't agree. I don't think they're as expensive as they say. I think that if you bought every single thing that you got for your kids brand new, and every time they said that they wanted something, you went out and bought it.

Ellyn (09:49.248)

Those are just silly.

lauren (10:00.777)

and you send them to a private school and an expensive college. And it has the potential maybe to get up that high, but if you use just a little bit of common sense, it's not going to be that expensive.

Ellyn (10:15.17)

Right, okay. So this is something that you and your spouse are gonna need to sit down and think about. Maybe you're used to a few more nights out a week. You might have to cut back on a few things. For our family, one of the things that we wanted when I came home was that we weren't going to have any vehicle payments. So we made sure while I was still working to pay off all of our cars out of my paycheck. It was kind of like a nice little like pot of money, even the car payment was money that we were no longer spending. So it felt like this little gift that we got. So it made our transition a little less painful because it was also one bill we had gotten rid of. I would recommend just start thinking about things that you can cut, things that you can pay off while you still have a dual income and just take a hard look at your budget and see if they're are things that you don't need to be spending money on anymore.

lauren (11:44.643)

Yep, cutting back a little bit. Changing Household Roles and Expectations. This one was difficult. I had it in my head, okay, I'm just gonna do all the things in the house and he'll go to work and it'll be fine. And this was like in my front brain, you know, my thought process brain, but then I realized that I needed to like make that a real part of my life because I was still kind of resenting him for not doing any of the things and that wasn't healthy. So to me, my husband helps all the time. He does the dishes almost every night and he, you know, he just does things, that he sees that need done. But he isn't expected to do anything. I fully plan on doing the dishes. It's just, I usually do something else right after dinner and he's like, well, this needs to be done. So he just does it. And that's the way that's the way it is with everything in our house. It's always my intention that I should do it. And because of that, I don't feel resentful when I do it.

Ellyn (13:18.014)

Right. And I think, again, going from a two-income home to a single-income home, this is one of the ways that the budget above can show itself here. Maybe before you got a lot more help from the frozen food section at the store. Maybe you ate out a little bit. This is a place where the changing roles can happen. Maybe now you buy a little bit cheaper, not quality wise, but cheaper because they are cheaper to buy staples and do more from scratch cooking at home. So your role might change because you might have more time in the house to be able to do these things. And It's not really an expectation necessarily from one spouse to the other. It's just that now someone is home full time so they can take on the responsibilities of doing some of the things that maybe you couldn't do before.

lauren (14:33.413)

Right, exactly. Yep. I definitely feel like it was important for us to talk about the things that we were gonna be splitting up when we both worked full time. But then when I moved to home, and you're right, I started doing so many more things from scratch than I did before because I had the time to do them.

Ellyn (14:59.054)

Me too. Right.

lauren (15:04.809)

And like even I had two months before my baby was born after removed. So I made a whole bunch of food and put it in the freezer for when the baby was born, like instead of getting pizza or Chinese food, which I'll just admit we did still get that as well, but we didn't get it every day.

Ellyn (15:23.65)

Ha ha.

Ellyn (15:30.848)

We honestly were saved from that because we lived in the middle of nowhere. When we bought our house, we were coming from a very urban area. And so when we decided we didn't want to live in that type of area, we bought our house, it was in the middle of nowhere. So that really saved us a lot of money on pizza and other takeout because no one wanted to go anywhere to get it. So we just cooked for ourselves.

lauren (15:59.417)

Yep. But it's the same with frozen stuff at the grocery store. It's not only better for you, it's tastier, maybe cheaper to make your stuff yourself. It's usually cheaper. Depends on what you get. If you're getting a package of hot dogs and some buns, it's questionable. Might not actually be saving much by making something else.

Ellyn (16:03.842)

I agree, it is.

Ellyn (16:35.003)

So our next one is, in my opinion, the most important one on the list. It is still so important to find time for you. Your mental well-being will thank you if you do not spend 24 hours a day with your baby. Go take a walk. Even if you take a walk with your baby in the stroller, that's okay too. That can still count as you time. But I think it's even better if you can allow for your spouse to spend some uninterrupted time with his baby. And you go out and do something, even if it's just going to the grocery store by yourself. That counts as you time, if you want it to. If you don't want it to, then do what does fill you up. Because I think it's so important, especially for new moms, to fill themselves back up so that they can then continue to give to their family. You can't give to someone else from an empty vessel. So if it's going and reading a book in the park for 45 minutes once or twice a week or is it if you can get filled up just by being alone at the grocery store then do that but find time for you maybe it's going up to your room and shutting your door for half an hour and just enjoying the quiet whatever it is for you do that because i i've always felt that um you can almost see it in some moms who are not finding time for themselves. They're more flustered, they're more agitated. And its not that I don't get agitated, because I do, but I try to notice that in myself and give myself a break.

lauren (18:56.089)

I remember years ago when my son was probably two years old, every time I went into the bathroom just to pee. Like I was gone for two minutes. He would sit outside the door and cry. And it was sad and it made the peeing experience less pleasant for everyone.

Ellyn (19:11.255)

Yes.

lauren (19:19.253)

And there was one day when I needed something for dinner. I can't, I can't remember what it was. And my husband's like, Oh, I can get that on the way home. I was like, no, that's okay. You come on home and I will go get it. And I went to the grocery store and used their bathroom. And it was amazing. No one stuck their fingers under the door to try and find me. No one was there at all. I was the only person in the bathroom. And it was great. And I remember, I think I needed like two things, but I just pushed my cart up and down a whole bunch of aisles that I didn't need to go in just to kill time.

Ellyn (20:06.907)

Because you could.

Ellyn (20:11.33)

So if you need to go find time for you by using a public bathroom somewhere, you just go right ahead.

lauren (20:18.552)

Well, it's a really small grocery store. No one ever uses the bathroom in there.

Ellyn (20:24.649)

Hehehehe

lauren (20:26.485)

I won't tell you how I know that. As if maybe it's happened more than one time that I was like, No, that's okay, I'll just go at the grocery store.

Ellyn (20:41.674)

Now I know for this next one, you had some struggles when you first moved to where you are.

Ellyn (21:14.294)

I know that you had a hard time with this when you first moved to where you are. Did finding friends contribute to your hard transition, do you think, when you guys moved there?

lauren (21:27.765)

Um, it was... I found friends at church and work, because I started working really part-time about seven or eight months after my oldest was born, and I did find some friends there,  But not the kind of friends that you talk to outside of work really, but we ate lunch together and talked, you know, while we were at work.  My job wasn’t necessarily all consuming. A lot of the time we were just kind of standing around doing nothing. So I ended up having relationships with a lot of people there. Not having friends, I would say, definitely contributed to the overall downtroddenness of my first few months in this new place. But it's always a goal of mine to find friends. I will find friends. Hey you, do you have any friends? I will be your friend.

It probably did contribute. I mean, I talked to my friends from Georgia on the phone, but it's not really the same as, you know, having someone right there with you. So I guess our advice for this would be that you should find friends whose lifestyle matches yours. So look for others, stay at home moms. And you know, if your kids are a little bit older, old enough for play dates and stuff, that is a great place to find other people whose lifestyle matches yours. If you have work friends probably your schedules aren't going to overlap as naturally as they used to.

Ellyn (23:01:922)

So for a lot of stay at home moms, finding a new support system is going to be key to your overall well being. I guess Lauren and I both talked from a place of being new to an area. I suppose if you grew up in the area where you are having your children.

lauren (23:50.098)

Yep, agreed.

Ellyn (24:03.967)

It would, it's probably easier to stay in contact with the friends that you had before. But for us, that was never something that we were able to do. We were both new to the area when we became moms. So it made it a little bit different for us.

lauren (24:17.181)

Mm-hmm.

lauren (24:21.145)

And even if you aren't new to an area, having a child changes everything.  In my opinion, it's a little harder to connect to people that didn't have any kids, or it's kind of the same when you get married. You want to spend a lot of time with your husband and it's a little odd to spend time with your single friend along with your husband. We usually try and hang out with other couples. It's not much different when you have kids. Now, I have friends that don't have kids, but generally I see them without my kids. So I schedule something to go and hang out with them when it's possible for my kids to stay home with my husband. I've had people, single people, or just married couples, invite us over to their house with all the kids. It's just uncomfortable because they don't have any kids and they don't understand why the kids have to be so noisy and aggressive and look at their stuff. Don't touch anything glass!

Ellyn (25:30.094)

it is.

Ellyn (25:42.958)

And they always, because they don't have kids, they always have delicate things  on low shelves. My kid's got to break that. I'm sorry.

lauren (25:56.841)

Could you here, we'll just put this up here and this and this and this and this and this and the shelf too, because they'll try and sit on it.

Ellyn (26:03.341)

Next time, let's come to my house because we already broke all the knickknacks there.

lauren (26:07.409)

I'm sorry.

So, single friends and friends without kids, they still have a place in your life, but it might need some adjustment or some consideration on your part.

Ellyn (26:29.218)

Our next one, similar to finding time for you, find a hobby or a side hustle or something that keeps your mind sharp. Frankly, taking care of every need of an infant isn't going to make you think very hard.

lauren (26:47.241)

Right, it's not going to rise you to Einstein levels of thought.

Ellyn (26:53.05)

So especially when you have an infant, they sleep all the time. Find something that you want to lend your brain to so that you have something to look forward to when they don't need you.  if it's a hobby, great. A side hustle that maybe brings in a little bit of income would be awesome too. But something.

lauren (27:09.148)

Yeah.

Ellyn (27:21.806)

For me, when I had little babies, it was my vegetable garden, which frankly where we lived wasn't super successful, but it gave me something to do. We also landscaped our yard at that time too. So then I would put the baby down for a nap and then I would go outside and do landscaping or our vegetable garden. And that was enough to keep me busy so that I didn't

think 24 hours a day about the needs of the baby.

lauren (27:52.69)

Great. For me, I completed my college education.

Ellyn (27:59.166)

Yeah. Yep.

lauren (27:59.601)

I think I squeezed four years of education into two and a half years. And, and it wasn't that hard to squeeze it in. Like that's how little thought a baby takes out of your brain.

lauren (28:19.929)

 I like to think about them. Like I said, all the cute little fingers, toes, but you can only count those so many times before your brain starts to lag.

Ellyn (28:31.49)

Hehehe

lauren (28:35.333)

Make a schedule. Oh, yes, we should make a schedule. Because that's the best way to live life.

Ellyn (28:48.216)

Yep.

lauren (28:49.161)

I kept everything on a schedule when I was first a mother. And it kind of probably came from my work ethic. Because at work, everything was on a schedule. We ate on the schedule, and we completed tasks when we first got into work. And then another thing had to be done right after that. Like everything was on a schedule. So it's just the mindset I was in. So I slept that baby on a schedule too.

Ellyn (29:24.91)

Yep, it is so easy to get sedentary when you suddenly find yourself home all the time, where before in your former life you had a schedule, you had to be at work at certain times, you had to, you ate at roughly the same time every day, and you came home at the same time, you did things after work at the same time. So you were on a schedule before to suddenly be thrown into no schedule at all. It's chaos. I put myself and my baby on a schedule too, although I do admit I am not as rigorous as Lauren about any sort of schedule. There's room for play in my schedule, but Lauren doesn't do that.

lauren (30:12.597)

I just don't like to. What's the point of having a schedule that you can't rely on?

Ellyn (30:19.033)

Right!

lauren (30:20.405)

And it's, you know, if you're not the kind of person that appreciates a schedule and you're thinking, boy, what a nut job. Just know people have thought it before. Many people have come before you and thought the same.

Ellyn (30:31.63)

Hehehehe

Ellyn (30:36.094)

and they weren't wrong. But a loose schedule, I think, is good for keeping a day on track. Maybe you get yourself and your baby up at 8 o'clock and you have a, you know, if it's a little bitty baby and you get up at 9, yes, 8 o'clock, you get up at 8.

lauren (30:37.469)

Hey, yes they were, they were totally wrong.

lauren (30:55.509)

Eight? Sorry.

lauren (31:04.109)

My little bitty baby never slept that long.

Ellyn (31:05.314)

But you can put yourself on a loose schedule and maybe you eat within half hour of when you have you your set time for it and you have time to do a little play, a little nap, and still keep your day on track so that you're getting the things done that you want to and have a idea of what the day will look like before you get out of bed in the morning.

lauren (31:37.493)

Mm-hmm.

lauren (31:48.825)

If you are like me and a drill sergeant when it comes to timing, know that babies hate a schedule. They don't want to do it. And even when you finally think that maybe I've got it, you know, this kid's on a schedule. They'll change. So they don't need a morning nap anymore. They need a little bit longer of a nap in the afternoon. They don't necessarily need a morning snack anymore because they slept until nine and ate breakfast at 9:30. So be ready to adjust.

Ellyn (32:27.183)

And you're gonna keep doing that right up until they, well, ever, as far as I can tell.

lauren (32:29.349)

They move out.

lauren (32:34.333)

They change, well, when they're really little, they change so much all the time. Everything about them and their schedule changes almost daily. So it's okay, really, to let it go sometimes. We hope you enjoyed this little talk. Staying at home with the kids is very rewarding, but there are aspects that are hard. We hope we've given you something to think about if you're considering it. Until next time.