Hello, Nice to Meet You, I'm just a SAHW

Today after playing around with Feedjit while continuing to avoid cleaning the disaster zone that is my desk (and my dresser, and the chair which is piled dangerously high with clothes, and...most everything else), I realized that I actually get non-IF related visitors! Of course they don't comment, because they probably quickly realize I'm not what they're looking for at all.

Out of courtesy to all those visitors who want to know what being a stay at home wife is really all about, I thought I'd do a post to share just that.

Once upon a time, I had a dream...of being a teacher. (I have dreams of being a mother too, but I'll avoid talking about those for this post.) I went to school and worked super hard and double majored in early childhood and special ed. I graduated early and was too young to start teaching, so said my parents at least, and they encouraged me to go back to school for my MS. Which I did (thank you parents for the good advice!), and during my final semester, I started teaching.

Thus began one of the loves of my life. I taught first grade at our university's campus school - the school attached to the campus where all the cool educational research takes place. My school looped, so I had my kids again for second grade. I don't even know how to express how much I loved teaching, and how much I miss it and my kids. I put in 12 hour days at the school and would bring work home to work on for the few hours I had before I fell asleep out of exhaustion - and I loved every minute of it (well, most).

Then I got married, moved to Canada, and realized that Canada is a different country and I couldn't just get a job until my immigration went through. And that folks, is as exciting as it gets - I'm a stay at home wife because I couldn't legally work here for the last three years.

I named my blog "Just" a Stay at Home Wife because that's what I hear all the time these days. "So you got a masters and now you're 'just' a stay at home wife?" As though being a stay at home wife is so...lowly and unworthy.

People also don't realize that I've worked from home for the past two years (just quit last month so that I could enjoy true SAHW status - well, actually because I was getting overwhelmed with working and studying), and I'm enrolled in a full-time online religious studies program. So I'm not just a wife who sits at home and twiddles her thumbs and obsesses about having a baby (um, though I do obsess...occasionally...;).

So the meaning behind the blog name is two-fold - I'm not just a stay at home wife, there's so much more to me. I hate it when people make a snap judgment based on outward appearance, though unfortunately many people are very wont to do that. And secondly, even if I were "just" a stay at home wife, so what? What's so wrong about not working and enjoying being at home?

I do enjoy being home, though I miss teaching terribly. But because I'm a restless-type, I probably wouldn't want to be at home if I weren't studying or working - if I had neither of those (nor children) on my plate, I'd probably go crazy being at home. I just never pursued my work permit that actively in the beginning after coming here because I was so certain I'd be a SAHM by now.

For any other SAHWs who are home not by choice, I would suggest taking up a part-time job or course online - the options are endless. Just don't get yourself in too deep, like I did - because I'm almost as busy as when I used to work full-time. Alternately, you can look at this as the time you have to indulge in your hobbies and pastimes, time that will mysteriously disappear when you return to a "real" occupation.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming...of obsessing about the arrival or non-arrival of AF on Friday (thanks for bringing me back to my senses friends, I'm not testing. :)