Kerrie Solsberg McLoughlin http://www.thekerrieshow.com 2m 509 #mommybot
The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.
I always knew I wanted to be a mom. Growing up as an only child I never wanted siblings; just wanted my own children — lots of them. I also always wanted to be a writer, a teacher and a flight attendant. Three out of four ain’t bad (although when we travel for work with my husband on long minivan trips, I do feel like a road stewardess sometimes, slinging hash and fruit snacks all over the place while trying to keep my balance)!
Twelve years ago, at the age of 30, I became a stay-at-home mom (had to find the right guy first, which took forever). I fell in love with the job and was never bored. I loved the hours nursing on the couch while watching TV, reading and just staring at my son. My husband traveled for work often, so my son and I could be found staying with my mom or my dad or just on-the-go in general.
Two years later came another son. Two years later a daughter. We took a little break then, and three years later came another daughter. Finally in 2009 we had our fifth child. I am so in love with mothering and have no problem joking about how many kids we have (I’m a breeder!) or what I do all day (sit in the tub eating bon bons, of course).
Mom dream: check.
Soon after our second son was born a homeschooling book literally fell into my lap, and I knew what I was going to do. I researched and read up and talked to grown kids who had been homeschooled. I knew all the crazy stereotypes and also knew I most likely would not fit into them. Heard of the weird, unsocialized homeschooled kids? The androgynous mom walking around in her denim jumper all day, drilling the kids on multiplication facts? Yeah, that’s sooo not us. We are all about having fun and learning life skills and the rest just comes naturally.
Teacher dream: check.
I figured by this time I had a lot to say and often found myself reading articles and saying, “That’s not helpful” or “That’s not real life for most parents.” So when I was pregnant with my fifth kidlet I started writing for parenting magazines. I was doing so well at it that I wrote an ebook for others who wanted to learn how to make money from home doing what I was doing. I also blog with a massive dose of humor and recently started proofreading for an online site just for the love of finding errors!
Writer dream: check.
My confession is that I LOVE being a wife and a mom. Of course I have stressful, chaotic days where I yell, cuss and eat mass quantities of chocolate to cope with the crazy. But I want women to know they can certainly have it all. Maybe they can’t have it all at once like I seem to be juggling, but they can have it all in their lifetime.
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