Working Parents

Up until this past year, I have always wanted to be a successful working woman.  I didn't think that working while having children was a big deal or would have a negative effect on my children.  After taking several different classes at BYU-Idaho, I have realized that being a mother and working at the same time is not a the best idea. 
Both my parents worked all my years of growing up.  My dad did a good job of being with the family and not letting work take over but my mom seemed to kind of forget about the family and instead, totally focused on her work.  It was difficult not having my mom around as a child.  At a very young age, I had to learn how to take care of myself, cook, clean the house and care for my sisters.  I took the role of the mom amongst my sisters and cared a lot for them.  This was hard on me when I was younger because for some reason, I felt like I had to take on a lot of responsibility.  My sister's and I didn't go to daycare, so we were at home by ourselves a lot.  We had babysitters for a while but eventually, we didn't need that anymore.  Since we were at home a lot of the time, we had to figure out how to do a lot on our own.  I look back and wish that my mom didn't work because I would have felt a lot more safe, secure and dependent.  Since I took care of myself a lot, I have become a very independent person which has effected my relationships.  I don't like to rely on other people to help me out, I like to do things for myself.  This is detrimental because in a marriage, you are totally dependent on someone else and everything involves around the both of you and not just one of you and this is going to be very hard for me to get used to.  I also struggle with getting really close to people because I fear that they will stop caring and will leave and I know that this roots back to not having my mom around.  I think that when mother's have a full-time job outside of the home, they don't have the time to nurture and care for their children.  It's so important to be their for your children in their growing stages and if you aren't there, it will affect them greatly. 
I'm glad that we talked about this subject matter in Family Relations because even more so, I have decided that I definitely want to be there for my children and want to be a full-time mom.  Children need a mom in their lives and need to feel like they can completely rely on someone to be there for them.  My biggest hope is that I can be that kind of mom in the future.