I’m a stay-at-home mom. I read the editorial page of the WSJ every day, and of course I am up on things on Free Republic. Intellectual stimulation is there if you want it.
I would say the problem with staying at home is not so much lack of opportunity for intellectual stimulation, it’s isolation.
I feel like I am stealing other people’s valuable time if I call them whether they are at work or at home. I have to make sure I put times or events on the calendar where I can see friends, or I find myself getting down in the dumps.
The other big challenge I find in staying at home is actually too much freedom.
I can do whatever I want all day long. The question is whether or to what extent I will use that time well, in a way that supports our family life. There are no report cards, no performance reviews. It’s all up to me to make this day matter. For someone who has always done better in a more structured environment, with some concrete milestones to go by, this has been a challenge. I feel like the cloistered nuns, who say that it is not actually relaxing to “get away from it all” in the cloister. It is actually more challenging because you cannot avoid yourself, with all your foibles and temptations.
That's exactly it. There's watching Maury vs. sewing, gardening, cooking something delicious and canning it or creating something beautiful for the home.