A Real Story — 13 Years as a Stay-at-Home Mom, Still Questioning Her Worth
Hi everyone. I’m currently a stay-at-home mom, taking care of my 3 kids and a coffee farm. I studied to be a teacher, but instead of teaching, I got married and have been at home for 13 years now.
Part of me has always wanted an outside job — something less exhausting than farm work, and with a paycheck. But I worry that working would mean I can’t fully care for my kids, and there’d be no one to manage our coffee farm.
For 13 years, my husband has covered our household expenses. The income from the coffee harvest only comes once a year, and we save all of it.
Now someone I know wants to hire me, and I’d really enjoy the work. The pay won’t be high, and after paying someone to help with the farm, I wouldn’t have much left over. But I’d feel like I have value again.
I really want to work, but I worry about my kids. My mind keeps going back and forth — work, or stay home…
Answer:
13 years raising 3 kids while managing a farm, and you still hold onto the desire to find your worth again — that alone shows you’ve never stopped trying, no matter which role you’re in.
Why Do You Feel Like You’ve “Lost Your Worth”?
You might feel this way because you’re comparing yourself to others, or unconsciously absorbing how some people around you judge things on the surface — or maybe it’s a quieter fear: what if something happened to your marriage, and you had nothing to fall back on?
But here’s something you may not have fully seen yet.
Raising 3 Kids Is a Job No One Else Can Do For You
Raising three children is far from simple. It’s demanding, deeply valuable work that no one can replace you in — not your husband, not anyone else who might step into that role. Only you, their mother, have the love and the drive to do whatever it takes for them.
Barring betrayal or a conflict severe enough to end the marriage, no husband walks away from the woman raising his three children — because he knows no one cares for them the way you do. With three kids, the household workload alone is enormous, and there’s no job, no salary out there that can match the value of raising children and running a home.
Many women who go back to full-time work end up hiring someone else to raise their kids — and those children don’t get the love and attention they need from their mother, and don’t get to experience the happiness they deserve. Growing up, they may crave that missing affection so deeply that it can later affect how they experience love and relationships, making them more vulnerable to emotional dependence and heartbreak.
That’s why raising three kids and running your household is the most valuable work there is — nothing replaces you in it.
Farm Work — Economic Value You Might Be Overlooking
The second thing is the farm. This is income-generating work too, and you doing it yourself is better than hiring someone else — it requires trust to ensure good yields and avoid losses, something an outsider can rarely match.
If it feels like too much, you could hire extra help for the heavier tasks while you take on a manager’s role — overseeing rather than doing all the physical labor. Being freed from the heaviest work will give you a clearer head to think about your next steps.
If You Still Want to Work — What’s a Path That Doesn’t Cost You Your Family?
If you have extra time, you could look into work you can do from home — freelance work, or teaching from home. You could start by teaching for free at a beginner level to rebuild your skills and your passion for teaching, then once you have more students wanting advanced lessons, you can start charging.
The idea is: find ways to create more value while still keeping your time at home. When your kids come home from school, when your husband comes home from work, having you there to welcome them with a smile, taking care of them — that’s real joy and happiness for the whole family. After a day out in the world, what people need most is to come home to care and rest.
If you were also working full-time, everyone would come home exhausted, less able to care for each other, more prone to snapping and conflict. The kids wouldn’t get the attention they need, and the family would lose some of its joy.
In the End — You Don’t Need to Prove Anything Else
So even without an outside job, you’re already doing something profoundly valuable. You don’t need to prove anything more.
Kikazik — Demystifying human psychology and behavior. Author of “Demystifying Anxiety, Fear, and Anger.”