Throwaway. My husband and I are both PhD candidates in the same STEM school. We're in a top program and work long hours for little money. Our field is not particularly lucrative and is over-saturated. We live in an expensive city and our stipends barely cover an OK daycare, rent in an OK apartment. I can feel myself slipping. All I want is to stay home and raise my son as a SAHM. It's been two years, and I feel sad about this everyday.My son was a happy surprise. My husband and I knew we wanted kids in the future and had a birth control failure. I absolutely loved being pregnant, I loved giving birth even, and I loved my maternity leave. Yes it was very difficult and exhausting too, but my son is my greatest joy in life. I feel like I was born to be a mom, as corny as that is. Returning to work was devastating for me. Everyone told me I would be happy to go back. Before having the baby, I was so motivated and research-focused - I never would have thought I would feel this way. I went from being one of the top students in my program to probably at the very bottom now.I hate that I can't be home with my son. I don't enjoy my research anymore. I no longer want the competitive research career I thought I did. I no longer even want to be in academia. I hate that my son isn't growing up in a house. I hate that I had a better childhood than he has. I feel so guilty everyday for this, and it's gnawing away at me. I grew up upper middle class with a SAHM, big house, big yard, exotic vacations, etc. and can't give any of this to my son. He doesn't even have his own bedroom.I miss everything. I missed his first steps. I miss his smile after naptime. I miss making him lunch. I miss cuddling after a tumble. Everyday I try not to cry. I sit at work thinking about him and what I would do if I were home with him.We can't afford for me to quit. Although grad stipends are pathetic, we need both of our incomes to keep us afloat. I don't want to do this anymore, but I don't know what else to do. I'm almost 30 and went from an undergrad STEM degree to research assistant in a lab to graduate school, where I am now. I have no other work/life experience. My husband thinks I've invested too much in this path given the quality of the school I'm at now, and is not supportive of me leaving when I don't have any idea of what else I'd do for a job. And even if he was, we need my income right now.I don't know how to be happy with where I'm at in life. It's impossible financially for me to be a SAHM. But I am missing out on my toddler's life, for something I don't even like anymore. It's a horrible feeling. I'm starting to become bitter and jealous. I see SAHMs and feel like I'm a lesser mom than they are. I feel like I'm grieving for a thousand things missing from my son's childhood, and for a thousand experiences I'm missing out on as a mother.I know I'm not alone in feeling this way. Lots of parents love working, but I know lots don't. My husband and I are the only parents in our grad programs, so we have no peers with children to talk to about this. I don't know how to feel better. I don't know how to see this from a different point of view. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2avrEjZ
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