MothersDayLately, I have been thinking a lot about my childhood, and as far as I can remember, it had been rather boring.

My parents were poor so we never went on any family holidays abroad. But that’s no excuse for not having some fun family activities. Yet, when I try recalling what we did as a family, my mind is often a blank. We did visit some places of interests but these were more treats than a regular feature. I suppose one of the reasons was that we were financially challenged and outings do cost money. The other reason, I thought, was that my dad’s job had been tough and the weekend was a time to catch some rest.

But we did have fun in small little ways.

I always remember how my dad would catch dragonflies (and another kind of insect which I never found out its name) for me and tie a thin little string on their tails and I would fly them as if they were kites (but we never killed them – we would always return them to nature). Or my dad would bring me to this theme park at night where I loved trying on clip earrings at one of the stalls. I was just a little girl then – probably not even in kindergarten yet!

But somehow, mom seemed often missing in the picture – I couldn’t remember why. She must have stayed home to catch up with house chores which she couldn’t do while looking after me during the day.

Now that I am a mother, I want to be different.

My boy is now 3. I realize how fast he is growing and I know that very soon, his precious childhood days will be over.

I feel an urgency to create for him beautiful memories of his childhood. I don’t want to be that mom who is too busy working to spend fun moments with him – especially during the weekends.

In the past, he used to say, “Mommy, play with me!” whenever I am working on my computer.

These days, he says, “Mommy, play with me, just for a while please!” It made me feel both guilty and sad.

Did I make him feel like I am so busy that I can only afford him a few minutes? If that’s the case, I have failed as a work-at-home mom. After all, the reason why I am a WAHM is precisely because I want to be able to spend more time with him.

So from now on, I need to be more disciplined about how I spend my time daily.Focus on my goals. Bye-bye to mindless surfing. Learn to say ‘no’ even when I feel like I need to oblige. Maximise the work hours when he is in school or try to keep the rest of the work to after he has gone to bed. Make weekends real family time and schedule family outings. I read an article recently that if we don’t schedule our weekends, chances are we will waste the precious hours away.

But more than just for the sake of creating memories, I want my family to really have fun together every weekend. Sometimes, I’m lazy and look to my husband to initiate something. But I guess it’s time I take it up as my responsibility to plan for the weekends or my husband and I can sit down and discuss who shall plan the activities for which days.

Now let’s see… I’ve bought a pair of roller blades so I can exercise with my son. I shall schedule that in for this afternoon. Why wait till the weekends when I can start today!

Do you consciously work on creating awesome childhood memories for your children? Do you have the habit of actively planning your weekends for the family?

This is an original post by Ruth Wong from Singapore. She’s a work-at-home-mom who also blogs at Mommy Cafe. She has recently co-authored and published a book titled Successful Work-Life Balance.

Photo credit to the author.

Ruth

Ruth lives in Singapore, a tiny island 137 kilometres north of the equator. After graduating from university, she worked as a medical social worker for a few years before making a switch to HR and worked in various industries such as retail, banking and manufacturing. In spite of the invaluable skills and experiences she had gained during those years, she never felt truly happy or satisfied. It was only when she embarked on a journey to rediscover her strengths and passion that this part of her life was transformed. Today, Ruth is living her dreams as a writer. Ironically, she loves what she does so much that at one point, she even thought that becoming a mom would hinder her career. Thanks to her husband’s gentle persuasions, she now realises what joy she would have missed out had she not changed her mind. She is now a happy WAHM. Ruth launched MomME Circle, a resource site to support and inspire moms to create a life and business they love. She has a personal blog Mommy Café where she writes about her son's growing up and shares her interests such as food and photography.

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