Tara Kearsey
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (May 10/02) - Even before you enter the Debogorski home you can hear the vacuum cleaner roaring and the children calling out to mommy.

It's 2:30 in the afternoon but Louise Debogorski is not even close to wrapping up her work day. Choosing to be a stay at home mom is a 24-hour, seven day a week career choice. The work doesn't end until all 11 kids have left the nest.

Louise and her husband Alex have five boys and six girls ranging between the ages of 2 1/2 and 29, eight of them still living at home with mom and dad.

After the first two were born Louise continued working full-time, but cut back to part-time work after the third child came along. After the fourth, she decided to stay at home to take care of the little ones and help her husband out with his business, Eagle North Contracting.

"I enjoyed working when I worked, but it came to a point where I decided that my efforts would be much better spent here with the kids," she said.

Ironically, being a stay at home mom means Louise is really not home very often. She spends considerable time on the road chauffeuring the kids around to school, extracurricular activities, running errands, and the list goes on and on...

"I'd like to be home more. Maybe then I would be able to accomplish some tasks at home."

A typical day begins with an early rise at the crack of dawn, 5:30 a.m. From then until 7 a.m. is her "me time". She cleans the kitchen and begins to make lunches for the seven school-aged children. Then the kids wake up and Louise serves them breakfast.

After their tummies are filled all eight of them pile into the van and it's off to school. The daily errands are next and 2 1/2-year-old Giama comes along for the ride. Pretty soon the kids have to be picked up again, supper has to be prepared, dance lessons start in ten minutes, bath time, homework time, bed time - never a dull moment.

Despite beliefs that the most hectic stage of raising a child is the period between birth and the first day of Kindergarten, Louise said the teenage years are the most nerve-wracking of all.

"Sometimes you think they're teens, they're independent, I don't need to be there as much ... but you really need to be there mentally.

"Teens are going through a change - puberty, the emotional highs and lows and all that stuff.

"You really appreciate your little ones when you're having trouble with your teens!"

Louise will be the first to say stay at home mom's often have difficulties. But the priceless rewards more than make up for each and every minor crises.

"Time that you're spending with your child is time well-invested. You have to really believe that what you are doing is worthwhile to be a successful stay at home mom.

"I really believed that what I was doing was important, I never thought I was missing out on anything by not working. It wasn't an identity crises for me or anything."

Louise leaves a word of advice for young mothers who might be considering full-time parenting.

"Have a great sense of humour, be open-minded, don't sweat the small stuff, be there for them, and make sure you spend a few minutes every day on yourself. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as it's something that you enjoy doing."