Let’s talk about that awkward moment when you are at a function with other parents and the moms ask if you work or stay at home. For many many years I was a stay at home mom. I know how hard it is and frankly, I think it’s harder than being a working mom. The main reasons I think it is harder to stay home is that you don’t get a break from your kids, you are rarely told you are doing anything right, you are often told you are doing things wrong and most people had a previous profession for which they trained and feel underutilized.
For me, it was all of the above plus dealing with the other stay at home moms. There seemed to be a competitive channeling of energy into who was doing the most for their kids. This is made a thousand times harder because you cannot compare the needs of one kid to another. So for some kids playing violin, soccer and volunteering at the animal shelter may be an average amount of effort. For other kids, getting through one playdate a week might be a herculean effort. But it’s hard to be the mom who brags that her child had a huge accomplishment of not biting another child. There are no trophies or ribbons for that.
Fast forward a few years and now I am a working outside the home mother. I have gone from the realm of moms who provide creative home-made bento box lunches for their kids to the mom who relies on the kindness of the lunch lady to extend them credit because I forgot to fill up their accounts. I no longer have any input or care into which parts they get in a play. I am unknown to most of the other parents. I sometimes miss those convenient mid-day “read with the class” activities.
I don’t want to come off as feeling superior to the stay at home moms. Instead, I feel happy not to be one because to be brutally honest, my kids can drive me crazy. Being a stay at home mom made me feel incompetent. The goals I set were for my kids, not me. I had no way of knowing if I was heading down the right path. I had no boss to check in with to provide me with some perspective about the outside forces which I couldn’t see. Instead, the stakes were too high and I was lacking the right training.
I want to hug stay at home moms and tell them I know their pain. However, that would be arrogant because most stay at home mom’s like what they do. They do not have my kids or my insecurities. They are happy to be with their kids all day. So I guess since I can’t be a happy stay at home mom, I will be a happy working mom. Or at least a moderately grumpy mom.
Come on, Stop!
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