K and I dropped Miss M off at her choir practice and headed to the dollar store to kill time. We could just hang out at the church but I can’t stand spending an hour chasing K up and down the halls trying to keep his voice below 80 decibels. It’s not easy to do.
K was riding in the cart, chattering about whatever he sees and reminding himself that mommy isn’t going to buy him anything today. We rounded the corner by the scrapbooking supplies and nearly ran into an older woman that I know.
This woman irritates me on a good day.
She smiled, said hi and asked how I was feeling. (You know, the standard question everyone asks the pregnant lady.)
I’m good . . . tired. (My standard response.)
Then she says it. The line to piss me off.
Well, at least you don’t have to work full-time on top of it.
Huh? Are you effing kidding me with that?
As a stay-at-home-mom, I’m very seldom off-duty. If I have to pee, still no break. Need a moment to myself? Sorry. Not going to happen. Want to listen to the radio on the way home? Well, okay but only if it’s kids’ songs. (Or, Hot Girls.)
I chose this job. I will tell you that. I wanted to stay home with my children. And most of the time I love my job. But it is not an easy job.
I get that it is hard to leave your child in the care of other people. I understand that other people might think that staying home with children all day is all fun and games. (Often those same people are the first ones to throw up their hands with exasperation at the things that kids do when they are forced to care for their children non-stop for more than a few days.) I can see that I am in a position of envy for some.
But tell me to my face that I’m not working? Them’s fightin’ words.
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Still looking for Midwestern bloggers!!
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
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Zoinks! After the day I've had, just today... I'll hold her, you hit her.
you said it, sister!
I agree, staying at home with children is a tough job! (Even Oprah has said that repeatedly.) I bet, though, since she's an older woman, there could be a generation/language gap there with the word "work."
I couldn't agree with you MORE!!! It is totally hard to stay at home. No breaks, constant vigilance and pregnant to boot! I would not trade my job for anything but it is a JOB!
I've felt that way too - I think that what we lack is the right vocabulary for the problem!! Unlike the Eskimos with their 87-words-for-snow, we only have that one "WORK". And because it was sort of always used to describe leaving the house and going to a different location and recieving a paycheck, then the definition seemed to exclude those of us who stay at home and don't get monetary compensation. I think there's been some improvement over the years, but still: a "work-at-home" mom is one who stays home AND GETS PAID while a "stay-at-home" mom is still left without that defining parameter that what she does every day is, in fact, work -- hard work! I think we just need to make up a new word for SAHM's that will indicate that we do work, hard, every single day... we just don't need a paycheck to tell us that it's 'work'!
I'd love to see her in your shoes and see how she feels about "not working!"
Being prego AND chasing kids all day is sooooo hard work! There's no OFF DUTY button on this taxi line, is there?!
Well said! I had someone say something along those lines to me last week. We were talking about triathlon training and she said that was doing all this and was a working mom. I thought "OK...". I wasn't sure how to respond to that. She didn't come right out and say anything bad about being a SAHM, but as she continued to talk about it I felt that she was inferring that I had more time. The crazy thing is that I had just told her that the reason I was at the gym at 5:30 am is because it's the only time I can go!
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