You Poor Thing

I just don't get it.

It seems like every one of the parenting magazines that I read always contains some article written by or about stay at home moms whining how tough their job is.

They feel alienated.
They feel shunned by the rest of society because they don't "do anything" for a living.
They don't have any time for themselves.
They miss having adult conversations.
No one appreciates the hard work they do.

Whatever.

I can guarantee you that about 90% of us "lucky" working moms would give our husbands left testicle (and probably the right one too, since we don't have time sex anyway)to be able to stay home with our children.

Adult conversation is highly overrated. Trust me.

And while they're sitting at home making up reasons why they've got it so bad, we're at work, earning just enough to get by and missing out on the greater part of our children's formative years.

I'll never forget the day that I picked Jonas up from Bonnie's and we were talking about how well he was learning to move around. I told her, "Yeah, he's really working on rolling over, but he's just not quite there yet." She looked at me like I was nuts and replied, "Oh, he's been doing that for weeks!"

I went home and cried for an hour.

And yes, I'm sure it's difficult to be at home all day. There's laundry, and cooking, and cleaning and all of that while trying to entertain a baby. But realize, please, that we do all of those things, too. Only we have to fit it into nights and weekends, when we could be bonding with our babies.

As far as social interaction goes. You stay at homers have it made. All those Kindermusic classes, and Gymboree classes and playgroups that I read about... they occur during the weekdays. I can't go to those. You can. You can meet other moms, people you have something in common with. You can watch your babies grow and develop instead of hearing it second-hand from someone your child has become so attached to that you wonder if you're even important anymore.

Jonas knows me as the lady that gives him a bath and puts him to bed at night, and the one who wakes him up in the morning to get him dressed so that he can go back to Bonnie's for 12 hours.

So don't sit here and whine to me that you've got it tough, or that you've made some sort of enormous sacrifice for your family by staying at home. And don't freakin' whine to me about all the things you do during the day and get no credit for. I know what you do, I give you credit for it, but I'm also green with envy over the fact that you have the luxury of having such a tough and terrible occupation.

At least your children know who you are. And don't you think that's worth more than anything I could ever possibly earn in a day at the office?