In an article entitled “Eco-Housewives - Enlightened Caregivers or Feminist Nightmare?” found in the Fall 2008 issue of Brain, Child magazine, Tracy Sutton interviewed Shannon Hayes, a self-proclaimed Uber-Mom and “enlightened homemaker.” As such, her goal, as she explained to Sutton, “Cuts out the consumerist middleman and asks people to work hard for what benefits their family and their community directly.” In other words, Hayes lives with her family on a farm where they grow their own food, she gets up at 2:30am to milk the cows, and her family buys everything second-hand and trades their clothes and baby gear with others in their community. This is all in an attempt to stay out of our consumerist culture as much as possible.

Now first, let me make a little disclaimer on behalf of . . . myself: I wanted, and expected, to love the ideas touted by Hayes. I fully prepared myself to finish the piece and promptly relocate my family out into the wilderness somewhere and build a cabin next to our newly-planted organic vegetable garden. I am easily influenced by the whole eco-movement, and proud to be as involved as I can in that endeavor. I tell you this to make sure you know I did not have any sort of negative preconceived notions about what this woman would say - in other words, I didn’t want to fight; I wanted to agree and be inspired.

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It is not so much I mind having chosen a career path so vague as to rank somewhere below “illegal alien bus boy” in terms of status, but rather, I get no respect for doing it from my home that really rankles my soul.

Forget. I think people sometimes forget on the other side of any piece of written work is an actual person with a real life going on.

It’s not all fun, wayward pets, precocious children and spell-check.

Sadly, most of these “people who forget” live with me. The rest are my dearest friends.

My daughter, will tell anyone who asks that her mommy is a “colonist.” By this we can only imagine mommy vanquishes redcoats in between play dates and PTO meetings. Muskets anyone?

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This is a game I like to call, “Can You Find Everything Wrong With This Article?”

Every year, there is an article like this, giving some outrageous figure for what a stay-at-home-mother’s salary would be if she were paid. What’s wrong with that? Ready? Let’s play. Here are my top 5:

1) It’s condescending. The way it’s presented, with the huge number, it’s meant to grab readers’ attentions, shock them and make them say, “What? Stay-at-home-mothers are worth that? That doesn’t make sense!” And, then they go away shaking their heads and laughing because…

2) The number is horribly inflated. If you read the article, it says that it arrives at that salary a couple of ways—first off by pooling together all the “jobs” that moms do, like psychologist and teacher and so on. Well, I am a stay-at-home-mom and I used to be a social worker. My “caseload” as a SAHM is three, when all my “clients” are home. My caseload as a social worker was 30. There’s a difference. I may dabble in the occasional behavior modification or grief counseling session as a mother, but it’s certainly not 40 hours a week, and my kids aren’t truly mentally handicapped. None of those pooled “jobs” are done 40 hours a week, or at the level of intensity that a professional would do them. So, it’s another way of being patronizing.

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I am one of those people, I’ll admit it. I’m the kind of person who is not a Type-A personality, I’m the kind who is not always on the go, I’m the kind who doesn’t a have million things to do right NOW. I’m what those other people would maybe call lazy.

Now, I don’t think I’m lazy. I think I’m incredibly time efficient. Somehow, it seems like I do a great deal of what those go-go-go people do, but I still have this abundance of free time. My son is a lot like me, and I’ve really tried to sell him on how being proactive with tasks can actually give you more free time, and he’s starting to get the gist of it. I’ve noticed him knocking out his homework right away so he can declare later that he has all day to play Xbox now, because his work is all done. And I high-five him.

Now, I can guess what you’re going to say. You’re going to stand up and shout, “But, wait, you don’t do everything that other people do, you self-admitted lazy ass! For one thing, you don’t work!”

And to that, I will say, yes, you’re right, I do not work full time. I will even admit that working full time really was the biggest obstacle in my pursuit of perpetual free-time. However, even when I worked full time, I found ways to use my nifty time efficiency skills to get as much free time as I could. For example, I kept a larger case load than anyone else in the clinic, and I provided top quality services to those clients. But, I organized my meetings and visits in such a way that I did them all in the mornings and then had the afternoons free. After proving that it was consistent, I was granted permission to take my “lunch” hour and breaks at the end of the day, and given permission to take my paperwork home with me to do. So, instead of working from 9-5 with a half hour lunch, half hour breaks and doing paperwork there from 3-5. I got to leave the clinic at 2, remain on pager in case of emergencies, pick up my son at day care and do my paperwork after he went to bed. If I hadn’t been good at my job and good at making time work for me, then that never could have happened. But, being a full-time WOHM was very challenging. It took a lot of creative time management to pull off in a way that gave me the lazy hours I crave. It was very hard to be a high quality employee, high quality mother, high quality wife and provide myself with time to be a high quality me. So, I am not going to deny at all that my life is easier since I’ve been able to quit full time work.

But, ironically, it’s also true that some of the biggest Type A personalities I know are stay-at-home-moms. Boy, they find ways to be on the go every minute of the day. I just don’t know what they do that keeps them so busy!

Well, I do not scrapbook. Maybe that’s it right there. Maybe I gain ten years of free time added to my life because I refuse to scrapbook. I keep an actual Scrap Book for each of my kids. One of those big hardcover books with the manila pages in it, to which I have taped their birth announcements, first locks of hair, newspaper clippings, outstanding artwork, etc.. But, I don’t scrapbook in the verb sense, with the themed albums, the cute stickers, and the parties. Nothing against people who do scrapbook, I just don’t.

I’m not a big socialite. That seems to be another time-eater of SAHMs. It seems to take a lot of time to schedule and organize all those group outings together, to the mall, to the playground, to the library. Groups of about 5 moms with their gaggle of kids in strollers and baby carriers all together to have the big group experience. That’s not my scene either. They seem to enjoy it, or even thrive on it, but that’s never been my thing.

But, then there are the solo moms I know who just always have something going on, somewhere to rush to, something they have to get done, and they’re always in a big hurry. I don’t knock them for it, I think it’s just the way they were programmed. They need to honor their own drives the way I need to honor mine. Nothing wrong with that.

It’s just that it’s taken me a long time to embrace and own my own need to slow down and respect my personality, rather than apologize for it or feel lacking in some way because of it. Partly because there isn’t really a positive name for my kind. The others get coined, “Type A,” and well, who doesn’t want to be an A? Who wants to be B? Or they’re “go-getters,” they’re “driven,” they’re “achievers.” And that’s all fine, I really don’t begrudge them that. But, where’s our nice title? We don’t really get one, because we live in a society that respects being busy. We live competitively, like our lives are a race to be won, so there just isn’t an appreciation for people who choose to take the long way, and stop and smell the roses, and live in the moment, and do all those other things that we, as a society agree we should do, but really just spend our time furiously cross stitching the phrases onto pillows instead.

See, I think there are two kinds of “go-getters.” I think there are the people who are born that way, and then there are the people who feel guilted into keeping up with it. I have no problem with the people who are born that way, that’s just who they are and I respect that they’re different from how I am. But, the people who are guilted into it kind of bother me. Because if they’d come out of the closet and join our ranks, then maybe we’d be able to come up with some more favorable terms for who we are than “lazy,” or “slacker,” or “underachiever.” It would give our rebellion a more positive appearance if we had more numbers, showing that we do achieve things, we do in fact “go and get,” as well as the next guy, but we do it in our own timeframe.

Because life is a race. It’s a race to get done all we want to accomplish before we die. There are plenty of things I do want to tick off that list, and a lot of them I have already finished. There are personal goals I want to accomplish, things I want to do and places I want to see before my time is up. But, I would consider the biggest thing I want to accomplish is that I want to really experience the life I have, I want to know and own and be the time I have here. Like I’ve said, that means different things to different people, but for me it means slowing it way down and taking it all in.

For me, being a SAHM lets me have my days open with the little one. I can choose our activities according to our moods. We can stay in all day if we want to. We can run errands all day if we need to get out of the house. We can go to the indoor ice cream stand near the library and spend an hour and a half eating Blue Moon while walking around the man-made replica of the St. Croix river, tossing pennies into the waterfall and making wishes. We can sit and read books for two hours, then watch an hour of Scooby Doo, then take a nap. We can clean the house and do the laundry (she loves throwing the fabric softener ball into the washer), or we could play Don’t Break The Ice until my head is ready to burst. I know I don’t fill our time the way a lot of other SAHMs do. I don’t fill our days with back-to-back activities. We aren’t structured at all from morning to after-school. We come and go as we please, and sometimes we do nothing.

When the big kids get home, things shift a little. I’ve guarded their time as closely as my own, so they do have free time in the afternoons and evenings. Free to finish homework, and read, or play, or watch TV. They have extracurricular activities and Tae Kwon Do, but I refuse to bustle them around from the time they hit the door until the time they hit the pillow. When they get older, they can organize their time the way they want to, and if they need to be busy all the time, then I figure they’ll set their lives up like that, but for now, they seem to enjoy the freedom in the afternoons that I provide.

My life isn’t just a never-ending stream of inactivity. I have challenges for myself. I take on things like martial arts, or volunteering for a cause, or a part-time job. I’ve been able to keep my own balance.

Being able to be at home with my kids right now is a luxury for me. I appreciate how lucky I am, since it takes more than just planning and hard work to be able to survive on one income (if that’s what you want to do), it takes a stroke of good fortune, which for some reason, we’ve been graced with. I feel almost like it would be disrespectful to squander that luck by using this time in a way that doesn’t fit who I am. To be able to set up my life the way I want to like this is one of the big things that I get to mark off my life-long “To Do” list. I get to be at home with my kids and be the lazy mommy.

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When I was pregnant the husband and I both agreed he’d be the ahem, “bread winner” and I’d stay home with demon spawn. I was totally okay with this because I am awful at holding down jobs thus changing “careers” every ten seconds [can we say personal pet sitting business], and really am content writing for pennies. Pennies don’t pay no bills. Pennies don’t buy no Baby Gap Onesies [unless you get them off Ebay, but anyway...] And husband has his own successful business, and until I write a fantastical novel that makes me filthy rich I’ll just clean poo diapers and sing nursery rhymes all day.

Right. Mind you I was pregnant therefor chock full of carbs, naps, and therefore dellusional. I imagined during the two or three hour long naps my daughter would take I’d write…we’d go to the park and I’d use colorful adjectives to describe trees…we’d snuggle on the couch and I’d watch movies…and the big plus? Since husband and I both love being alone, so would our daughter. She’d find spending time in her play pen with some teether’s a fascinating experience. Are you ready to puke yet?

My daughter hates napping, she spends ten minutes in her play pen before shrieking, she doesn’t snuggle unless I kind of force her into some UFC-like move and hold her down, and we haven’t spent too much time at the park. I tried that one day, figured I’d walk her and our dog but I kept running over his paws with the stroller, and when we arrived at the entrance there was a huge mud-pit that I was too lazy exhausted to cross.

I don’t have the best time with my daughter all day. I know I should be grateful, so many people need a double income to make living comfortably happen but I have no idea what the fuck to do with her. By 1pm I’m done. I’m ready to retire. I’ve sang lame songs, fed her pureed food, let her crawl around and stopped her dozens of times from putting unmentionables into her mouth, we’ve read stories, we’ve pooped, peed, and vomited, and on occasion we’ve watched Baby Einstein. 1pm is when I look at the clock and go “holy SHIT what am I going to do all day…” I don’t drive, and so sometimes we walk to stores and I spend unnatural amounts of time looking at socks. Husband drops us off places so we can spend the day doing fun mommy-infant stuff and that’s great but I am constantly wondering if I have any email.

And here’s the catch. We found a fantastic nanny dubbed The Baby Whisperer who takes her off my hands 15 hrs a week. Do the math - that’s 3x per week for roughly 5 hours. And it helps, I’m at least 15% more sane. Some people even scowl and ask me why the fuck I’m even complaining they’d KILL for that time. But I’m a brat, I suck, what can I say? The four days she’s in my care for 24hrs I am grumpy. When she won’t nap and I’m stuck playing peek-a-boo for three hours I want to kill. When she’s cranky and is flinging herself around like a madwoman I wonder why I didn’t just get a few dogs instead of giving birth, at least they sleep through the night.

And yet I love her with such a fiery passion sometimes it freaks me out. I love to sniff her little ears, and kiss in between her toes. She makes me crack up, and we do have fun. I am proud to be her momma. I just wish she were six. If she were six we could read Little Woman and bake cookies. You know?

So for those of you working moms: Do you wish you could stay home or would you find yourself going insane? And SAHM: Do you find yourself going insane staying home…

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Today I stumbled upon The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s “mom blog”, where Ms. Giarrusso, the author, contemplates the meaning of “working mother”. She writes:

Let me add that I’m aggravated by the term “working mom” because if you have children, even one, you are working. And you can’t always say “working out of the home” because I actually work in the home. Maybe we should say “employed” mom.

What I don’t understand is — why are stay at home mothers so insecure? Who cares if moms who work outside the home are called “working moms”?

While I agree that being at home full time to raise your children is a selfless and respectable choice if one has the luxury to do so. The rewards may not be as tangible as perhaps, a monetary bonus, but you must consider the value and effect your being home has on your children.

This whole, “I’m just as good as you are,” attitude is really childish. Many working moms would love to be home and not have to deal with childcare, while others, like myself, actually enjoy their careers — it’s what makes us individuals.

Of course, being at home is insanely hard work and nobody is trying to diminish that, but it is really not the responsibility of the working mother to make stay at home mothers feel adequate. Mincing words and trying to politicize the labels that go along with “working mom” is ridiculous and stems from a lack of fulfillment and self esteem in what one is doing. If a SAHM truly enjoys what she is doing and is not resenting it, she shouldn’t need strangers approval or recognition.

I mean really. How spoiled are we? We live in one of the richest nations on earth, where most SAHMs and WOHMs lifestyles would seem nothing short of gluttonous to many people around the world. It is not other people’s responsibility to make sure you feel good about yourself on top of that. If you feel under-appreciated, take it up with your family and friends. Stop blaming other people if you feel like your life is crappy.

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