um, no matter where you work, if you’re a mother, you’re a working mother. in the home, out of the home, WHATEVER. i’m a single, OUT of the home, working mother. soothwm? does that even make sense? who cares. my kid loves me because she knows i’m doing the best i can for her with what i have now. :)

Don’t get me started on NMAIPs.

Thirdly………NMAIP can kiss my full-time working ass! It’s great to be all holier than thou from atop her ivory tower, but come on down to the real world where some of us working moms are the bread winners in the family. My mom stayed at home for awhile and then went back to work. I saw a wonderful marriage where my dad would do the grocery shopping and cook some of the meals. As we kids got old enough, we each had to cook dinner one night, we had to help clean the house. God forbid….a child that had to help around the house and do homework. And yet, I’ve made it to 40! My boys are 6 & 3.5 and they already help around the house. Cheers to those who can stay home, but don’t be a hater for those of us that can’t!!!! (’k…I’m done)

We went camping over our long holiday weekend and there were thunderstorms where we were. My husband started counting “one one thousand, two one thousand,” after lightning flashes and I about pissed my pants and hissed at him to quit it rightfuckingnow, especially because there was a knobby gnarly tree next to our campsite and our camper is one of those pop-up ones with canvas that a tree could totally rip through and steal one of the kids. No thank you with the counting.

And also, my son has gone to the same in-home daycare for nearly four years and my daughter has been there since she was six weeks old (is now just shy of five months) and will go there until she starts school. Our entire family loves the daycare providers. My son adores them, calls one of them Grandma and the other Aunt Tammy. I don’t see how it’s so bad that they go to what is a state licensed daycare when the daycare providers treat them as if they are their own grandchildren/niece or nephew. The kids learn from the daycare, and they have fun and love their “teachers” so I don’t see how a stable daycare is so very wrong. They’re getting as much nurturing as if it were me or their father staying all day with them.

I mainly avoid having the Working Mom vs SAHM conversations because it’s tedious and you get nowhere. What I’ve observed, though, in the seven years I’ve been a parent is that we all need to give each other a break. I think we work often because we have to – financially and psychologically. I would not do well at home all day long with chattering children (as much as I love and adore them).

Part of this is my introversion. I am completely wiped out by the end of the day if I can’t retreat and reenergize and kids do not give a rat’s ass about introvert/extrovert crap. They want to talk, they want another damn bowl of grapes in the purple bowl and not the slightly squished ones only the 100% perfect ones and why did you fold the napkin like that when it was made perfectly clear that they will only accept a napkin folded like this. Exhausting.

I like what I do, I like to have a space all to myself (more or less). I like to get up and go to the bathroom without being followed, without small sticky paws rattling the doorknob, without an eye peering through the keyhole saying, “I see you, Mommy!”

We always think the grass is greener and it’s not necessarily. I think working moms may be jealous of sahs when they hate their job and carry other resentments or feelings of guilt that they are doing the “wrong thing.” I think SAHs are jealous of working moms when they feel the same way, that they’re missing out on something or feel they’re doing what their supposed to but are still unhappy in an unknown way (perhaps they need to read The Feminine Mystique).

There’s no right and wrong and I think our generation is right smack in the middle of an attitude and cultural change. We’re experiencing the growing pains. Our daughters and sons won’t have this kind of angst, I hope. As for the woman mentioned above, who knows? Perhaps her daughter will chafe under such restrictions and become the first female president? (Though, why anyone would want that job I don’t know.)

We need to give each other a break and try not to let the haters get us.

Also, the movie that scared me A LOT as a small child? Sleeping Fucking Beauty with that monster at the end. The big black dragon thing. AAAAAAAH.