Stay at Home Mom

I will never forget when I saw this posted on Facebook by an old work acquaintance:

Now, someecards.com is a very funny site, and I highly recommend going there if you want to send a funny email greeting, but seriously WHAT WAS THIS PERSON THINKING TO POST THIS ONLINE? It is insane. I don't even know where to begin.

I'm lucky in that I get to experience both the life of a working mother and the life of a stay at home mother, depending on the season. I know what it is like to come home from an exhausting day, make dinner, clean the house, make food for the next day, clean again, do laundry, and all that.

And I also know what it is like to stay home with my children, all day, doing that same stuff.

Spoiler alert: they both suck.

Anyone who thinks being a stay-at-home parent is easy is either the parent of angelic, narcoleptic children, or insane. I just completed the first of many stay-at-home days this summer, and already I am dreaming about the next time I get to drop my child off at daycare and say "See you after work, my love!"

I love my children so much, but they are annoying. They are, I can't help it. I've done everything I can to help them become less annoying, and still they persist. Like, for example, my one child keeps getting pink eye. What is that about? Stop it already! Oh, and get this, he hates it when I put drops in there. Well, sorry, but do you like having green jelly in the corner your eye all the time? Do you? (Maybe he does?)

And the crying. I mean, the crying. There is so much crying in my house, you'd think I was screening the movie "My Girl" 24 hours a day. Here is an abridged list of things that caused my children to cry today.

1. Spilled drinks
2. Being put down instead of being held
3. Hats
4. The potty
5. Falling down
6. Sunshine
7. Water

The true crux of stay-at-home parents is the emotional toll of loving and hating your children at the same time. Because that's really what you're dealing with. You love them so much, but again, they are so annoying, so in your mind you are thinking things that are distinctly un-loving, and then you are filled with this deep, agonizing guilt because how could you think those things about your sweet precious children? They are only children, after all; they're doing their best. When you really think about it, you love them so much you could cry. And that's all you need: more crying.

There will be good times this summer, I'm sure. There will be moments when I'm at the pool, one child napping in the stroller while the other plays contentedly by himself, and I'm sitting back soaking in the sunshine thinking "Now this is the life!" And it will be the life. And a working parent will see me and think "See? Stay at home moms are so spoiled and lazy!"

But make no mistake: that moment will pass. Soon I'll be in the locker room, cleaning poop out of a bathing suit while my baby cries in the stroller and my other child runs out of the locker room naked and I can't go get him because I'm half-dressed and there is poop on my hands. To every yin, a yang, my friends.

Working parents take the good with the bad as well.  Sure, some days work is stressful, terrible, and frustrating.  But there are also pleasant lunches, hilarious water-cooler conversations, and moments of success that make you feel appreciated by your peers. Not to mention no poop on your hands for eight straight hours. Yin and yang.

So let's not post weirdly-aggressive comics on our social networking sites. Let's stick to snappy quips about sporting events and pictures of your child/pet/dinner. Or maybe something like this.