Truths About The Suburban Stay At Home Mom

As the self proclaimed Stay-At-Home Queen of Suburbia I feel it is my duty to confirm some truths regarding what us Stay-At-Home Moms do all day…I mean there are a lot of hours in the day right?

If we aren’t going to work what the heck do we do all day?

Truth: Our Nails Get Done Up Everyday

Yep- they sure do.  A stay at home mom’s nails get done up with dirt from pulling weeds and planting flowers.  Mom’s nails do get painted… only it is usually with Home Depot paint from repainting walls and moldings and anything else that needs to be touched up at the home base.  Some of us even get a fresh coat of baby poop on those fingernails on the daily as well- yummy I know.

Truth – We shop pretty much all day long

Sure do!  We do the grocery shopping- which is loads of fun let me tell you.  Please can I troll through Meijers with hangry toddlers in tow and buy enough food to feed the small army that is my family.  We shop at the drug store and fill the family prescriptions.  In fact I just threw the kids in the car two days in a row to pick up prescriptions for the 1.5 pound rescue kitty that keeps trying to die!  I am running errands for the FLIPPING CAT NOW!  We shop at craft stores so that we can create cute stuff for school parties that we saw on Pinterest and now cannot unsee.  SAHM’s are EXPECTED to do these things… Stop ruining my will to live Pinterest.

Truth – We lay around the house

I lay around the house every day. Often times I am sprawled out on the playroom carpet scrubbing jelly or other stains out of the carpeting.  Every single day I lay in the twins room singing nonsense songs and praying to the Gods of Nap that they sleep for ten flipping minutes.  I lay in each daughter’s bed every single evening listening to them question life and make sense of the world around them.  We snuggle up in their beds and I tell them how smart and talented and lovely they are.  A lot of laying around goes on here.

Truth: We are “kept” women

Totally.  We are kept busy running errands for our busy families.  Personally I am kept driving to school functions, field trips, errands, sports, and doctors appointments to name just a few.  Us mommies are kept in the kitchen prepping meals for kids who apparently hate food now.  We are kept in the laundry rooms folding and washing and cursing.  We are kept mowing and gardening and maintaining the homes that our families work so hard to live in.  Totally Kept.

Truth:  We have housekeepers and gardeners

You bet we do!  In fact we have gardeners, laundresses, chefs, on-call nurses and tutors.  We have maids and therapists and personal shoppers.  Unfortunately mom is all of the above…and her payment comes in the form of occasional hugs and perhaps a weekly splurge at the local Target.  I will NEVER feel guilty for that Target bill.  I earned that random cart full of stuff darn-it.

In all honesty I think that the overwhelming majority of us stay-at-home moms are “kept” happy and thankful.  Personally I chose this path and wanted to stay home with the girls more than anything.  I left my job teaching, which I loved dearly, so that I could wallow in the trenches of motherhood twenty four seven.  I would not change it for the world, no matter HOW much I rant and rave.

Millions of hard working mothers leave their home every single because unlike me, they have no choice.  They do it for their children and their families.  They get beat down in meetings, in retail, in restaurants, and on the bus, in a world that could care LESS that they left sick babies with babysitters and haven’t slept in six years.  Working moms eat in their car, or in the bathroom.  They damn near kill themselves racing through traffic to get to sporting events, plays, and Halloween parties.  So as much as this is a tribute to the stay-at-home-mom, it is also a tribute to the working mommy.  Please know that this ranty SAHM has done both.  Both sides of the motherhood fence are equally grueling and hard as all get out. We see you working mama, you bad a** you.

Keep on keeping on mamas- all of you.  For this is the hardest more important job in the universe.