Ten Lies Working Moms Tell Themselves About Staying Home With Kids

Ok, I'm not the first person to leave a successful career in exchange for staying at home with my kids.  And probably not the first to figure out it's not quite what I'd imagined, either.

I'm not just talking about having to do dishes and wipe butts.  Or even the countless hours of clock-watching while I wait for reinforcements to arrive, or horrendously boring kids programming on PBS.

I'm talking about the whole ball of wax.  You know, the isolation, inability to finish any task that takes longer than three and a half minutes, and the constant subjugation of my own needs for that of my kids.

I don't mean to sound ungrateful, I am the first to tell you I say prayers of gratitude every single day that my kids are healthy, that I'm healthy (aside from the Guantlet that is).  Having grown up on Brady Bunch reruns, however, I think somewhere out there is a fantasy that I should at least look good and always be happy when I'm doing this job.  Of course, that beee-aaach had a maid / nanny. Or whatever Alice was.

Back in January 2010 when I made the decision to stay at home with my kids, my blackberry was jam-packed with corporate job life, back to back meetings and tasks. If I wanted to take a break to do anything remotely mom-ish, I put it on my calendar.  Literally.  By that I mean, "PUMP BREAST MILK" was actually on there.  But when I was making the decision to leave my job, I had a lot of misconstrued notions about what it'd be like to stay home.  

Now, I don't regret my decision to stay home with my kids, but I do feel like it would have been nice to have these myths debunked before I took the plunge.  Here they are:  

1. The nanny (or sitter, or childcare provider) has it pretty easy.

Let me preface this with the statement that when we had a nanny, she was absolutely the most awesome nanny you could imagine (Tammy, you rocked).  Irregardless, there is a strange built-in resentment that comes when you let someone else spend 50 hours a week with your kid.   It's not personal, but it might feel like it at the time (on both sides).  Aside from the obvious fantasy that you get to sit around and paint your nails all day, (which Tammy never did),  I guess the underlying fear is that you will come home one day and your kid will cling to the nanny instead of want to come to you. That is rubbish, and absolutely could never happen-- but the mom-guilt I carried had me constantly afraid of it.  Now I laugh at that fear-- and it's irony, knowing that place I go when I'm at the end of my rope.  That place is one that starts with expletives and ends with me my son cowering in fear at the booming voice I resort to in total anger.  That voice is far more likely to cause him to not want to come to me than the goods any Mary Poppins nanny could possibly bring.  It doesn't happen a lot, but when it does, it makes the nanny's job look a lot harder. 

2.  You'll have more time to work out. 

If you count the huge amounts of physical labor you'll do at home as a "work out," then yeah, sure.  But if you're counting on plugging in your iPod and cranking out some serious miles on the treadmill or ellipitcal, think again.  And if you're a cyclist? Laughable.  With one child it's easier, but not so easy that you realize it when you're in it.  By the time you have two kids, working out becomes a highly focused strategy game you are constantly trying to figure out.  You carry your sports bra in your car and hope to squeeze in a twenty minute run when in the past that might have just been your warm-up.   You settle for pushing a 2-kid stroller for an hour long walk as a work-out, and trade timing with your spouse for a true solitude workout a couple times a week.   Oh, and now sex counts as a workout because let's face it, the ole heart rate is not getting up there any other way on certain days. The gym daycare is an option, but it's expensive in other ways...reference again The Gauntlet.  It's an option best exercised when you don't have a vacation or a family outing planned in the near future.

3.  Your cooking is healthier than what you eat at work

OK, true if you are disciplined.  But remember a lot of what you're feeding young kids is pretty easy prep stuff.  Maybe if you have older kids they will eat the tofu curry dish?  I dunno, so far I've had to cook my husband and my meal and then make something supplemental for my son.  This has been an area in which I've had to build skills.  I'm finding healthier options out there, but it takes a little research and a little planning, which is always tough when you're working around 2 kids and their individual nap schedules.

4. Most of the time it'll be heaps and loads of fun!

If "most of the time" you mean "greater than 50% of the time", yes, this is true.  If you mean 90/10, then you need to adjust your barometer for fun.  

5. You won't miss bringing home a paycheck, or making your own money.  

One of my "going away from corporate life" gifts to myself was a Coach purse.  That was January of 2010, and I have not bought myself something so extravagant since.  The mom-guilt is just too huge. I can't get over that sucking sound my credit card makes when I go shopping for myself and think about the immense NEGATIVE impact it's having on our household budget.  This is one I have got to reframe and work on, I know it's a false fear.

6. Your house will be very organized. 

Gaahhahhaahahah!! I - gasp - can - hardly - GASP--quit laughing at this one. I did recently find an awesome resource through the recreation department of my town, a lady who runs organization classes.  She's kind of Tough Love, but she's pretty good. Her name is Kathi Miller and her business is Clutter Coach, LLC.  Check her out. I'm scared to hire her though, she'll probably show up with a megaphone and a trash bag. So far it's easier to just go to the group classes and learn a few tips.  

7.  You will spend more quality time with your significant other. 


 Since most of my day is spent in the house with the kids, by the time Matt gets home I'm soooo ready to have a break. I swear I feel like I'm in 4th grade again waiting for the bell to go off.  I stand at the front door sometimes when he pulls up and it's all I can do not to hand him the kids and just run from the house waving my arms wildly like some kind of mental patient, or hop on my bike and ride up the biggest hill I can find, turning around and careening down it kicking my feet out and throwing my head back "weeeeeee!!! I'm FREEEEEEE!!!!"  Of course this is the classic problem a lot of folks have when one person stays home:  the working person wants to be at home after being out all day, and the stay-at-home wants to interact with society.  So Matt babysits probably more than he would if I were working, and then we do date-night like we used to before. So net-net, I think we're about the same in terms of "time together" that we had when I was working, minus the business trips.

8.  Your kids will be smarter and more well-behaved.  

The jury is still out on this, but I will tell you, I am not home-schooling these monkeys.  No F-ing way.  Carson just started pre-school two mornings a week, and it's helped us both immensely.  Maybe me more than him. 

9.  You won't need a cleaning person since you can do it all yourself.  

Shortly after I decided to stay home, I made myself a task chart for cleaning the house.  I started out with pretty low expectations.  You know, mop the floors once per month, vacuum upstairs 1 x week, downstairs the other week.  After two months I gave myself an "F" and realized I'd totally underestimated how hard it is to run a vacuum cleaner when they're napping, and how hard it is to complete ANY task when they're awake (see intro).  I've now resorted to "triage" approach. Whatever's dirtiest gets my attention.  Always the kitchen, of course, but the bathrooms are a close second.  The other areas get vacuumed when the cat hairballs are so bad that Amelia is crawling over to me with fur on her tounge.  That's when I know it is due.  Why don't I just get a cleaning person, you ask? I have about 2.5 hours a day that I don't need to have the kids home for one or the other of them to nap.  And that 2.5 hours is a sliding window changing every day.  I give up. 

10. Your kids won't annoy you as much as some of the people at work.   

Well.  Most days, right.  But the truth is, you leave the people you work with at work.  They don't throw a tantrum at 6 AM because you won't let them watch TV before the sun comes up.

   
All this is sort of tounge and cheek, I hope you know.  I love my kids, and the truth is, I love my job as staying at home with them more than any other job I've ever had.  It's kind of an 80/20 thing-- 80% of the time it's the best job in the world, and 20% of the time it blows.  But the worst days are still better than most of the mediocre days at any job I've ever held.  It's not perfect, of course.  But it is rewarding, and more than ever, I'm learning how to be present in this moment with my kids.  Because I can't meet a person on the street who doesn't look at me with my kids and say "They grow up fast, appreciate it now while you can!"  And I believe that's God reminding me of it, that the 100 sweet moments I take for granted are about 90 more than my husband gets to see everyday.  I know he loves them as much as I do, and I feel incredibly privileged to get to experience them fully while they still think we're the best thing in the whole world.

After all, I'll have plenty of time to work when they're teenagers and don't want me around.  And that's when I will read this list and be grateful--I'm at work.