Monthly Archives: October 2013

So I recently read a blog post that several of my friends (also stay at home mamas) shared on the old Facebook and it got me feeling rather validated in my feelings regarding my job.  My very important, time-consuming, AHHHHmazing and frustratingly temper-testing, thankless J. O. B.  Now, I once was a paid employee AND a mama and I know how difficult that is.  I would never say that the other side of this fence has it easier or is less deserving of merit, BUT I will say having a career and then coming home to your children is different in many ways.  In my experience. On top of having a career, I was also a  commuter.  I woke up at four in the morning to drive across the county and I would get home barely in time to make some dinner, do bath time and put the little sucker to bed.  I also spent my days off catching up on laundry and cleaning and hanging with my kiddo.  I am confident that my experience with both lifestyles allows me to have an opinion that should be valued.

Stay at Home Mama should be synonymous with Beck and Call Bitch and Taxi Extraordinaire.  If I’m being honest.  Oh, you have poo-poo in your diaper?  Well then, allow me to rid you of that.  What’s that you say?  You feel like eating a waffle WHOLE with only butter and it must be on a napkin instead of a plate?  Let me make that for you.  Would you like milk or O.J. with that?  Does this sound familiar for anyone else?  Probably, but for those of you that get up in the morning, put on what I consider to be “nice clothes” and head to some place other than your kitchen to perform tasks that you earn a “paycheck” for you get a break from all the beck and call bitch work that a Stay at Home Mama does not.  AND most likely someone (hopefully your boss or clientele) appreciate you and tell you such.  I miss HEARING how much people appreciate my hard work.  I am not going to lie… I NEED someone to tell me I’m appreciated.  It’s the small things that matter most to me (figuratively and literally).  I need some form of accolades.  For example, when I am able to do the seemingly impossible such as drop off two little boys at two different schools at two different times, then head home while my two month old’s (hopefully) snoozing, and do the dishes, dust the downstairs, vacuum and get laundry started just in enough time to pick up one little boy and feed him lunch while I nurse the baby in the school’s parking lot.  Finish with enough time to drive over to the other little boy’s school to pick him up and head home to feed him as well.  All this and it’s only one in the afternoon!  Are you impressed?  I’m always impressed.  Sometimes I do a little dance just to show myself how impressed I am.  Did I mention I work in both boys’ classrooms, that each son participates in an after school program, and I do a shit ton of fundraising for my son’s co-op? I do all of this without pay and with very little accolades, but I’ve never felt better about any accomplishment ever.  And I’ve never been so exhausted, but no one notices all that hard work. Not the children and certainly not the hubby. He just knows that when he gets home from work… the house is decent, dinner is made, bills are paid, and his kids are alive. Awesome.

I know this is absolutely terrible of me, but I just love leaving the Hubby home with the kids for an extended period of time… like over two hours, because when I return he is usually overjoyed to see me, in need of alcohol, and EXHAUSTED and irritable and all he did was keep the kids ALIVE while I was out.  There was no cleaning, (to be perfectly honest it looks like a cyclone hit while I was away every time) and he didn’t even have to leave the house with our children let alone keep a schedule and it probably took every ounce of his existence to keep our children alive in my absence.  I absolutely love coming home to a beat up, exhausted hubby because in that moment he appreciates what I do SO MUCH.  Scratch that, MY hubby appreciates everything I do for this family all the time.  He just doesn’t praise me as much as my needy heart would like.  My problem lies with the other women out there that want to compare being a “working mom” versus a “stay at home mom”.  I “work” my ASS off.  I just don’t get to shower before I take on the day and I don’t do it wearing heels. I feel like women that stay home with their children are seen as less capable when they deserve to be put on a pedestal and rendered goddesses for their choice of family over fortune.

I realize I’m getting older and I fall into a category now that I may not be too fond of called “old fashioned”.  Although I don’t feel that to be an appropriate categorization for someone that’s an advocate of COMMON DECENCY, but in this digital and completely non-conversational era that I find myself in… I guess I am old-fashioned because I would NEVER deliver any news to a friend via text that so obviously needs to be said face-to-face.  Or hell, at the very least, on the telephone.  And anyone that knows me knows that I have an irrational discord of talking on the phone so if I’m dialing you to have an uneasy exchange you should know how necessary it is.  There comes a time when you put your big girl panties on (I hate the word panties) and use your actual voice to tell your so-called GREAT friend that you can’t fulfill a previously agreed upon situation that will greatly affect said great friend’s day-to-day life.  Yeah.  Call me crazy, but… it’s absolutely not okay.  I realize it’s difficult to tell someone you care for something she most definitely doesn’t want to hear, but TOUGH SHIT.  Welcome to the land of adults where you do shit that you don’t WANT to do because it’s the RIGHT thing to do.  So, basically in a very vague nutshell I lost a great friend without ever interacting with her through the entire situation because it wasn’t necessary in her eyes.  I’m guessing.  I can’t say for sure because…  I haven’t actually TALKED to her.  In almost a month.  But she texts me.  She won’t return any of my calls.  Or immediately answer any of my texts.  Does anyone else think this is as nutzo as I do?!  I’ve really been trying to wrap my mind around this.  I mean, what it really comes down to (in my old-fashioned mind) is this chick must’ve so badly NOT wanted to deal with my reaction to said situation that she would rather put me off, and put me off, and put me off so I would (being the smart person that I am) figure out what was happening FOR MYSELF without her ever actually confirming it for me until almost three weeks after the fact.  That or she has very little respect for me as a person.  Honestly, how do you continue a friendship with someone who would rather avoid a perceived confrontation by avoiding me all together, then deal with a difficult conversation head on?  Clearly my friendship means very little to her.  I’m baffled.  And I’m hurt.  Now you all have to hear me rant about it.  

How the fuck are people so impersonal these days?  How can so many people lack basic social skills, be so disconnected from each other, so removed from personal interaction?  How can you end a relationship via text?!?!  Does this happen in the dating world now?  If so, I am SOOOOOOOO happy to be married and not dealing with the douche lords that deal with such a delicate situation so insensitively.  People deserve face-to-face interaction, no?  So, in theory, by the time Mighty’s old enough to date I guess the courting process will occur completely through Skype because a real night out at a dinner table would be way too intimidating.  Which leads me to another thing…  Why do people go out to restaurants and bars with other people if all they are going to do is be on their phones?  People seem to have no intentions of actually conversing with one another.  I can’t stand seeing people out having a meal with other people, yet every person at the table has her face focused firmly on her phone and NO ONE is talking or interacting with the people right IN FRONT of them because they’re too busy in their virtual reality to take part in REAL reality. 

Have you ever seen the Pixar film Wall-E?  You know when the robot (Wall-E) boards the ship with all the super large, almost completely immobile residents that hardly know each other exists because they’re too busy being scooted around in large recliners, eating junk and watching a screen that’s permanently perched five inches from their faces?  The people that have to relearn how to walk and have no clue what a plant is?  Yeah, that’s what I see the future to be with the way things are panning out.  It’s very Orwellian dystopia, but in animation… and regarding social ineptness among other things. Okay, I’m done.  Just please do ME a favor and don’t be the person that communicates important information through a text when you so clearly have the time (and hopefully the decency and respect) to TALK to someone you care about in person or at least on the phone because otherwise you’re never going to be taken seriously.  Ever.