Working, Not Working, and What Is Work, After All?
About four years ago, I was faced with what seemed to be an unsolvable problem regarding this blog: How can I be an advocate for stay-at-home motherhood and still spend a significant amount of time working on this blog? Is it only work if I’m getting paid? Am I still a stay-at-home mom if I invest 10 or 20 or 30 hours a week trying to publish content? Is it hypocritical to tell other moms to do something I’m not doing myself? Am I actually not doing it, or is there a way to do “work” at home and still truly be a stay-at-home mom? I couldn’t figure it out. I wanted to either do the blog properly, with weekly posts and social media and the whole thing, or stop doing it altogether. So, I stopped.
Working
That was four years ago, and at the time, we didn’t need a second income. My family had been living on one income for ten years, and I was pretty sure we’d be fine. Over the course of the last year or so, it’s become more and more of a struggle. My kids are older, and bigger, and hungrier. They want to do more things. They need more stuff. We bought a camper, and a dog. I was all out of creative ways to save money and live on less. A few months ago, I took a part time job outside of the home, thinking that would fix everything. I’d just be more organized with the laundry and the meal plan and my absence would basically go unnoticed. I tried to work when it would be the least inconvenient for my family. But it soon became clear that every time was inconvenient for my family. Everyone was miserable.
I took that part-time job thinking that if I tried to work from home, I’d just get interrupted all the time and be frustrated and crabby, and that that would be worse for everyone than me being gone. I assumed that the illusion of me being home and available would be harder on my family – and especially on me – than if I wasn’t there at all. Not so. And this brought me to a whole new dilemma: does being a stay-at-home mom mean that you literally stay at home ALL THE TIME? Do you lose your stay-at-home status if you aren’t actually at home and/or with your kids at every moment of every day? That can’t be, can it?
Working at Home?
This new dilemma led me to a question: what does it even mean to be a stay-at-home mom? And another question: what does it even mean to work? If I decide to “stay at home” and “work” for 20 hours a week blogging, am I being more of a stay-at-home mom than if I work at a department store for those same 20 hours? What if I took my laptop to the library, without the kids, and worked on the blog there? What if, instead of blogging for 20 hours a week, I binge-watch 20 hours worth of my favorite TV shows while my kids run around the house basically unsupervised? What if I spent those hours knitting, or painting, or reading Shakespeare? What if I volunteered at a nursing home or pregnancy center?
What is being a stay-at-home mom really about? Are there any shades of gray?
Is It Only Work If You Get Paid?
Imagine this: A friend calls you and tells you she just got the most fabulous job. She’s a nanny for a family of six, and the kids are just the best kids you could ever want to have. She takes them to all of their activities, cooks their meals, takes care of them when they’re sick or have a nightmare, and oh – since she’s a certified teacher, she also teaches all of them at home. She gets free housing, a free car, and a great salary.
Now, what if another friend calls you, one that you haven’t spoken to in years, and tells you that she’s been busy as a homemaker. She has a family of six, and the kids are just the best kids you could ever want to have. She takes them to all of their activities, cooks their meals, takes care of them when they’re sick or have a nightmare, and oh – since she doesn’t live near any good schools, she also teaches all of them at home. Her husband’s income pays for their housing, their cars, and all of their bills.
Which one of these women is working? If being a nanny is a job, then isn’t doing the work of a nanny…work? So, is the mom working? Maybe I’m the only one who has trouble figuring out where all the lines are.
Am I a Working Stay at Home Mom?
I haven’t really come to any conclusions about what it means to be a stay-at-home mom except this: it can’t be about a certain number of hours or a certain type of work. It has to be something deeper that that, and less arbitrary. I know that I want meaningful relationships with each of my children. I want to be the one who makes their meals, and puts on their band-aids, and wakes up with them in the middle of the night when they can’t sleep. But I also want to have enough money to buy them things – necessary things, of course, but the occasional fun things too.
So, I’m going to write this blog. “Work” on it, you might say. And be a mom to my kids. Mostly while staying at home. Mostly joyfully. And, maybe I’ll help you to do the same.
