If you are a stay-at-home mom of children under the age of 5,
then you get it.
You know how hard it is.
Being home all day.
Trying to keep your cool.
Trying not to lose your patience.
Trying to get one fucking thing checked off your to-do list without the entire house being trashed.
Seeing your toilet overflow just as you put the last dish in the dishwasher.
Watching your 2-year-old swipe all the laundry onto the floor three seconds after you folded the last shirt.
Constantly struggling to find a balance between taking care of all the shit that needs to be done in your house and spending quality time with your kids.
I am tired of the people who question what I do all day.
The adults who get to leave home each morning and go work with other adults who don’t shit their own pants and cry on twelve minute intervals have no idea how easy they’ve got it.
Yeah.
I said easy.
And so, to you assholes who think we stay at home moms are a joke, I offer you,
the Stay At Home Mom Challenge.
You’re not going to come to my house to complete this challenge.
You won’t try this in your own home either.
No.
You are going to attempt it in your place of business.
Your office building.
For simplicity’s sake, we’ll say your name is…
Dick.
Here are the parameters of the challenge:
- You have three main employees. We’ll call them Number 5, 6, and 7.
- You cannot fire them.
- They must remain in the building with you at all times.
- You cannot curse.
And you have three tasks to complete (yes, just three simple tasks):
- make a five minute phone call
- type, print out, and present a document in a meeting to a group of five people while your employees remain in the room with you.
- keep your office, the bathroom, and one of the meeting rooms in your building neat and clean for the duration of the day.
Ready.
Go.
You will start off the day energized and feeling optimistic.
Cocky, even.
This will be a cakewalk.
You set up your employees in the meeting room with a simple task to complete.
When you leave the room they are quiet and cooperative.
You walk across the hall into your office, sit down at your desk, open up a new document, are about to strike the first key,
and you hear,
“DIIIIIIICCCCKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOOK AT WHAT NUMBER 7 DID!”
You go back across the hall.
You see this:
Ugh.
Your meeting is in 1 hour.
You clean up Number 7,
move the markers out of reach,
get your other employees back on track,
and go back across the hall.
You are three sentences into your document,
when again,
you hear,
“DDDIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICCCCKKKK!!!!
SHE DID IT AGAIN!!!”
You go back to the meeting room and see this:
Shit.
You forgot about the plants.
You remove those, and any other writing implements you left behind the last time.
You turn on the tv, forget the activity, and tell your employees to watch a show, be quiet, and keep their hands to themselves.
You go back to your office.
You manage to type your entire document.
You even get to print it out.
It’s been 15 minutes, and you still haven’t been interrupted.
You take advantage of the situation, and you reply to a couple emails.
It’s still quiet across the hall.
You have to pee, so you tiptoe to the bathroom.
You have to pass the meeting room on your way.
When you do, you peek in, and you see this:
Fuck.
Remember, you can’t swear (out loud).
And be careful of what you say to your employees.
Screaming something at them out of anger and frustration may scar them for life.
And whatever words you do use will be repeated to every single person your employees ever cross paths with.
Choose your words carefully.
You take a deep breath and try to maintain your composure, but your presentation is in ten minutes.
You are running out of time.
You throw your employees into your office.
You lock the door to the meeting room.
You’ll do the presentation in a different room.
You clean up your employees, move them into room#2, and sit them as far away from each other as possible.
You left your document in your office and you run to get it.
When you come back, you see employee Number 7 decided to doll herself up.
Oh well.
You don’t have time to wash it off.
Every office has that slutty chick anyway.
You begin your presentation to your clients and the entire time,
Number 7 is trying to pull your pants off,
Number 5 is crying hysterically because her nail polish is messed up on one finger,
and Number 6 is alternating between picking his nose and playing with his penis.
You need a break.
You haven’t had a chance to go to the bathroom, and the first meeting room you put your employees in is still trashed.
You also still have to make that phone call.
And then, it happens.
Now you also have to take a dump.
You tell your employees they can play on the computer for a couple minutes.
“Where are you going?” they all ask.
You try to deflect the question.
“You guys play on the computer. I’ll be right back,” you tell them.
You get to the bathroom, shut the door, sit on the toilet, and exhale.
3 seconds later.
Knock…
Knock… Knock.
KNOCKKNOCKNOCKKNOCKNOCKKNOCKNOCKKNOCKKNOCK!!!!
“Dick? DICK????
DIIIIICCCKKKKKIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
Can I come in? DICKIE? What are you doing in there???
ARE YOU POOPING???”
Screw it.
You open the door and let your employees in the bathroom while you take a crap.
They will all ask if they can see your poop, why you have hair down there, and how much longer you are going to take.
When you are done, you put them back in your office. You tell them if they do what they are supposed to do while you make a phone call, you will give them a big ass bonus.
You dial the number and walk into the hallway.
“Dick? Dick? Dick? Dick?DDDDIIIIIICCCCCKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DICKIE!!!! Who are you talking to?
Is that Bob?
Is it Mike?
Is it Jane?
I want to say hi!
Can I say hi?
DICK!!!! I. WANT. TO. SAY. HI. TO. JOHN!!
DDDDDDDIIIIIICCCCCCCKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!”
Remember.
No swearing.
No scarring-for-life-screamfests.
Oh yeah.
No empty threats either.
“I’m so sorry. Can you hold on for one second?” you say to the very important customer on the other end of the line.
You put the phone down.
You grab your employees by the arms, drag them into your office, through clenched teeth threaten them with the longest, most tedious job assignment EVER, and close the door behind you.
You are confident you have scared the crap out of them. They will do whatever the hell you tell them to do.
You finish your phone call. You head back to the office where you are sure you will see your employees obediently waiting for you.
And you see this:
But don’t worry.
It’s almost 10:00.
You only have seven hours to go until you get to go home.
I mean, unless you are a stay at home mom.
Then you get to do this shit 24/7.
Thank you for making me Number 1!
I NEED YOUR VOTES TO STAY THERE!
Please click on the banner below!
yes. oh goodness, yes. I could give you millions of examples, but I know you’ve lived them all so I’ll just say yes.
YES, YES, YES. I HAVE FOUR CHILDREN, 5 AND UNDER (YES) AND ONLY MY ELDEST HAS A FULL SCHOOL DAY. THE MIDDLE TWO HAVE ONLY AFTERNOONS (AND ONE OF THEM ONLY 3 DAYS). I WORK FROM HOME, AM AN ATTORNEY & SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT COACH, AND IF I DIDNT CHOOSE TO USE MY CHILDREN AS MY SPIRITUAL PRACTICE IT IS FORESEEABLE THAT ONE WON’T SURVIVE THIS. HOW MUCH FUN IT IS AND WHAT A TESTAMENT OF ONES ABILITY TO NEGOTIATE, MOVE AHEAD AND KEEP PICKING UP THE PIECES TO GET TO WHAT NEEDS TO GET DONE IS UNPARALLELED TO ANYTHING I HAVE SEEN IN AN OFFICE SETTING.
THANKS FOR THIS POST- REALLY ‘HIT HOME’.
This is your best post yet! This is what my day looks like everyday as a stay-at-home mom with 4 under 4 years old 🙂 Thank you for making my day.
I can completely understand your feelings. When I was thinking of having my third, I remember my friend asking me, “Are you sure you want to be in baby jail for another 4 years?” And that’s the truth! You are in baby jail. But the reality is that I have two older kids in school now, and the time with your baby just flies by! Enjoy even the crazy moments. I’ve just learned to let go. I don’t clean as I go along. I just clean at night, once, and that’s all.
I wrote a blog on “What I Learned while Running Errands with the Kids” Its pretty amazing that it can be a fun experience.
Momscript.com
I loooooved this post. I found your blogg today through Scary Mom, and I am a fan. I only have one toddler at home, but you wrote exactly what I feel like on a daily basis. And I am sooooooo tired of the working mom/family comments about what I do all day. Thank you!!! From Scandianvia
I must say, as much as I appreciated your challenge and I really don’t want to take away from the hard work that you and other stay-at-home mothers do I still feel personally that working mothers have it just as hard if not harder than you. And I can say this with great certainty because I live your life two months a year.
You see, I am a teacher at a high school. I leave my daughter and drop her off at the ungodly hour of 6:45am in the morning and do not see her until 3:30pm in the afternoon. I have to wake my child out of bed deprive her of more sleep which coincides with enormous guilt and spend maybe 30 minutes getting ready with her appeasing herself for periods of time. I have missed first steps, I have missed first words I have missed major monumental events that she along with 12 other children have shared in a room with one daycare teacher. And Not only that but I do cook, clean, do laundry, fold clothes, washdown sinks and toilets, everything else that my job is required of as a mother in top of the numerous requirements of me as a teacher.
It utterly breaks my heart every morning when I see on social media mom’s posting breakfast with their children on the workweek day and I don’t get that opportunity. So as much as you can say it is hard for you as a full-time mom to take care of all your duties and tasks it is 10 times harder on the full-time working mom to take care of all the duties and tasks of yours and my job as well. But yet somehow, we forgot that the full-time working mom not only works just as hard she doesn’t get to see all the wonderful things that you guys do.
Thank you!! I agree with your comment 100%! I am blessed to be able to stay at home with my 3 year old and newborn and would never ever compare it to a working mom. I seriously couldn’t imagine getting up that early every morning and getting myself and children ready to be dropped off somewhere. My baby is 8 weeks old so if I was working my maternity leave would have been over 2 weeks ago. This little guy is still up every 3 hours so I don’t sleep much….. I would die if I had to be in an office every weekday by 8am. I’m tired but at least I can be tired in sweatpants if I so choose. My parents had 14 children so I grew up in a house of chaos and still would never ever ever say that working moms have it easier. Sorry…
Never once did I reference working moms. Only assholes who question what I do all day. I don’t know a mom that would do that. But I know plenty of assholes who would.
I’ve been a working (middle school teacher) mom and a SAHM. I think both have challenges and one is not harder than the other. Exhausting and hard are different for each family and each person. I’m not sentimental so missing the first steps wasn’t a huge guilt thing for me. Getting to see the sixth and seventh steps was kinda the same for me. Planning for a sub at the last second when my son woke up puking was the hard part. That’s what makes staying home easy; I don’t have to be anywhere else. On the other hand, I found housekeeping MUCH easier when I worked. My kids were not home ALL day making mess, after mess, after mess. There was no time for painting, crafting, coloring, breakfast mess, lunch mess, toilet paper all over the floor, Tupperware out for the 20th time mess. I consider them equally challenging and equally rewarding (at least for a teacher who loves her own kids and hundreds of others). That comes
from someone that has really done them both.
Wow, I’m sorry your life is so hard. Maybe you should just give your kids away to someone who will actually appreciate them. You are referencing working people as having it easier since you’re comparing it to someone’s work day so don’t deny that. I know plenty of people who cry when they have to go to work every day because they aren’t able to have children to stay home and take care of. Maybe you should get your priorities straight and start giving your kids your time and attention instead of worrying about getting other things done. They’re only little for a little while.
Amen, Rachel!
In moments of stress induced temporary insanity I have fantasized of having the opportunity to be a stay-at-mom. Then the dust settles and I realize I would lose my effing mind! My husband and I have three girls ages 14, 10 and 5 and are actively trying for a fourth (hopefully that boy he’s dying to have). We both work full-time outside of our home, and our mornings between the hours of 6 and 8 am are total bedlam. I am the first up every morning at six in the kitchen standing in front of the fridge taking out things for breakfasts and the nights dinner. I pack the hubby’s lunch, boil eggs for his on the go breakfast, pack snacks for the 5 year old’s day at school/daycare/grandma’s house, take out cereal options for the ten year old, and feed the cat. If, like this morning, we are out of something crucial like toilet paper, I run out to the store and grab it before the rest of the house wakes up for the day. I brush my teeth, dress for work and then start the dangerous process of waking the occupants of my home; slowly and gently to avoid a total melt down from either the fourteen year old or five year old. The battle-for-the-bathroom then ensues and the hunt for the elusive other shoe is on, times three. The husband is up and on his way out the door with kisses and the standard “I love you girls, try to have a good day”. The oldest follows her dad out the door to catch the school bus to the high school with a shouted, vague schedule of when and where to pick her up after her various practices and meetings for more practices. The 10 year old is loudly slurping down cereal and talking YouTube videos and MLP episodes with the 5year old who is lying on the floor in a pout because no one knows where her other bumblebee sock is and that’s THE sock she needed to wear that day!!! The last of us are out the door by eight, me and the still pouting 5 year old to the car off to school/daycare/grandma’s house, work and the 10 year old to the elementary school a block and a half away. The texts start from the 14 year old about this time and usually total an average of 6-9 for requests for the basketball shoes she forgot on her bed or the flags she left in the back of the car and NEEDS them for Color Guard practice that night by 5. Could I PLEASE use my lunch break to gather these things and bring them to her at the high school? It’s usually smack in the middle of this hair graying craziness that I longingly wish to be that stay-at-home mom and think that my day would be so much easier to handle in sweatpants without the nine hour shift that follows it all everyday. Then I get the call from my younger sister who IS a stay-at-home mom to my four and five year old niece and nephew. She’s near tears, full of swear words, all she wants is a break, to just get away from them for five stinking minutes or to pee/shower alone or not have to clean her house five times a day or just talk to another adult outside the carpool lane about anything else other than her children or who’s turn it is to send the gluten-free, peanut-free, store bought, never homemade, healthy snacks for the week that the kids have zero interest in eating. I’m talking her off the ledge as I walk into work to start my work day, and I’m thinking to myself that without this nine hour paid break from my family I’d go postal and at least two of my three beautiful children wouldn’t survive past the age of 16. I admire the women who are stay-at-home moms and know myself well enough to know I’m not strong enough for THAT job title.
Hi. Iv been a sham and a working mom (and the very brief and nauseating attempt to work from home) and I can say without a doubt that staying at home with my precious troublemaking 2 and 4 yr old boys is the hardest job ever. Yes I’m so happy that I dont miss anything when I’m staying home with them but the endless job of ensuring their happiness at all times is pure exhausting. At least with a job you get breaks and there’s a quitting time. This blog tells it all