Thoughts from a Working Mom

If I am being honest, I have wanted to write this post since the moment that I started this blog. I write it in my head every single day.

I write it on Sunday nights. I write it on rushed Monday mornings. I write it when I we need to get the grocery shopping done or when the laundry piles up (that's all the time). I write it when I hear my child coughing all night and know that I have to go to work in the morning.

I haven't written it because I never want to offend anyone. But all of a sudden, it dawned on me. How can I offend someone when these are my thoughts and feelings? These words are simply my experience. They are not yours and they are not meant to demean any other person's experience as a mother. This is me. So please read it with that in mind. Everything that I write is simply from the heart of a little old me...a mom who happens to also have a job.

First, I don't think motherhood is a job. Being a parent is not a job. By definition, a job is "the regular work that a person does to earn money". So it's kind of a fact that being a parent is not a job...unless you have a found a way to get paid for it. If so, contact me personally. ASAP. Thanks.

I have a job. I am a teacher. I get paid for that job. But I am also a mother. It is a blessing, a struggle, and a privilege to be a mother. But it is not a job.

When someone says that they have made the choice to stay home to "raise their children", it implies that I choose work over my children. It implies that I am not raising my children because I must work. I can assure you that I AM RAISING MY CHILDREN. We are all raising our children.

When someone says that they chose to sacrifice their career for the sake of their children, it implies that I would not make that sacrifice. It also implies that my children suffer because I work. When someone says that it is a choice, I can tell you that that's not always the case. When someone says that they feel sorry for mothers who want to stay home but can't for financial reasons, it sounds like you feel bad for me. You feel bad for me because you were able to make the right choice, and I so clearly have been forced down the wrong path. When someone says that being a homemaker "makes the world go round", it implies that working moms do not. We are less, in some way. You can say that it doesn't imply that, but I FEEL that it does. Maybe I am over thinking it, but again, these are my feelings.

When I see a person state that they should get paid more than $112,000 for being a SAHM, I start to wonder. Then would I get paid less because I work out of the home? Am I less of a mom? Because I can assure you that no magic fairy comes to the house of working parents and does the laundry, takes the kids to doctor appointments, goes grocery shopping, cleans the bathrooms, kisses boo boos, diffuses constant arguments, tucks kids into bed at night, and makes lunches. Nope. I still have to do that fun stuff too.

The truth is that everyone has to make the best decision for them and their family. And it's not always a choice. My husband and I are both teachers and we simply need to be a two income family. I like my job. I love my kids.

I am a mom who happens to have a job. Being a mother is not my "job"... although raising my three daughters is the biggest part of who I am.

I fail everyday. I succeed everyday. And I'm doing the absolute best that I can on Sunday nights, on rushed Monday mornings, when grocery shopping needs to be done and laundry piles up, and when my child is coughing all night and I have to go to work the next morning. I'm raising my children and giving it my all...and from here on out, I won't let anyone make me feel otherwise.