This IS my job

"What are you going to do now?"

I can not mention the fact that all three of my children are in school four mornings a week without being asked the question above. It seems the perception of modern stay-at-home mothers, is that we are all like horses at the starting gate, chomping at the bit, waiting for that school bell to ring, in order to get on with our real lives. And, to some degree, that is true. I have written, quite recently even, about the zen-like existence I pictured myself leading once my offspring were not in my care all of their waking hours.

Instead, what has happened, is the various minutiae involved when I now have not one, but two, school-aged children seems to have quadrupled, rather than doubled. My oldest was keenly aware of my new child-free hours and leaped on the opportunity to assail me with requests to be class mother, library volunteer, ice cream and pizza day helper, and like a sucker, I agreed. Number 2 has the dubious distinction of having me as her Girl Scout leader, and while last year I skated by doing crafts and talking about the great outdoors, this year I have to actually, you know, go outdoors - with nineteen six year-olds. This requires emails to nineteen different families, then collecting reams of ass-covering paperwork to protect the Girl Scouts of America from those same parents, some of whom, act like they're doing me a favor, forcing me to hunt them down at school drop-off for their forms, in order to take their Ugg-wearing whiner into the woods for the afternoon,

So the mornings I thought would be spent writing and getting this house decorated and organized, so far, have been spent filling out insurance disclaimers and attending training sessions to learn how to use the library's checkout system (my fantasy of finally being able to wield that rubber date stamp has been shattered), resulting in a very frustrated Mean Mommy. I was thinking to myself, "When do I get to get on with my life?" Then I had a thought.

This IS my life. So why am I pretending it's not?

What I mean by that is, as a stay-at-home mother, it seems you have to have a back-up plan, a What I Really Want to be Doing, in order to not feel like a total loser. There is no cultural support for being a mother "professionally", even though more and more of us are doing just that. The culturally accepted attitude for educated, capable women who are home with their children is one of thinly-veiled disdain for a choice they themselves have made. Books like The Three Martini Playdate, while hilarious, are so popular because it is simply not cool to like, or be fulfilled by, staying at home. It's like what being smart was in high school - privately desirable, but publicly ridiculed.

The idea of having a sideline, like my writing, is good, in theory. It has given me an outlet for my intellectual energy, because no matter how time-consuming parenting is, a brain teaser it is not. I wanted to maintain my reservoir of three syllable words, but it is also an added pressure. There have been many days when I am actively annoyed with my kids because they are keeping me from writing. But guess what? They didn't make the choice for me to be at home, I did. I chose raising them to be my full-time job, and writing is my side gig - not the other way around. I realized I make myself miserable some days ignoring that fact. I cringe writing that, knowing what a throw-back I sound like. And I'm not writing here AT ALL about the choice to stay at home or work. You know I think both are very valid options, but the question I raise is, why do so many of us make this choice then refuse to embrace it? This summer, when I gave myself three months to do just that, was incredible. Now that I'm back to being pulled in a thousand directions, I have that same tight chest, oh-God-I-really-wanted-to-rewrite-the-last-paragraph, feeling when one of the kids asks me to read to them after dinner and that is really kind of messed up.

I in no way intend to give up my writing, or become a helicopter mom, making my life entirely about my kids and their lives and losing my sense of self apart from that. Plus, I curse too much to spend that much time at the school and I do think, giving child-rearing too much thought can create problems for the child and the parent equally. What I do want to pursue is a mental shift. I don't want to beat myself up anymore because I've had exactly one piece published in the three years I've been writing this blog. I don't want to feel like what I spend the majority of my waking hours doing is not a valid choice in the eyes of society. Because I know it is. In short, I want to give myself a break. Do I expect H to work two jobs? Then how do I expect that of myself? When the time is truly right, I will take on more. Maybe that time is not right now, but so what? I want to express pride in what I do and stop qualifying my existence with future plans like a sophomore trying to transfer out of community school.

Yes, it will still sting at the company holiday party when one of the young people H works with asks me what I do and my answer, "I'm at home with my kids" earns me the sound of crickets chirping and poor H will chime in about my writing, which I am loathe to do since I feel it is akin to a guy working at TGIFridays telling you he's "really an actor". But I will enjoy, more than a little, the look of surprise, that a woman who is intelligent and funny and wearing sick shoes chooses to spend her days covered in peanut butter and tempera paint or helping the first graders pick out a library book. Maybe by not qualifying what I do to someone who has no idea what a job it actually is, will help to change that person's perceptions. Perhaps I need to find a new way of saying it.

"I'm a working mother", I think says it all.