Working Mommies - both stay at home, in the office and in between

I have friends that are stay at home moms, friends that work at an office and then there are people like me who work but office from home and no matter where you fall in that category, some one somewhere has given you grief about your choice. i will never understand why some moms sometimes frown on the working moms. Hey, we have to do the same stuff you do only we have to do it typically before 8am or after 5pm along with whatever our jobs require. But by the same token, I really hate it when a working mom looks down on a stay at home mom.

I have heard it said more than one by a working mom to a stay at home mom, "well, it's not like you have to go to work or anything." HELLO! even though i have never been a stay at home mom in the truest since of the word, i will be the first to admit that stay at home mom is darn sure a job! it's one of the most thankless jobs there is. sure you have the glory of being with your children and raising them as you see fit and lets face it, being a parent is a thankless job most of the time anyway.

No one says, THANK YOU MOM for doing the dishes. THANK YOU MOM for the 15 loads of clothes you did today. THANK YOU MOM - for fighting with the crowds at the store and buying us food....i could go on and on but all you mom's know what i'm talking about. Now add in the thankless part for all that any mom does and then add to it that you don't get an actual paycheck and typically - i don't mean to man bash but lets face facts here boys - there is a man in the background complaining because you had the nerve to splurge and spend $20. to buy yourself something nice because you want to say thank you to yourself. When you don't have a paycheck coming in, you have the "spending my money line" from the working man in your household. stay at home mommies work ashard, if not harder, than the working mommies only they have someone giving them grief about "not working."

To this I say you have two options ----

option #1 - devise your pay scale and deliver your weekly itemized billing to said working man and i suggest things like the following:

8 loads of dishes this week@ 5.00 a load = 40.00
30 loads of laundry @5.00 a load = 200.00
7 dinners at @20.00 each = 140.00
3 floor cleanings @25.00 each = 75.00
4 cleanings of bathrooms @25.00 each = 100.00
7 routine picking up the house at @25.00 each = 175.00
one week of day care for one kid = 650.00 (feel free to add more for more children)
one week of daily taxi charges= 100.00
__________________________________

Total: 1480.00
**feel free to add additional charges for other wifely duties you feel should be include and present this to snarky husband/better half and demand your payment up front.

next time he has a comment about you not working, you can present your weekly pay stub and remind him that you do indeed work.

option #2 -

to all those working mommies who have something catty to say to you, i would tell them that you would gladly trade places with them for a week and then let them get back to you on if you really work or not. i bet after a week of working in your shoes, their weekly itemization is gonna be a little bit higher and i can guarantee that their outlook on how hard being a stay at home mom really is will be through the roof!

so to all my stay at home moms, when i hear things like, "well you can take a nap if you wanted to, it's not like you work." or "of course you have time, you don't have a job." i want to personally smack the person who said it and if it's a woman that said it, i really want to snag her by the purse, trap her in a room with her kids for a week on end and then see how she feels about a stay at home mom not working. i have your back ladies......