My Plight as a SAHM

This is as old as dirt.  Or feminism.  Or World War II.  

The struggle between working vs. stay at home moms.  We call ourselves SAHM, as if by abbreviation, it becomes more important.

“Important?”  I can hear you screech.  The indignation comes through the computer at me.  “Mothering is the most important job on earth.”

The SAHMs know that their work beats that of being a doctor, a sales rep, a designer, lawyer, chiropractor, teacher, any day of the week and twice on Sunday. They are sure and I count myself among them, so why aren’t I as sure?

I’ll admit it right here: I am intimidated by anyone who can hold a job.  I don’t care what it is.  If you have worked the register at Walgreen’s for the last twelve years, I hold you up in admiration.  If you’ve gone through school, gotten graduate degrees and hold what can be counted as a profession, I can’t even look you in the eye.  I defer.

Yet, I am the sole daytime responsibility of shaping two lives.  Not just any two, but two who were imagined, conceived, wanted, and loved with a ferocity only known to parents (even if it is copyrighted and claimed by an Alaskan politician.)

I draft legislation on my home front, and enforce it with consternation of a corrections officer (most of the time.)  My kitchen, stocked and decorated by me alone, awaits the craft studied at snooty cooking schools and competed for in reality shows.  I make and keep more appointments than the administrative assistant to the busiest CEO, tend to the sick, cheer goals and grades, and make up stories that might tickle Dr. Seuss with green.  

Yet, that Walgreen’s lady, there every time I need a glue stick or a prescription, to develop my pictures, or pick up a pack of gum, unhinges me.

As my daughter approaches the freeing age of kindergarten, when the walls rise and my day will be filled with delicious time, I tell myself that I will get a job.  Join the workforce.  Be one of them, and feel fulfilled.  

I am more than just a mother, I tell myself.  I am capable of SO MUCH MORE.

So I should enjoy it now.  And I do, the coffee klatches with the other moms as our daughters practice ballet, the bonding chitchat while I wait for my son to move up to his next karate belt, the play-dates, class parties.  I like going to the homes of the other moms, bringing munchkins and talking about the kids, the hardships, the disciplining.  I like to check out their houses and take stock.  Their kitchen is bigger, but I like the way I decorated my nursery better.  I’m more or less happy with the way our lives match up, pretty close to my own, and I feel the panic quell just a bit. 

Until I meet that one mom, the one who sews homemade clothes for her girls, who makes meatloaf cupcakes with mashed potato “frosting.”  My sister-in-law feeds my niece beets for dessert, and she begs for more.  I know moms who don’t own television,  and others whose children have written musicals, started foundations for poor Africans.  And the intimidation rises again.

Maybe I want to work, not because I think I’m better than a stay-at-home mom, but because I’m afraid I’m not.