In my 7 years as a mom, I’ve had a lot of titles. I was a full-time working mom, a part-time working mom, a part-time work from home mom, I was a mom-blogger and I was a SAHM with a blog and now I’m a full-time work at home mom (who has a blog that she doesn’t post on a much as she used to).
I know there are always talks about who has it hardest when it comes to momming. Whether working moms have it harder or if stay at home moms have it harder. And I have to say, having dabbled in at all, it’s all hard. It’s different variants of hard but it’s hard.
When I was a full-time working mom, the worrying and the guilt were hard. I didn’t even feel guilty that I was working but more so guilty that other people were watching my kids. That they were dealing with the dirty diapers and the crying when I should have been the one doing that.
When I was a stay at home mom the loneliness was hard. The days without anyone to talk to. Days that started at 5 am with screaming and ended at midnight with screaming. Days where the most conversation I had was, “Did you go poop?” And I found myself binge-watching teen mom and thinking at least the teen moms had each other.
When I worked part-time I felt inconvenient and ineffective. Part-time work isn’t considered real work in the grand scheme of things, even though it’s hard work and important work try saying you work part-time without getting a dose of side-eye. My part-time job always had me feeling less than. It didn’t bring in a ton of money, it was a road bump in my husbands busy week, it meant finding childcare. But I needed that time away from home doing something other than caring for children. I needed that feeling of being a productive adult, because in the eyes of the world a productive adult is one who works, right?
And now I’m a full-time work at home mom and other than being a SAHM to a colicky infant it is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Working from home with a 2-year-old and a 7-year-old is just not for the faint of heart or for anyone who doesn’t want to change diapers during conference calls or finish writing a sentence while helping with math homework.
But for as hard as it is, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I love having a career and kids and I love the endless stream of hugs throughout my work day and that fact that a baby during a conference call isn’t viewed negatively. I love getting my son off the bus at the end of the day and I love being able to tuck my daughter in for her nap. Yes, there’s an endless stream of Disney Jr in the background and there are days when it seems like I would give anything for a soundproof office and I do get tired of being asked, “hey mom what are you doing” (I’m WORKING) a 1000 times a day. But if putting up with all of that means I get to be here, at home with them, then I’ll do it every day.
So I’ve run the course of working motherhood and no matter how you have it, whether you’re at home with kids or working in an office, no one has it easy. We all do this work, hard work for our kids.
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