Recently, I’ve been confused by my peers who call themselves stay-at-home parents while they publish essays or even books, and run businesses from home. Is it because they are able to do those things without using childcare? Or is it because they take greater pride in stay-at-home-parenthood than the part-time career activities in which they are engaged, so they prefer to use that label?
It seems that there are no longer two buckets: working parents and stay-at-home parents. There are many hybrids. Folks who work from laptops while their kids are sleeping or doing art projects. Parents who take conference calls while they push their kid on the swing. Parents who travel and work their butts off for four straight days and then spend the next three making every one scrambled eggs before taking them outside to ski. The salary and benefits may be unstable for many of us, but this mishmash of roles can be a beautiful thing.
And thank god for smart phones.
I work between 9 and 3 when my kids are in school, but due to my flexible schedule, I am able to take them to weekday swimming lessons and playdates at the park. If there is a sick day or a doctor’s appointment, my work can wait. (Though it may pile up and keep me occupied when I’d rather be watching TV). I am incredibly lucky this way. Thanks to technology, my husband can also take a work-from-home day when necessary. (His boss and some of his employees are located in other states!) I know doctors, restaurant managers, and teachers cannot “work from home.” I feel more connected to the term “working” than “staying at home”, but perhaps that is driven by a rationale for why my kids have attended preschool nearly every day since age two.
I do wonder if stay-at-home parents find it annoying when folks who earn as much money as they used to call themselves stay at home parents. Or do full-time working parents find it annoying when I say I’m a working mom, but then I am available to go to class parties for my first grader?
Today on Momversation, I got a chance to raise this issue with Tanis from Redneck Mommy and Jessica Gottlieb. Watch our video and let us know what you think.
I hate these terms. Why do there have to be categories? I do what I do… you do what you do… at the end of the day, we’re both awesome moms. All these labels leads to people judging people.
I say I’m a mommy by day, Illustrator by night…because I only get work done when they’re sleeping. Of course my husband works full time, but he does three 12 hour night shifts, so he’s home 5 days a week as well. It’s pretty sweet. I wouldn’t call him a stay at home dad though.
I agree with Michelle! Once you start labeling, then you get into the discussion of whether “staying at home” means that taking care of your kids is NOT work, which leads inevitably to the “whose life is harder” debate… let’s just all be moms, and writers, or lawyers, or PTA volunteers, or whatever else we are.
I thought there were Stay-at-home Parents, Work-at-home Parents, and Work-outside-the-home Parents, and similar categories for non-parents. Oh, then there’s the people who partly work-at-home and partly work-outside-the-home and partly stay-at-home, and oh my! Let’s just discuss this on a case-by-case basis!
I am home during the day, working, but my kids are not. What does that make me, the laziest stay-at-home-mom ever?
Such a great post! I’ve always had a really hard time with what to call myself. I’m a part of a local group of moms and when we introduce ourselves to new members we say SAHM, WAHM, or WOHM. Many of us do work from home on businesses or watch other children and there are some of us that just run our households. We all work. I agree with CM and Michelle!
Okay, the word “just” made me sound like it’s less. Sorry, not my intent.
I work part time but I still identify myself as a stay at home mom. You have to have labels because otherwise people would take forever to describe themselves. I could say “I’m a stay at home mom” or I could say “I work two days a week at a job in which I bring my daughter with me. The rest of the days I function as a stay at home mom”. Yeah, too long. I don’t send my daughter to daycare, and I don’t have to deal with any aspect of that, so I feel like describing myself as a working mother would be misleading. That’s how I happen to define it, that doesn’t mean that’s how everyone defines it.
Love this topic – thanks for bringing it up! It gets even more complicated when you’re a stay-at-home mom who works during nap time at building something that can barely even be called a business yet ;).
As much as I hate labels, I do think labels help us identify people to whom we can relate. I think we can all agree that the challenges of work where you do not have flexibility are very different than the challenges when you do have a flexible schedule.
For example, even though I telecommute, I have to be AT MY DESK available from 8:30-5. So when I want to discuss the challenges of this, I want to talk to people who have a job where they work a “normal” work day with little flexibility. It’s not that I think it is harder or easier… I just want advice from people who’ve been in my shoes. It’s not about who has it harder, for me it’s all about finding my support community.
I’m a work at home mom I guess. I work from home full time and have a babysitter 3 days a week. I often work from my laptop while playing with R on his mat.
What Steph said! It took me a long time to notice this, but I’ve found that how I label myself has a lot to do with whether or not I’ve made money in a particular month. It’s really hard for me to define the business-y aspects of my life as “work” when I’m not making enough money to pay even one bill for the month — even when what I’m doing is laying the groundwork to earn money down the road. I’ve also found that since my work has been slooooowly transitioning from hobby to money-maker it’s been hard for me to adjust my mindset from one to the other.
My husband and I were just talking about this last week! I left a 60+ hour a week last spring b/c my daughter was growing up hearing me say “hurry up” and “we’re late” way to much. We made a HUGE shift and I’m now home. But…she’s in preschool 3 days a week. I am trying to get some consulting jobs, and I’m putting a toe into the blogging world, but considering what I used to do for work, it doesn’t really feel like work. That being said, I’m super busy at home, and love taking care of my daughter, our home and our life. So when my husband told a friend that I was “taking a break from work” I got ruffled. So he said, what do you want me to say? (PS, he’s genuinely supportive of this and really wanted to know) I had no answer. Nothing fits exactly. That’s why I was so happy to see this post!
All I do know, is that I find myself saying “just” too much before I answer people (“just” at home, “just” 1 consulting job). There is nothing “just” about what I’m doing.
Emily, a fabulous woman once told me to never use the word “just” when I meet someone new. She heard me say that “I just do small projects”, and I KNOW that I’ve said aloud that I am not really an author because I “just co-authored two gift books.” Seriously? What is my problem?
I passed this along to my little sis (also named Emily just before she went for a job interview and it resonated with her as well: If you hear yourself say “just”, simply back up and start your sentence again without that word (and with more enthusiasm).
I struggle w/ my situation even though I know a lot of mothers would love to have my set up. I work full time from home for a major company, and I have a nanny come into the home. I get to have meals with my children, and I also can take them to classes, dr appts, playdates if it works w/ my schedule. That said, I also find that somehow I also do all the chores, food shopping, cleaning, etc. Not because my spouse won’t help, but it falls on me because I’m home and I want our evenings to be as chore free as possible. So I end of straddling the work of a SAHM and a WAHM. And I cannot excel at both, so my work becomes mediocre. I don’t want to give up my career, but I don’t want to be away from my children and not stay on top of the household tasks (a full time job IPO). I end up exhausted. Can I have it all? I don’t think so…
I call myself a work-at-home Mom. Best of both worlds. I can contribute to the family income while also being home with my son. To Moms that stay at home without being employed, I know that is work too. I struggle constantly to get things done while chasing around a toddler, esp now that we are potty training!
I am not there yet, having the kids that is. However, a majority of my clothes friends are married with kids. I see them looking to be parents and work to provide for the house. It makes me wonder if I am in the right place to be able to have children and still earn a decent income to help provide for my household. There can be such a variation between labels of who’s who, Stay at home parent or a Working Parent. But if you’re a parent that works at home, you have the best of both worlds. I would think that would be enough to not care about the label 🙂 I am interested to hear what others have to say!
You have to do what’s best for you and your family — no one else can tell you the answer to that. For me, working is best. I miss my kid like CRAZY during the day but work is my me-time. I need it for my own sanity. For others, being at home might be the best for their sanity… working at home might be the best. Every option has pros and cons. You have to weigh them for yourself.
I’m going to be a stay at home dad. No work, no hassles, just 100% focus on baby development.
For awhile it’s going to be boring as hell, but that’s why we blog, isn’t it? As he grows, however, I’ll be able to help him learn and discover out and about. I can’t wait.
I like the idea of telling people I’m a “work-at-home” mom. I was very fortunate to begin freelancing while I was still pregnant, and have kept it up since my daughter was born in early January. I took a month “off” so that my clients wouldn’t expect great things from me while I was adjusting, but now that I’m back, we’re really finding it works for us. Explaining it to people, though, is a challenge – people don’t see what I do as working. This was a great post to read, really helped put some things I was thinking in some kind of order.
We’re not in Mayberry anymore… staying home and ironing underpants. We’re ‘liking’ things on pinterest and reading blogs likes this to be more creative about how we run our homes and lives. Kudos to us!
Guess I’m a hybrid, been doing it for 9 months and like everything it comes with new kinds of stress and perks. I used to work FT and now I work 3 days a week from home, while my son is in daycare.
I get more time with him now then I have, but being on your own and working from home, takes the same organization, focus and motivation — just like my FT job where I was managing a team.
Some days its great, some days not so much. I see little people on those 3 days, but I do get to bring home some of the bacon and do what I love. My sister, is a 100% at-home-no-work mom–while she’s not making cash, she’s raising 3 boys–that’s a job. Some days she calls me crying–it is what it is!
It’s hard enough being a mom and dealing with the mom-guilt and/or bringing home some income and/or wanting more for yourself in terms of a ‘career’ and ‘life’.
I love keeping this question alive… I often circle back to ‘what exactly am I giving 100% to anyway?’ All Moms feel this in burden in some form or another. Feels good to be reminded of it!
just to answer the question, ‘do SAHMs get annoyed when.. etc etc..?’ no. It never occurred to me to be annoyed at that. Do I feel annoyed now that you bring it up? Still no. Maybe a little jealous. Of you (for having a sense of self and probably accomplishment outside the home). Of myself (for not having other work to do during naptime – my quiet time of bliss).
to echo the above comment, it has never occurred to me to be annoyed at another mom who works from home but calls herself a sahm…or any other combination of roles for that matter! every woman for herself, i say. i think that 98% of the time, moms are trying their darndest to do the very best they can for their kids, and to maintain a sense of self and sanity. so if that means, saying you’re a stay at home mom when you are on conference calls while your kids are at the park…whatev! that’s great! nobody would get snarky at me for reading a book while my kids play on the playground, why should i get snarky at someone for earning money when they can?