I’m currently reading “Mommy Wars, Stay at Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families”. I know, it’s as if I’m not busy enough with my current schedule. But as a writer, I’m also required to read books for the sake of producing good articles for this blog. Anyway, this book is about the misunderstanding between stay at home moms and career moms.
A stay at home mom to a working mom: “Poor woman, they don’t know what they are missing. My kids are my priority, I won’t miss out anything even for the money”
a working mom to a stay at home mom: “What the hell does she do everyday? Isn’t she bored? And seriously, she needs to at least put on lipgloss for crying out loud”
Sounds familiar? I have to admit it. Sometimes I do wonder what stay at home moms do everyday. I know for sure they’re just as busy as career moms. All the contributors of this book were former career moms who chose to be stay at home moms. I’m half way through reading this book and I have yet to find a mom who’s happy to stay at home. All these women were miserable and ended up going back to work mainly because they missed of having adult intelligent conversations, not having enough money or not feeling they contribute enough to the society. My favorite part of the book is about a woman whom after several years staying at home, went back to work as a writer for several sitcoms. Her home is in NY but she travelled constantly to L.A. It was tough in the beginning for her kids who were so used to having her around, but she’s happier. A year later her work and life balance were a bit easier as her trips were getting shorter. One morning, she was walking around the park with her oldest son who was seven at that time. She asked him, “Would you prefer me to stay at home or work?” He said, “I prefer whatever makes you happy”.
That leads into some confessions I have to make:
- After eight weeks of maternity leave, I was so eager to go back to work
- I never felt guilty when I left my son at daycare for the first time
- My son cried almost every morning until he was 2.5 years old every time I dropped him off at daycare, and yet I never felt bad about it because I knew he’s in a good hand (his teachers told me he stopped crying 2 minutes after I left, and refused to go home when I picked him up).
There are some good days or bad days at work, but I realize I could never be a stay at home mom. Does it mean I’m a bad mom? I don’t think so. Because I’m happy when picking up my son and he runs toward me with his arm wide open giving a big hug. I’m happy because I’m not overwhelmed with all these mommy duties and get to spend some quality time with my son after dinner. I’m happy because my husband contributes a lot in taking care of household and raising our son instead of being the breadwinner and leaving everything else up to me. So why all these matters? Because it takes a happy mother to raise a happy child. There are some days that I wish I could take my son to a nearby park during the week, laying down on the grass, starring at the clouds and trying to figure out what the shapes look like. But you just can’t have everything. At least not at the same time.
Tags: stay at home mom, working mom
