R-E-S-P-E-C-T
There is an old joke that starts, “A man comes home from work and found his three children outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard.” It goes on to elaborate on the mess inside the house as well: dishes in the sink, broken glass and sand on the floor, toothpaste on the bathroom mirror and toys everywhere. When he finally finds his wife, she is curled up in bed reading a novel. He says, “What happened here today?”
To which she replies, “You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world I did today? Well, today I didn’t do it.”
As much as I hate to admit it, this joke accurately represents the view many people still hold about stay-at-home parents of both genders. When Mom stays home with the kids, she is bombarded with questions about how she could possibly fill her day if she doesn’t have to work outside of the home, plus the more modern “concern” about whether she is lacking necessary “career fulfillment.” When Dad stays home, he has to answer the same questions while fighting societal stereotypes that cast him as less masculine than his male peers.
The truth about being a stay-at-home parent is that it is some of the hardest work a person will ever do. The day starts as soon as the first child wakes in the morning and doesn’t end until the parent climbs back into bed at night. Even then, it is the stay-at-home parent who typically manages any nighttime needs because first consideration is given to the working parent, the one who has to leave the house to earn a living. I know it might sound like hyperbole to say that a parent’s work is never done, but let’s look at a typical day in the life of my friend, Jesi, mother of a 3- and a 1-year-old.
A day in the life
The 1-year-old wakes up at 6:30 a.m. to nurse with his mama before the hectic day starts. After he dozes off again, Jesi checks her email and attends to the administrative details of the household and the La Leche League chapter for which she volunteers. If there’s time, she grabs a bath. Because her bathroom is next to the bedroom, at least one of the kids wakes up while she’s in there and joins her in the tub. Then everyone needs breakfast. Jesi makes some food for 3-year-old Nora while nursing 1-year-old Max in the sling. While the kids eat, she gets dressed as quickly as possible while making a phone call to another friend to finalize details for a play outing.
After three hours at the park they start the trek home. Because they’re so close to Jesi’s mom’s house, they stop to visit. Jesi helps her mom out with some chores while the kids play. She drives home thinking she still needs to mow the lawn and start dinner, but today her husband surprises her and has those things done. Her children have fallen asleep on the ride home and so the process of waking them up to eat dinner begins. Get one up and the other falls asleep – wake up the sleeping one and then spend 15 minutes nursing because waking up is hard to do. Finally, everyone is awake, fed and not happy about it. It’s 8:30 p.m. and Jesi remembers she has to get to the grocery store. The 1-year-old needs his mama, so he comes along while the still-fussy 3-year-old stays home with daddy.
By the time she returns, Nora and her husband have fallen asleep, so she carries the groceries in and puts them away while working around the toddler at her feet. Around 10:00 p.m. the littlest one is wide awake and Jesi decides to watch a movie, a grownup movie, while she nurses Max down for the night. Once he’s asleep an hour later, Jesi enjoys 60 minutes of peace and quiet, knowing that it’s all going to start over again in about six hours.
But it doesn’t end there
It’s easy to think that her life is so hectic because her children are both toddlers. The belief is often that when the kids go to school, there isn’t really any need to continue to have a stay-at-home parent in the family. Those of us who stay home with school-aged kids would beg to differ. During the last week of school I woke up at seven every morning with my kids and was up until after 10 each night. I attended a field trip, two Girl Scout bridging ceremonies, Field Day, a class play, the school’s annual ice cream social and drove the kids to countless after-school activities. There was also the house to manage, paying bills, grocery shopping, going to the bank and post office, etc. There were meals and snacks and dishes to do, floors to sweep, laundry to wash and pets to care for. Like most parents I know, I go to bed each night fretting about something that didn’t get done and wake up each morning with a mental to-do list for the day.
According to the experts at salary.com, a person doing all the things a stay-at-home parent does should make approximately $224,200 per year, including overtime pay for working nearly 100 hours a week. Most of the parents I know feel that watching their children grow, guiding them through the tough situations and teaching important life skills are payment enough for staying home. But it would be awfully nice if the world in general acknowledged the work we do was worth even a fraction of that amount. VS
