Jobs

Some people say that being a stay-at-home mom is one of the hardest jobs in the world.
I disagree. I mean, I know of a lot of harder jobs out there. For example, I'd take stay-at-home mom over big-city-firefighter or police officer any day. I know, I know, there's all these jokes about firefighters sitting around in recliners watching TV and about police officers eating donuts all day long, but really. Would you want to be a firefighter and march right into a burning building? Would you want to be a police officer and run toward gunfire rather than away from it? Or how about a human resources person who has to lay off people they really care about, who are depending on their jobs? No thanks.
Anyway, I don't think stay-at-home mom is the hardest job in the world. It takes more patience than some jobs, and sometimes it's frustrating. And it is hard work, because it's so constant.
Here's an example:
Yesterday my mom and I took both my kids to the mall to buy a birthday present for a friend. Big Boy had a meltdown when I made him get off the toy cars so we could leave. I was carrying him and he was throwing a tantrum and slapping my face repeatedly. I'm sure any parent, stay-at-home or not, has dealt with something like this.
Then MrDartt called and said he probably would not be home for dinner. So I fed Big Boy some pizza (I know, not the healthiest meal ever) at the mall. And then my mom asked if I wanted to go to dinner with her and my dad on the way home. I REALLY wanted to. But I couldn't because Little Boy had been crying off and on for the whole mall trip and Big Boy's disposition hadn't improved too much since the slapping my face repeatedly incident. So then, I had to head home. I dropped my mom off so my dad could pick her up, and then Big Boy screamed, at the top of his lungs, the rest of the way home. Screamed. Why?
My point is that sometimes it would be so much easier to put my own needs and desires first. And sometimes I do, like just now, Little Boy was crying in his bedroom (just woke up from his nap) and I was just going to finish my blog first. But MrDartt said that wasn't very nice. So I went and got him while MrDartt finished up what he was doing. Then he took Little Boy so I could blog.
As a stay-at-home mom, my schedule is based around the kids' schedules, like eating and naps and stuff. So I can't get on Facebook or my e-mail and send messages to my friends in the middle of the day, because then I'd be ignoring my kids. I can't just schedule a lunch date with a friend -- I have to decide what time will work for naps, what place is good for strollers, high chairs and kids, or what place has a good kids' menu.
But I'm not out in the work world, having packed up my kids early in the morning, then going to lay people off, or stand outside in the heat directing traffic, or dealing with other people's sick kids all day, or telling my patients that they have cancer and probably will die within a year, or opening up someone's skull to cut a tumor out of their brain.
I think saying stat-at-home parenting is one of the hardest jobs in the world is kind of cliche. I enjoy it (even though it's frustrating), and I think it's fun to get to teach my kids all the lessons of the world -- like to say "excuse me" if you want to go down the slide and someone's sitting at the bottom, or, as one of my old friends had to do the other day -- convince her two-year-old not to pick her poopie up out of the potty to show off that she'd finally pooped on the potty. You can't beat that!