the dreaded question

it's no foreign feeling to a mom in my shoes. nearly every woman who has left a career to stay home with a child has gone through it. and more women who have had kids are more understanding than you would expect.

but that still doesn't prevent that deer in headlights, squirming in your chair, momentary speechless moment when you have to answer this question:

"who's your employer?"

"where do you work?"

"what do you do?"

about 45 things run through my brain at this point. because i can't even begin to describe the real answer to that question.

before you jump ahead of me, this isn't going to be one of those things where i go into what a...stay at home mom...actually does, and how it's hard and we wear 29 hats, and that we have value. nope. this isn't one of those blogs. 

this is a let's get real and talk about how we really feel when we have to explain to answer that question kind of post.

because i know what i do. i know what my days are like. and other moms know what my days are like. but that still doesn't give me any kind of confidence when i answer that question. it doesn't instill in me any kind of value when i know what people think about stay at home moms. 

so then i answer the question:

"right now i'm primarily home with our baby"

"i've been taking some freelance work from home"

"i just started an internet interior design company, so that's been keeping me busy"

"well for the time being i'm at home, but i still have some design work on the side"

"i'm self-employed from home"

or. if i don't feel like explaining that complicated situation i just say:

"i'm not employed" or even worse

"i don't work"

that one is a joke. i don't work?? i shouldn't even entertain that as an appropriate response. but i do. because when people ask about me it's always "is dana working?" or "you're not at work right now are you?" 

no. actually, i don't drive to an office and sit at a desk all day long (thank God), but i actually do perform work. sometimes it pays, but most of the time it doesn't. 

so then i think, a more appropriate question would be "do you have a paycheck right now?" but no. no that's almost worse. that insinuates i don't contribute to my household. which would just ad insult to injury. 

so then, let's just add on top of that the culture in which i live right now. the last place i lived, it was generally understood that staying home with your kids was a sacrifice--by most people. i knew a lot of moms that stayed home that were in similar boats as us. but now, i'm in this small, old money, richest county in the state town where most moms stay home because it's what they do. they stay home, they put on yoga pants, drop their kids off at mom's day out, go to the gym, have coffee with friends, go shopping at publix, pick up their kids, and then they put on some cute little outfit and take their seersucker monogrammed romper family out to dinner in their new suv, pretending like they don't have real world problems.

i swear, this town is so beautiful. it's picture perfect. farmland meets coastland. i can take a drive down one of the country roads here and feel so at peace. like truly, this is God's country. like there's nowhere else i'd rather live. 

and then i go back "into town" and look around me and i wonder, "what am i doing here? i am a stranger--i am not like these people." 

and for that very reason, because it's human nature to judge someone's situation just by their looks and public actions, i feel a need to separate myself from them. every time i am out during the day with my kid and have to interact with a working woman, i feel like she's thinking the same things i'd be thinking:

"i guess she doesn't have a job. lucky. she's young. i wonder if she even went to college. her husband must make a lot of money. must be nice to be able to grocery shop in the middle of the day...."

then after you've made it known to someone that you don't have a paying job, you find it necessary to justify why. 

why do i stay home? 

well. it's not because i don't want to work. it's not because we don't need the money. it's not because my husband is trapped in some 1950s idealist world where he thinks a woman's place is in the home. it's not because it's what the women do in my family. it's not because i feel like it's "my calling." it's not because i'm a better mom when i'm not working. it's not because i've given up on my career. 

it's simply because we made a decision based on what we feel is best for our family. 

and i don't know why that's not enough. i wish i could change the fact that we all judge each other's financial situations and socioeconomic statuses. i am just as guilty of it as everyone else. every time i scroll through facebook and see other moms posting pictures getting their hair done, or their nails done, or lying by the pool, or out for dinner with their family, or on vacation, i think, gee, must be nice to have expendable income. and then a little voice chimes in and goes "now, dana, you don't know what their life is like. they probably work hard for that money. plus, those things don't matter in life anyway. your day will come. now, get a move on. you have a delicious home-cooked meal to prepare before nap time is over."

and to make matters worse, on days when i'm too sick to get out of bed (because i've made the decision to breastfeed my child, sacrificing my sleep and energy and body, certainly that's not enough and my boob is now practically dying before my eyes), my child is a complete angel for my husband, allowing him to do a week's worth of my work in one day. as if it's no big deal at all. swoop swoop swoop! happy baby, clean house, dinner cooked! now, wasn't that easy??

oh. my. curse word. curse word. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! what just happened here?! what kind of twilight zone am i living in?! i look like i'm living a lie. i swear to God i'm not home all day parked on the sofa watching entire seasons of netflix-available dramas.

so the truth is, i don't live my stay-at-home life with a smile on my face all the time. just like the working moms out there who wish they would have done it differently, there are days that i wish the same. days when i know that i'd probably be less annoyed with my toddler if we had 9 hours of away time 5 days a week. or days when i think about what we could do (and how many walmart trips i could avoid) with the extra money we would have if i worked. 

and then i snap back to reality. 

certainly there is some justifiable reason to why this is what we've chosen. and certainly God has his reasons for placing us in the situations we are in. rome wasn't built in a day, right? 

i guess so. 

and don't get me wrong. most days i love that i get to spend my days with a crazy-haired jabbering toddler who eats half of my food. it's a blessing. and i mean that in the truest sense of the word. not the southern bible belt sense of the word. this is time i won't get back. time i'll be grateful for when she's packing for college. 

but joyous time period can have hard, gloomy days, where you can forget why you do what you do. all because you can't justify it to someone else, it becomes hard for you to justify it to yourself. as if you need to justify it at all! what a concept. 

what a strange and difficult concept.