The Stay-at-Home Mom Identity Crisis

What do you do? It is a simple straightforward question that many stay-home moms have come to dread. We dread the question because of the look we often receive when we give the standard answer, “I am a stay-home mom”. The “look” can range from something that seems to say “how dull” to something more in the neighborhood of, “oh, isn’t that cute”. There are people who understand how all-encompassing being a stay-home mom is but most of those people stay home with their children as well, and to them we feel we owe no explanation.

If you are reading this because you, like me, choose to stay with your children full-time during their most formative years than you understand that this life is not for the faint of heart (or the easily frightened for that matter). You know that your day is not filled with soap operas and a leisurely flip through a few home décor magazines. So, why does the rest of society not seem to understand what we are saying to them when we boldly state, “I am a stay-at-home parent”?

Maybe we are not making ourselves clear.

The people shooting me the patronizing looks may not realize that I have spent the last hour and a half fishing a bar of soap out of a clogged toilet (courtesy of my three-year-old). They do not know that I was up all night consoling my little girl because she has decided that bears are coming to our home to eat her in her sleep. I have even recently become an unpaid veterinarian as my kids are now old enough to bring every injured creature that find in the back yard (including insects) to me to be fixed. This does not take away from my time as a self appointed medical doctor. Those who work outside the home have no idea how much research is involved in my position here; mostly on websites with title like, ‘What is This Rash.com’, or ‘Why Won’t it Stop Bleeding.com’. You other stay-home moms know exactly what I am talking about. On a daily basis I settle hostile negotiations; entertain a rather unforgiving audience; and do more large scale cleanup than a Red Cross crew. There is not a single job title that tells the general public what it is that I do. This is without a doubt the hardest job I have ever done and it is the most rewarding (emotionally, not financially of course).  

The next time you are asked by some curious new acquaintance what it is that you do, why not give them a more complete answer. From now on I am going to start looking forward to the formerly dreaded inquiry. I will be ready for it. “What do I do?” you ask. I am a referee, a chef, a housekeeper, a plumber, a mechanic, a zoo keeper, a teacher, a counselor, a taxi driver, a nurse, keeper of the popsicles, emperor of the vegetable garden, and all around go-to person.