Stop Calling Us ‘Stay-at-Home’ Parents. We’re Rarely at Home.

For years, I have been campaigning to change the term “stay-at-home mom/dad” (SAHM/D) to “full-time” parent. “We are rarely at home,” I say to anyone who’ll listen. “We’re out running errands, schlepping kids to activities, volunteering at school, and, yes, even exercising.” So far, though, my campaign has been grassroots and limited to the number of people I come into contact with — usually other parents in my small community.

Why the term “full-time parent?” It connotes work. A job. Which is precisely what it is. I have worked a full-time corporate job and I have been a full-time parent. Guess which one is more work? WAY more work.

So, if it is, in fact a job, what job is it? Project manager. I tell anyone who’ll listen that I am the Project Manager of [our address]. (The house has its own demands). Luckily, I have experience with project management and understand the job requirements.

I am in charge of running the schedules of my three kids + mine + looking at overlaps/intersections with my husband’s work schedule. If he’s out of town when I have a school function at night, I have to find a sitter. If for some reason I need to be in two places at once (which happens often), I will try to arrange a carpool. I am now adding another person’s schedule into the mix. Sometimes coordinating a carpool takes more time than the actual driving time; however: two places at once. I am also in charge of accounts receivable, accounts payable, building management and maintenance, all food-related tasks, all social coordination for adults and children, paperwork, educational requirements for the children (homework, projects), medical and dental needs of the children, car repairs and maintenance. I buy all the gifts throughout the year for the kids’ friends’ birthdays, all the presents at Christmas. If we go on a trip, I pack for myself and the kids. I am not saying any of this to complain. I’m saying it to prove my point that raising children is a full-time job.

And I’d also very much like to do away with the soap opera and bon bon clichéd view of mothers because I believe that image is what’s associated with the term “stay-at-home” parent. There is a certain degree of leisure and relaxation associated with the label “stay-at-home,” as if we’re lounging on the couch. If we’re home, which isn’t often, we’re usually breaking up fights between kids, serving them snacks and cleaning up after said snacks. “Cutting fruit” is a term one of my friends and I joke about because I feel like I’ve been cutting fruit for centuries. “What’d you do this weekend?…besides cut fruit?” is one of our go-to jokes. To be fair, when we’re home, my daughters and I also play card games, dance, bake, pick flowers, color, play nail salon, watch baking shows. There is joy in childhood. In my own childhood, joy was a rarity — to be able to experience it now with my children is a gift.

Some people who know me might object to my saying I’m a full-time mom. Why? Because I have help. What do I do when I’m away from my kids and another woman is watching one or all of them? This. What you’re reading right now. I write. I tell people I am a full-time mom and a part-time writer. One day, I hope to switch the two and be a full-time writer and a part-time mom. But, as we all know, part-time jobs are never part time. In reality, I will be a full-time writer and a full-time parent.

People often tell me that I’m lucky that I get to take care of my kids full-time. I understand where they’re coming from — I am lucky — and they don’t have that luxury. I also see it from the flip side: my husband is lucky, too. He has someone who removes all obstacles to his attention, takes care of every detail at home and with the kids, so that he can focus solely on work. That, I argue, allows him to make more money.

Money is what I think is at the root of the hostility toward those of us who don’t “work.” Even though everything I do for our family results in a higher income, it is never taken into consideration as earnings. I don’t have check stubs I can point to and, if there isn’t proof, it doesn’t exist. Not all with full-time jobs outside the home have a full-time project manager at home. Not all full-time parents have help. I understand that I am privileged to have this help and I don’t take it for granted.

Do you know of any full-time jobs that are ‘round-the-clock? Maybe some. Doctors during residency. But that’s only temporary. Yet we expect full-time parents to devote themselves to parenthood ‘round the clock and if they’re not — if they’re exercising or getting their hair cut like normal human beings — they are somehow slacking on the job.

I remember a time when women were calling themselves their family’s CEO. This never made sense to me because, honestly, what does a CEO do? CEOs get paid a huge salary to steer the ship of the business — from a high level. That is not what we do. We are in the trenches. And of course we don’t get paid. What we mostly get, especially the mothers among us, is dismissed. We get dismissed primarily by men, but by women, too. Spoken over, ignored, surprised reactions when we have well-informed opinions about anything other than children. We’re often treated as if, in the process of having children, they pulled our brains out with them while exiting the birth canal. And then there’s the hostility, which, when you ask me, is rooted in misogyny and the de-valuation of what’s historically been deemed “women’s work.”

Here’s an anecdote. My best friend got married less than a year after I had a baby. Her shower/bachelorette party took place when my baby was about four months old. I flew to Chicago for the event and brought my breast pump, a torture device if there ever was one. It was a weekend of activities, one of which was a boat party. I had to bring my pump on the boat because my ducts kept getting clogged and if I waited too long to pump, I might develop mastitis. The man whose boat it was treated me with open hostility. He literally sneered at me. I guess because he only wanted women on his boat who were ready for sex? Or didn’t remind him that sex can cause babies? Or that breasts make milk? Something like that.

At one point, I somehow ended up near him despite my best efforts to never be and he said to me, “There’s a dead dragonfly on the windshield.”

“Yeah?” I said.

“Pick it up.”

And, if you ask me now, I couldn’t explain why, but, reader, I picked it up, and he laughed at me with eyes full of disgust.

(The best part of this story is: when we returned to the dock, the guy had to hook up the boat to sewage to empty it out and it backfired and sprayed shit and piss all over him and I’ve never laughed so loud or been so happy to yell, “Karma’s a bitch!”)

A couple things about my part-time job: I often say that, because I write, it makes me a better mom. I have an outlet for my thoughts and if I didn’t I would literally lose my mind. I know because I almost have a few times. Post-partum depression is real and it is brutal.

I recently saw a mom in the store with her three children: one a newborn who was rage hunger-crying, one a toddler, one a preschooler whining about not getting a toy. Here’s the thing about kids: they can’t prioritize their needs. Each child thinks her own need is most important.

This mother of three in the store was clearly upset and frazzled and I very much wanted to go up to her and say, “You’re doing great.” But I knew I’d tear up and I might be the crack that broke the dam’s back. Because I was her a few years ago and I would have started to sob if anyone had said that to me then. Sometimes when you’ve been starved of respect and human decency, the slightest hint of it can break you.

Here’s some wisdom I’ve gained through parenthood. A lot a parents with children younger than mine ask me, desperately, if it gets any easier — raising kids. I see the pleading in their eyes, to please tell them, please, that yes it does get easier. I try to break it to them as gently as I know possible, but here’s the answer I give them. In the beginning, when the kids are babies, parenting is physical labor. You sweat, just trying to keep up with everything babies require (milk, burping, changing, soothing) not to mention keeping your house from looking like an earthquake just hit. Also with your first child you are personally struggling to accept a new identity, one where you are no longer the most important person in your own life, no longer your own protagonist. Someone else is calling your shots. It is difficult mentally and can lead to depression. Take care of yourself because if you don’t you won’t be able to take care of your baby and your baby needs you.

So, what I tell these desperate parents is: “At first, parenting is primarily physical labor. Then it shifts to task labor. Then it shifts to emotional labor.” Of course there are elements of all three in every stage, but this is what I’ve come to realize in the midst of raising three kids. The parents I say this to usually recognize the truth and, reluctantly, take it in. Right after I had my third daughter, people would ask me what it was like, having three kids. I said it was like treading water with only your mouth and nose above the surface.

I spend a lot of time with my daughters, but not all my time. I do believe that if I add it up, I have spent more time with my daughters right now than my mom spent with me for the 43 years of my life. I don’t fault her for it. She was a single mom working a full-time job as a nurse and a part-time job as our house project manager. I consider the time I spend away from my daughters to be as valuable as the time I spend with them. You might not think this is a radical idea, but, trust me, some people do.

Why do I consider time away from them valuable? Because I am their role model. How can I expect my daughters to set goals for themselves and work to achieve these goals if I can’t show them how to do it myself? They are proud to tell people their mom is a writer. I can see it in the way they carry themselves when they talk about it. Where are we when they make this announcement? Usually in different places. At school, at the dance studio or gymnastics center or when we’re out getting ice cream. I can tell you where we aren’t when they talk about their mom being a writer.

At home.