An Open Letter to the Rest of You

Dear Sir or Madam (and one Madam in particular),

I am doing my best. I am expected to be available to my children and husband, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. I rarely get a break from parenting/wife-ing/ housekeeping/life, and so I sometimes get overwhelmed and make mistakes. So here are a few guidelines to making any interaction between you and me (or any other SAH-parent) easier.

1) Do not, under any circumstances, speak derisively about my job. It's hard work! I have made a lot of sacrifices to make this my "career," and, while circumstances have been good to me, I do not appreciate being told "not all of us are lucky enough to be stay at home moms!" in nasty tones of voice by people who have said they go crazy being "stuck home with the kids." Your lack of appreciation for what I do for my own kids (and possibly yours, as I make time to volunteer for school and sports) makes me MUCH less likely to ever make time in my life to help you out.

2) Assume my good-intent in everything that pertains to the children. Even my Feminism takes a backseat to my advocacy for children and children's rights. Children have no legal rights, but they do have needs. One of those needs is having care, love and positive attention from the adults in their life. That attitude leaves me very little space to waste time or effort just to make things difficult for you. What I do, I do for children, and if it seems like it was against you, step back and look again. It was probably just a split-second decision to meet a need for a child. If my motivation seems unclear, just ask what happened. If you attack before getting an explanation, you will probably never get that explanation!

3) Don't use me as your personal secretarial service. I have a hard enough time keeping up with the schedules for the five members of my family. If you have questions about time or place, please look elsewhere first. You have internet access. Use it.

4) Even though I'd love to be Superwoman, I'm not. I'm human. I will make mistakes, have bad days, and sometimes I would love to chuck the whole thing, hire a daycare and go to work where I could at least get actual money for my time and energy, not to mention real meal breaks and the company of adults. When I'm overwhelmed, be patient. Don't expect me to do even one more thing and don't make me feel any guiltier about saying "no." If I said yes to everything I was asked to do, I would have no time left for the things I need to do, let alone the things I WANT to do. "Stay at Home Parent" is not synonymous with "not working." I have lots of work, and you almost never see it. You'll see the results in children wearing clean clothes, getting good grades, being well-fed and well-behaved, though. Compliment me on those outcomes, and I'm yours forever.

Parenting is hard work, whether you work outside the home or not. Work with me on raising children, yours, mine, ours, someone else's, and it'll run so much more smoothly for everyone. Kids deserve our time, our attention and our love. Since that's my primary goal and the point of my job, help me out. Respect my family, my time, my intentions and me. When you do, I will respect you, too, for providing for yourself and your kids financially and for finding ways to keep yourself feeling fulfilled.

Staying home with the kids isn't for everyone, but it was the right move for me. You may need to work for the money or the personal satisfaction, and that makes it the right thing for you. I don't have time to make you defend your choices, so please don't make me defend mine.

Sincerely,

pixie larouge