Why not vent a little now. :-)

I used to think staying at home was for lazy people. Years later, i got married and decided to stay at home prior to kids because i wanted to focus on my writing and get out of the finance industry. Or maybe it was because i really am lazy lol. Anyway, once i had LD, when someone says to me "Oh how nice, you get to stay at home" or "oh you just stay at home" or any other random comment that shows just how little this person knows about the difficulty of staying home, i get a little irked. It's especially bothersome to hear it come from mothers who work, because i respect their job and i know it's hard - it's gotta be hard to leave your kid every day and miss those special moments and then there's the whole job of it. And some mothers have to work even if they want to stay home for financial reasons. But it usually comes from mothers who really don't seem to even like being mothers, God only knows why they have children in the first place. Anywaaaaay, i don't want to start a mommy war but recently i was telling my husband how i wish i had it in me to leave my little guy in a program but i feel it my duty to raise him as a good Muslim and a good person and to give him every opportunity to thrive - for me to do this, i must be there for him. This is the only reason i stay at home.

This is why staying at home really IS a job and deserves respect. Comparing jobs to those who don't think staying at home is a job:

Physically: When was the last time a colleague of yours got upset at something you said/did/didn't do where they threw a large wooden object at your head, pulled your hair, yelled at you, bit you, fell on the floor screaming? Or when you had to go to a meeting your colleague refused to put their seatbelt on and screamed bloody murder, writhed their body and cried until their eyes were swollen? Have you ever had a colleague try to climb up your leg, pull or push you, or yell at you until you gave them what they wanted? Or when someone just said something you didn't like they threw a temper tantrum.

Mentally: I can't even expand here my brain is so dead. Nuff said.

Emotionally: This is the biggy. And this is the hardest part of the job too i think and why it's so exhausting. It is estimated that mild to moderate conflicts between mother and child occur once every three minutes (did you read that? 1 in every 3 minutes - in a 8 hour day - that's not a full day for a mom btw - but in an 8 hour day that is 160 - 1-6-0! mild to moderate disagreements) and major conflicts occur three times an hour (that's 24 major disagreements per day).

This does not happen in the workplace. Dealing with grown ups can be really annoying especially if there's a colleague you don't mesh well with but what if that person was allowed to hit, bite and scream at you and you had to act like a grownup and not do those things back and this occured 20 times an hour you'd probably go crazy or demand more pay. It's tough. I love staying home because i love watching LD become who he is and i wouldn't have it any other way, but like i always tell my husband, i also love clocking out at 7 o'clock. Around 6:30, i begin to watch the clock, excited for that ten minutes to myself while my husband hangs out with him and i begin dinner. Those ten minutes of silence is like two hours in momtime. It's divine.

This is the stuff that isn't calculated into that figure though. You just can't put a price on motherhood. It truly is priceless.