Me too! I had to come back here today and skim down to find the comments I hadn’t read yet… 🙂

Chris, I hope you don’t think all SAHMs do those kinds of things. Even more than that, I hope you don’t think that working moms don’t don’t do those kinds of things. Your post leads me to believe that you don’t have kids and haven’t had to make that choice.

As a parent, I’ve met SAHMs who ought not be allowed to raise goldfish, let alone children, and I’ve met SAHMs who are, well, average. They volunteer at school when it is convenient and don’t when it isn’t. Most SAHMs fall into that category. That isn’t to say they are bad parents, just that most SAHMs do as much as they can do given their own unique situations. It is a balancing act that is different for every parent. I’ve met one spectacular SAHMs like the one you describe.

I do highly resent the implication that working moms can’t be that outstanding. The most productive and likely volunteers I met while my daughter was school-aged were working parents. People who do, do. Someone who gives any task their all will normally give all of their tasks that same effort.

I am a single parent. I drove my daughter and the other girls in her color guard all over the mid-Atlantic for practices and competitions every January-April. I followed the band bus all over the mid-Atlantic every fall for games and competitions. I schlepped equipment and helped carry around a 500-lb. vinyl performance floor on my weekends. I went to every concert and used my vacation time to chaperone music department trips. (And please don’t tell me that counts as a vacation. Going someplace with 250 teenagers that you are responsible for is so NOT a vacation, even though you do have some fun.) So did the married, working mom who had a full-time telecommuting job. So did the married, working mom who didn’t telecommute. So did the working step-dad whose wife was deployed to Afghanistan.

Come to think of it, not a single volunteer for the color guard was a SAHM, even though several of the girls had SAHMs. The working parents did all the work.

Selfless acts of parenting are not unique to SAHMs, so pardon me if I don’t line up to hand out cookies to stay at home moms. They chose that option, I completely support their right to choose it, and respect the work that they do. It is hard work. More power to them and congrats on being financially able to do so. But that choice comes with all the rewards and consequences, and one of those consequences is no paycheck. Working mothers do ALL the same tasks as SAHMs AND work, and you don’t see them lining up asking for extra special kudos. What they do get is this accusation by inference that because they work, they are some how a lesser parent than a SAHM.

LOL me too. And gagging! No, I don’t have any kids!

I do have a friend who is a SAHM and she posts on facebook all the time about it, but her posts are HILARIOUS. Very ironic in tone without being the least bit whiny. Her kids are four, two, and nearly one. I don’t know how she does it.

Don’t forget how much taxes eat up of your incremental income. I volunteer as a poll worker. My city pays $100 a day, which comes out to about $7/hour. I tell them not to pay me at all, because after federal, state, and self employment taxes (I have other SE income, so I have to pay it on this, too), I would make about $3.50 an hour. I would rather work for free than for $3.50 an hour.

I often ask myself, “What would Ma Ingalls do?”

“Caroline Ingalls never drove Laura to a single lesson and she turned out to be a responsible adult” is my favorite blog sentence of the year.

Oh Suzanne, look what you have done now….lol. And I work in tech support so that site will be even more hilarious.

Once when I was cleaning a friend’s bathroom (they were moving), I thought, “You could not pay me to be a cleaning lady. There is not enough money.” But, I gladly did it for her and I’ll gladly do it for other friends, but for money? Blech.

Yep. There are things I would do for love that I would never do for money. Although if I were offered enough cash, I might consider spending the night with some man. Which would make me a whore, I suppose. However, considering I look nothing like Demi Moore 20 years ago or now, I am not anticipating such an event coming to pass, so my morals shall not be tested.

Another thing I will only do for love is knit someone a sweater. If someone had to pay me to do that, she could not afford it.