To the Stay at Home Mom on Mother's Day

Dear Stay At Home Mom,

If you're reading this, you might be hiding in a closet unwrapping a snack size Snickers bar as quietly as ninja while playing "hide and seek" with your 4 year old and trying to regain your sanity by having three minutes with your phone without hearing, "Mommy, I want to play on your phone!"  You might be attempting to clean your kitchen and waiting for the mop bucket to fill up.  You might be rocking your newborn after a sleepless night, just trying to stay awake until they nod off for good.  There are about a million things you could be doing right now and you've probably done half of them in the past twenty four hours.

Let's face it: you work your butt off too.  There are some that give you crap for staying at home.  Don't let them.  Your job takes just as much out of you physically, mentally and emotionally and your breaks from your "job" are few and far between (I use the quotes around "job" because a whole lot of SAHMs get highly offended when you call their family their "job").  You're up at dawn and having to stay up late just to finish up everything. It's a relatively thankless job sometimes and your payment can sometimes be eye rolls and tantrums.

You get judged a whole lot sometimes and it's not right.  You're judged if you let your kids watch a half hour TV show because "you shouldn't need to put them in front of the TV when you're at home with them all the time" but what people don't know is that you're just trying to get dinner prepped or vacuum the floor.  You're judged if you baby wear because "you're going to spoil them" but what they don't know is that you went through years of infertility and just holding that baby in your arms is heaven (not to mention that it makes THEM happy too).  You're judged if you don't have a spotless house when your spouse gets home but what they don't know is that you've spent the day doing art projects and playing outside with the kids.  People often feel the need to tell you what you're doing wrong...and they're wrong.

Hang in there, Mama! Your kids are thriving in amazing ways because you're home with them.  You're killin it and you're doing it every minute of every day.  So if your Mother's Day is filled with the hubbub of every other day and you still don't get much of a break, breathe in, breathe out and know you're doing awesome.  Kick up your feet and give anyone that gives you crap about it "the finger."  Enjoy your day and enjoy your crazies because they really do grow up too quickly.  Take in every hug, song and silly little laugh that you can.  You're doing awesome!

I salute you.

Sincerely,
Me