I am a failure at being a SAHM (Stay at Home Mom)

Today was going so well.  My husband is working a 24 hour shift so I was all alone, but I still managed to get the two big kids off to school.  I got all four kids fed, groomed (okay, you caught me, I didn't brush Dora's hair.  I think I miss that more than I catch it.  I have no idea what her teacher thinks of me...), but I think everyone had something to eat and that's the important bit right?  The big kids even had long pants and coats on, which I consider to be a miracle.  (For some reason, even on cold days those kids HATE putting on pants and fight wearing coats as though I'm trying to brand them.  It's baffling!)

I'm not saying there weren't setbacks.  I forgot to put up the dog blockade and Foxy pooped on the stairway to my craft room, aka, that stupid dog's favorite potty spot.  Dora spilled a full bowl of cereal on the floor.  Emmy peed through her pull-up and onto her clothes.  Blarg.  These things happen.  I kept calm and I carried on.

Then after I got the big kids off to school and all the messes cleaned up, I folded laundry.  I picked up.  I cleaned from breakfast.  All the while, I was playing with kids.  My two year old was "helping" me with everything and I was so patient.  Patient.  Patient.

Really, you would have been impressed.

Then I had a friend come over, a brilliant, beautiful, talented friend named Liz.  Like me, she has four children.  Her youngest is only three months old, but she got them all over to my house, also all groomed and fed, and right on time.  We played with the kids, got them all situated and then managed to complete a one hour workout (in about two hours, but we finished!)  We blew bubbles for the kids.  There were no cheetos handprints on my sofa or rug.  There was no blood spilled, and there weren't too many tears.  A success!

After Liz left, I fed my kids lunch.  I cleaned the kitchen.  I blew more bubbles for the two little ones.  I put the baby down.  I got some legal work done while Emmy played quietly with toys.  I got some emails handled.  I navigated neighborhood drama.  In general, I rocked it.  After the baby woke up, I got laundry put away, more laundry folded (is it just me, or does it never ever ever ever end??) and the house looked amazing.  When Tessa woke up, we sang the numbers song from sesame street, we sang the alphabet song, we blew more bubbles.  We colored, we played with playdoh, and I cleaned all those things up.

In general, I was about the best SAHM in the world, second only to Liz.

Then the kids came home.  I was still amazing.  Hugs, support, love, listening to their day.  And then we started homework.  Groan.  They didn't want to do homework.  They saw the stupid bubble container and wanted to blow bubbles of all things.

But wait, Eli always does all his homework on Monday so he is homework free for the rest of the week, and this is a Tuesday.  We suffered through everything last night so tonight would be fun!  Dora rarely has more than a worksheet and two books to read, so tonight should be easy, pain free.  Except, since we'd been gone the entire week before on a family vacation, we discovered Eli had done LAST week's makeup homework yesterday and we were essentially reset to Monday.  Double blarg.  Spirits were uncharacteristically low for a Tuesday afternoon, I won't lie.  There was more blathering about the bubbles.  I was in the middle of helping Dora read, and spell her sightwords aloud, and complete THIS week's worksheets, when Emmy demanded my presence upstairs.  Tessa insisted I sit with her and requested I stop talking because she was trying to watch a show in the iPad.  I helped Eli, I helped Dora, I calmed Tessa, I mollified Emmy.  I fielded phone calls.  I was generally amazing.

After all the agonizing mess was over, I ignored another bubble request and made the requested dinner.  Pancakes with fresh strawberries and scrambled eggs.  Dora helped me set the table.  All four kids were in the kitchen, spending time together, Tessa eating strawberries, Eli making jokes, Emmy jabbering incessantly, as is her wont.  

I have no idea where things went wrong.

My best memory of where things went south is that somehow, Eli discovered he had yet another task to complete.  Something about drawing the moon.  He was whining and terribly sad.  Tessa was furious about something to do with the stool.  I have no earthly idea why Emmy started screaming, except that perhaps she felt left out.  Only Dora was being good.  And then she pointed out that someone had knocked over the very large, very full bottle of bubble soap.  The very bottle that a dozen kids (yes, I know the math doesn't work because I only have four, but I am telling you, a DOZEN kids asked me about those ridiculous bubbles!) had asked to play with.  It had poured all over the counter.  On important paperwork, down the cabinet, into drawers, under my kitchen mat and was just a disaster, generally.  While I tried to see to that, the pancakes I had poured burned.  Tessa decided to ignore my very clear and oft repeated instructions and move her stool over to where she could "help" by placing her fingers on the hot griddle.

I am sorry to admit that I completely lost it.  As in, collapsed on the floor into a pathetic puddle practically sobbing that I hated my life and didn't want to do this anymore!  How had my day collapsed so completely?  Eli ran to his room crying.  Pancakes and little fingers burned, soap everywhere, eggs getting cold.

Utter and complete disaster.  See?  I told you I'm a failure as a stay at home mom.

This all got me thinking.  Why in the world would anyone choose to stay at home with their kids?  I the past seven years, I've been slobbered on, boogered (as in, had boogers wiped on me.  Why is this not a real word?), peed on, pooped on, and puked on.  I have run 9,465,785,001 loads of laundry.  I have changed almost as many diapers.  I have filled landfills with my diapers, because I am a failure and use disposable diapers.  (Yes, I hate the earth and want to see her go down in a pile of stinky, non-biodegradable poop wraps.)  I have been screamed at more hours than I could possibly count.

I'm a lawyer, for heaven's sake.  I went to school for years, I worked for years, I'm bright and talented.  I write novels and I'm hoping to one day publish some of them and become horrifyingly rich and disgustingly famous.  I gave up a promising career and a boatful of dreams to feed and clean and feed and clean and feed and clean and also, to wipe snot.  What was I thinking??

If a genie in the bottle came to me and offered me the chance to take it all back, to focus on me, to fulfill my potential and make different decisions, ya know what?  I might be tempted to revisit my choice to become a Stay at Home Mom (SAHM).  I might be tempted to say, "Umm, I think six weeks maternity and then right back to the world of the adults who speak and think and pay me money and tell me I'm fabulous (okay, at least some of the time), please."  I might be really, really tempted.  On days like today, I might close my eyes and imagine a big blue genie coming and offering me that very thing.

But ultimately, if it did happen, I would choose my life, exactly as it is, every single time, over and over, again and again.  Even when I'm a failure.  Even when an outside observer would think I was clinically insane for doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.  I would choose to leave the life where I focused on all the things I could make for myself and give my life, at least for now, over to my kids.

Why?

It's precisely because I'm a failure that it's so important for me never to quit.  God didn't send me here to Earth and make me a mother of four so that I could fail and then never try again.  He knows we will make mistakes.  Every single parent does.  The important part is that you wipe the bubble soap up, toss the charred pancakes, use a potholder and stand on a stool and wave it in front of the fire alarm until it stops moaning, and then wipe your kids' tears away.  Get up and try again.  Try harder.  That is what turns me from the biggest failure to the greatest success.  It is precisely my failure that makes my ongoing effort worth something.

I have read so many blogs about feminists of varying philosophies who lambast SAHMs for leaving the workforce, for staying home with their children.  Guess what?  I'm a feminist too.  I believe women are every bit as good as men.  I believe we are worth every bit as much, we are just as smart and should be just as valued.  I also believe being a mother is a Divine Calling, not just a job.

I am not saying that women who choose to go to work are wrong, or evil, or selfish.  Not at all.  What I love about our present day is that we all have CHOICES.  I am also not saying that men can't be wonderful primary caretakers of children.  Of course they can, and they frequently are!  Bravo!!  (Of course, in our situation, my husband makes more than I could, so it makes sense for me to be the one who stays home with our kids for now.)

When I meet someone new, they usually ask the following question early on: What do you do?

I'm tired of feeling embarrassed about saying I stay home with my kids.  I usually mention that I am a lawyer, that I work part time, that I write novels, and I am hoping to be published.  As if somehow, those are more legitimate, more valuable, than raising children.

The absolute truth is that at my core, the most valuable thing in the world to me is my children.  Taking care of them, raising them, is the very best and most impressive thing I have done, to date, and I'm far from finished.   My biggest and most important dream is to care for them, to teach them, to protect them, to raise them and to help them become the best person they can become.  I will do that until my dying breath, not until they turn 14 or 16 or 18 or 28.  It's what I was taught by my mother and it's correct, being a mother never ends.  One day, I will have a lot more time to pursue other things, but for now, this greatest goal takes up the lion's share of my time.  

In society today, the value of the person raising a child has been reduced to the cost of daycare.  Basically, if you could put all four of my kids in daycare for $800 a week, well, that's what my "job" as a SAHM is worth.

That is wrong.

I'm going to repeat that in case it didn't sink in.  That.  Is.  Wrong.

It's as wrong as saying you judge people by their skin color, their age, their clothing, their speech patterns.  I am not just keeping my kids from dying.  I am not just making sure they have something in their bellies.  I am teaching them proper nutrition, I am teaching them how to treat people, how to live.  I am instilling integrity in them, and I am trying to tattoo into their very beings that they are loved, they are cherished, and they are valuable.  That is not something you can put a price tag on, and it is not to be taken lightly.

So now, when you ask me on the street, in church at the kids' school party what I do?  I will look you in the eye and say, "I stay at home to raise my kids."  I may be a failure, but I am a failure who keeps getting back up and trying just a little harder the very next day.  Unlike the insane person banging her head against the wall, some days I wake up and I see enormous leaps ahead.  I do the same thing over and over and I do get different results.  Some days, things are easier, better, more wonderful.  I love those leaps.

If you aren't a SAHM, please do all women the favor of respecting that what we have all fought for is a choice: we aren't wrong for choosing to leave the work force to raise our children.  We aren't less than you and we aren't setting back the cause of equality for women.  We are living that cause every day, by choosing where we find our value and our place.  Please do us the favor of supporting our decision.  Keep blazing your trail for any of our little girls who decide they don't want to stay home, or for any mothers who aren't financially able to do so.  I am so grateful for all those amazing women out there who are working hard outside of the home.  I am also grateful for the moms I know who work like dogs at a chosen career and then come home and work even harder to be wonderful mothers.  The one who comes most clearly to mind is my dear friend Jennifer Charzewski.  She is a fantastic human being, a beautiful mother and a talented architect.  I mean you, and any other working moms, absolutely NO disrespect.  I love you.  I am grateful for you keeping that option open.  All I am trying to say is that SAHMs do not deserve your disdain.

If you are a SAHM too, keep on trying, even when you know you are a complete and utter failure.  Don't let anyone make you feel like what you are doing is not the absolute best, most impressive, most important and divine thing you could be doing.  You are a shining light, even when things feel dark, I promise you that.  

Update: When my husband is working all night, I let one of my big two kids sleep in with me. It's quite the treat for them. Last night was Dora's turn. We usually wake up around 6:45 am to get ready for school, but Eli (my seven year old) always wakes up around 6 and comes downstairs and unloads the dishwasher and gets his school bag ready, as part of his daily chores. Anyway, this morning, I heard my door open and Eli walked around to Dora's side. No one said a word. Dora got up and walked out and they closed the door. I checked my phone, assuming it was around 6:15 or so. It was 5:30. 

I was super annoyed he was up so early, and that he woke up Dora, but I figured if I went to fuss at him, I would either wake up the two babies or not be able to sleep anymore myself, or both. So I made a mental note to ream him about it later and rolled over. When my door opened again at 6:15, it was my two big kids with a tray with cereal and yogurt and grapes and a few pieces of candy. They said they wanted to make me breakfast instead of me making it for them. They had already eaten themselves, gotten dressed and unloaded the dishwasher. They were trying to pack their own lunches, which would have been great if they'd included anything other than snack and dessert items.  

Even without success on the lunch packing front, it was probably the single sweetest thing my kids have ever done for me all on their own. Eli did most of the heavy lifting I think, but he did acknowledge that the whole thing was Dora's idea. Don't I have the sweetest kids ever? I think this was one of the "leaps" I was talking about above, and it came right after my significant failure.