GUEST POST: Ask BN: Do Stay-at-Home Moms Really Work That Hard?
Benjamin | Monday, December 1, 2008 at 6:56AM 
We have a real special treat today - I'm honored to present you with a FIPS exclusive – a charitably donated blogwarming gift: the brand spanking new column by the greatest blogger in the world, Park Slope's own Blognigger!
Astute reader Carls Jr. writes:
Date: Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 12:25 AM
Subject: Stay at home bitching
To: Blognigger
yo bn
wanted to get your take on this - I'm a restaurant manager who works nights and has to sleep during the day. For the most part my wife is really cool about it. She gets up with the baby and lets me sleep and so on. Our older kid is 6 and in school so he's not an issue during the day.
The main problem is though, she bitches non fuckin stop about how hard her life is, and that I don't understand how hard it is to be a stay at home mom. And the crazy thing is she starts the arguments!!! I work 65 hours a week and make 100% of our income and I never mention the fact that she's not making any money, instead I treat her like a queen, but instead, SHE bitches at ME. The woman can not shut up about how hard her life is.
The funny thing is, there are times during the day when she needs to go out and I watch our son for hours at a time. Every time I do it I think to myself.....It's just not that hard!! Sure there's the occasional diaper explosion or screaming tantrum, but I swear on my life I don't see what the big fucking deal is. When he sleeps I can fuckin SLEEP or scratch my nuts or watch the wire dvds --- try doing that at a real job!! I wish that she could try managing a staff of 15 mexicans and at the same time dealing with phone calls from the owner and 5 customers having a meltdown over there missing appetizers...... I think it would put into perspective exactly how tough her work situation is.
How do you deal with these issues from your woman - I know she's home with the kids too, right? Granted I know you've got two kids so it might be rougher on your bird, but what's your take- is it really that fucking hard to be a stay at home mom??
--snip--
Peace bn,
Carls Jr.
What up, Carls-
Fantastic question! Sorry I let it rot in my inbox for 5 months, but such is the prerogative of a mostly-black male living under the Obama Administration-Elect: I can do WHATEVER I WANT all the time with zero accountability. Hopefully you're not already divorced, and I've still got a shot at helping you out here.
The answer to your question is that it depends on a bunch of factors- For example, as far as net difficulty of daily tasks is concerned, there's a huge difference between:
- an upper-east-side mink jewess who stays at home with her full-time nanny and takes breaks from her craigslist casual-encounters surfing to teach her kid which president's face appear on which dollar bills.
-AND-
- some poor jewish woman with 10 kids in crown heights who is gonna get face-slapped if Moishe gets home and one of the male children hasn't finished his chicken-liver or has accidentally touched a female human.
In your case specifically though, it's easier to assess because your wife is a lazy whore.
Totally kidding! I hardly know anything about you guys! Therefore, let's assume the "stay-at-home mom" in question is a married woman with two kids, no nanny, and a housekeeper that comes once every two weeks.
Now right off the bat: while I too get pissed off at my wife's insistence that she performs brain surgery while my office colleagues and I masturbate to internet porn, I've got to say that I've spotted a crucial flaw in your logic:
> The funny thing is, there are times during the day when she needs to go out and I watch our son for hours at a time.
Stop right there - that's unscientific. You can't just take what they do 24/7, do it for a few hours, and then be like "yo that shit's easy." That's like saying you could handle Ramadan just cause it's almost 3pm and you haven't eaten since breakfast.
So, there's a clue for us: In isolation, the following tasks are NOT as hard as the stressful restaurant-management activities you've described:
- feeding a kid breakfast
- changing a diaper
- cleaning a kid's hands and face with a washcloth
- dressing a kid (actually, bad example, that's fucking hard)
- getting a kid downstairs and into a stroller
- making a kid wear a hat in the snow so he doesn't freeze and die (another terrible example - also impossible)
However, in context, these tasks coagulate to form certain conditions that are far worse than the sum of the parts. These conditions ARE more difficult to bear than the tasks of most western, non-air-traffic-controlling professions, including your job of playing Hell's Kitchen with a bunch of mexicans:
- Serial deprivation of intellectual stimulus; prolonged exposure to extreme mental boredom.
- Deep isolation from adult contact and sanity-sustaining social interaction
- De-prioritization of personal hygiene and excretion processes
- Sleep deprivation
- Chinese-Water-Torture-esque exposure to punctuated nails-on-blackboard whining and demands every 3 minutes for (literally) years and years without significant respite.
I've seen the effects of these conditions on my wife, so it's obvious to me that being a stay-at-home mom is worse than my job as a highly-paid software engineer. I believe that also makes it harder, but you can see why the definition of hard itself is called somewhat into question- For example, What's a harder job:
- Being a slave girl in Pakistan and cleaning camel shit between beatings
-OR-
- Being a Front-Office Wall Street Trader.
Tough call on semantics, right? But the Pakistani chick obviously has it worse.
It boggles my mind to think that anyone would willingly be a stay-at-home mother - the inherent deprivation of basic human rights is just too great. I could never do it in 10 billion years, even though I love my kids enough to throw myself in front of a train for them that's different though, because throwing yourself in front of a train is far less boring, is over quickly, and takes far less dedication to execute than committing yourself to the complete and total ego suicide that stay-at-home parenting entails.
However: because of her severe dedication to our kids and unwillingness to have them raised by Caribbeans, my wife has chosen to be a stay-at-home mom.
Keyword: CHOSEN.
This brings us to the real issue in our household:
If my wife has Chosen this role for herself, and can reverse that decision at any time, is she really allowed to bitch about it nonstop and make everyone else's life hell with her nonstop martyring and complaining and whining?
Get the fuck outta here Carls, that's the stupidest question i've ever heard in my life. Who cares if they're allowed - they're going to bitch anyway so deal with it. Want a divorce? Go try telling them they're not allowed to complain.
Don't worry - your kids will be at a state university soon, and your wife will slowly assimilate back into society, though her skills at typewriting and woodworking and all these other twentieth century tasks will be meaningless and outdated, and she'll still be a drain on your income and society.
Even then however, as she'll have taken the ultimate bullet for the team - you'll still be the asshole, and in debt to her forever.
Btw, if your answer in the first paragraph was "too late, we're already divorced," then please ignore all of the above. In fact, if you would forward me your ex-wife's contact information, that would be optimal - totally saves me a sketchy-ass trip to craigslist casual encounters.
Thanks and be well - hope this helps.
Blognigger.
Stay-At-Home Moms, guest post, kids, ongoing beefs 
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Reader Comments (44)
wow, your fuck trophies must be so proud to have you as a parent. you call someone that posted their reasonable pov a "social retard" because she chose to not breed and then whine about it??
LOL, YOR NO GOOD CUZ YOU IZ NOT MULTIPLYIN! LOOK AT ME, GETTIN SPESHUL TAX BRAKES! I HAS CHANGE DIRTY DIPES!!
there's a certain type of mindset that today's breeders demonstrate. yor post embodies it. go watch idiocracy.
5:03am is pretty demented. As usual, looking to rationalize the choice of having children in an over-populated world while forcing hubby to support her pretty little picture of her entitled life so she can keep up the facade with her friends. I see it everyday in my neighborhood. The mommies with maids and nanny's that still feel frustrated that they don't have more time for themselves! How do they do it! I HOWL!
Bitch slap for you!
Go watch "Idiocracy," yourself, hammerhead. Fer serious. Pro-creative "choices" are not trivialities of "lifestyle selection." We're talking about macro trends supported by public policy and culture, and what the ultimate result of failing to support (or even just accommodate) professional parents IN the culture is likely to be.
and I'M talking about a divorced mom that worked two jobs while supporting three little ones with no financial support from anyone WHO DIDN'T FUCKING COMPLAIN ABOUT NOT HAVING THE PROPER RESOURCES AT WORK OR AT HOME. EVER. TO THIS DAY. in fact, i don't think it would have occurred to a person like her to complain. she sucked it up and did what needed to be done because of the CHOICE SHE MADE TO BRING US INTO THIS WORLD.
i know your schtick, i know what is the typical modus operandi of women like you.
do tell what your current situation is, brosti. i'm curious.
Why in the world would I get into a pissing match with an anonymous poster? You don't even have a name, let alone any business knowing my deal -- even if "my deal" mattered to the discussion in any way, which it doesn't. I'll tell you for free that I don't whine, ever.
right, your name is brosti. that's helpful. well, my name is SPOILEDMOMMYTROLLALERT
and you DO WHINE, as evidenced by your posts here.
and it DOES MATTER, because you're bitching about it and i want to know why you're bitching.
do tell.
anon 1:04 = the http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=joker&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2" REL="nofollow">JOKER
please stop - your caps lock is scaring the shit out of me.
It is hard raising a husband, let alone a child.
Staying at home with kids would make my brain atrophy.
Fortunately I don't need to procreate because insanos like the folks on Jon and Kate Plus 8 and The nutty Duggan family with 17.5 kids are doing plenty of producing for all of us. Not quite the crisis situation that 5:03am suggests.
In all honesty, I'm left feeling even more convinced of my original hypothesis than I was before: the deification of motherhood is in full force.
Based on the angry/self-important rants of brosti and anon 5:03am and it seems pretty clear (unless I'm really missing something) that you feel like there is a choicer spot in heaven reserved for you just because you chose to be moms.
And anon 5:03am NO KIDDING its a privilege to choose NOT to be a mom. Just like its a privilege to choose TO be one...and to live in the country that we do...in the beautiful neighborhood that we do...with food on our table every night. I take ALL of these things into consideration and appreciate ALL of the privileges that I enjoy in my life.
It just confuses that I'm told to "grow the fuck up" and because I bring up a point for discussion? I also happened to say that "I have a lot of respect for stay-at-home moms," but I guess you're right...how juvenille of me.
AnnaZed: I actually don't work in an earth shoe factory, though I appreciate the humor. We can only speak to our own experiences, so I guess I've always been at companies with diff attitudes and allowances for moms...I would switch places with you if I could, b/c I could see how working in an environment like yours would be a challenge for a mom.
The really sad thing is, we're all obviously smart strong women who should be celebrating and supporting one another. I am not sitting in judgment of anyone for the reproductive choices they've made. It's a same some of you can't say the same about me.
well i am sitting in judgment of other women. it is women like these mommies and men that are mommy-apologists (or partner-apologists, there are plenty that act this way and don't have rugrats) that give all women a bad rap.
treat me like an equal EXCEEEEPT when it doesn't work to my advantage. i'll chooose to stay at home, but theeeeen i'll bitch and moan about my choice.
i want full rights, equal pay, to be treated the same way a man gets treated...buuuuut when i choose to stay home and not work i want to be able to moan and groan about it, knowing full well there are other women in the world w/no financial support who are going it alone and staying quiet.
and if these women don't think that their hubbies, in the backs of their minds, aren't thinking "man, you have the life! why are you complaining" then they are truly deluded.
a certain type of woman acts a certain way and certain men pussyfoot around them. then, the men end up stereotyping all women because they build up resentment and don't have the balls to express it to the women's faces.
we will never be treated like equals if we keep pulling this crap. gain your power by acting like an equal, not by guilting others with your ideas of what you think you deserve and how hard it is to be you.
@anon 3:19: WORD. Very well said, sistah! Thank YOU for representin so fiercely
When my boyfriend's co-workers want a day off of work, they call in and say the kid is sick.
Real talk.
And these are men.
Assume stay at home mom is a job, and a hard job at that. Posit two kids two years apart. That means mom's got it tough for 7 years, i.e. first kid starts school in year 5, 2nd kid in year 7. after that, you "work" for an hour in the morning and from 3-6 at night. Then hubby takes over. So it's a tough job where you get to semi-retire after 7 years. WAHHHHH.
Maybe she just likes to complain? Man, don't you ever like to whine?
good examples she's setting for the kidlings. let's see:
mommy eats bon bons and watches the tee vee. then gabs on phone w/friends and hops on computer to email.
daddy comes home at night after working 10 hours.
mommy bitches, daddy says "yes, dear i feel your pain." but, in fact, the pain daddy feels most prominently is the one between his legs. it grows and grows along with her list of seemingly-endless complaints.
then one day, old daddy doesn't come home. mommy says daddy was a big old nogoodnick anyway. then she attempts to drain what little lifeblood he's got left in his balls as she is absorbed by her rancid pool of self-pity and bitterness. daddy shows up weekends with a nicer lady.
ahhh, say kiddles, that's how it goes.
great modeling. great examples.
When my boyfriend's co-workers want a day off of work, they call in and say the kid is sick.
The weird gestalt of this is that when men do this it is somehow endearing and shows (to other men and even brain dead women) that they are manning up etc. First of all it is understood by all that this Mr. Mom shit is stuff that can be dropped at any time, like if there is an important project at work. Second, for some reason it is seen as a generous sacrifice where if women do it, it is a “problem,” because there is perceived to be no let-up for them, they HAVE to go if the child needs them, ergo they can’t actually be trusted to fulfill their obligations at work (see p slope non mom’s beef, one of perception mostly). Lastly, once at home these guys who aren’t real stay at home dads will be rockin’ the world of war craft fer’ sure.
SAHM is the easiest of all the jobs I've ever had. It doesn't even begin to hold a candle to the real job I had for 15 years, where I worked ridiculous hours under horrible pressure and deadlines that were almost impossible to meet. I cannot figure out why so many women complain. I think the main reason that SAHMs complain so much is that they do not know how to discipline their children, so they end up freaking out because their kids won't listen to them. Well, duh. Get your kids to behave and life becomes a lot easier.
I also think that the moms now, youngish and spoiled, have expectations of how life should be, and they want it right now. They don't get that you have to compromise. You have to work for your rise up the ladder of success. The expectations aren't really all their fault. They've been handed everything on a silver platter by their parents, which was a big mistake. If kids don't learn the value of earning, they grow up to be adults who are consistantly disappointed in life, which is what I hear most often by SAHMs.
Stop bitchin and whinin, chicks! Be glad you have a kid to be with because there are plenty of people who can't reproduce and would gladly take your dumb ass place.
You are making it hard on yourself. Put the kid in front of the TV for 2 hours and do what you need to. My mom did that and everyone I know that didn't is fucking stupid. They don't know anything at all. TV won't kill your kid--in fact it should make them a lot smarter and I'm nto talking about dumb ass baby Einstein videos which by the way if Einstein ever watched that shit, he'd be working at Burger King instead of discovering Relativity.
Five of my male friends decided to switch places with their stay at home wives and they ended up finding out that being a stay at home parent is the biggest scam going. They take the kids out every day and drink beer in the park with each other and run the kids ragged. See kids need activities to occupy them--and your job is really one of "project manager". And yet--you can't get that one simple job done without making a mess or being a whiny ass bitch about it. They come home make the kids some lunch and the food coma sets in and it's nap time. 2 more hours to themselves. They then are able to prep some dinner and get the kids up for it. Mom gets home about then and spends an hour with them while dad puts dinner on the table. There's an occasional blunder or accident and you then have to be the responsible one and make amends but this is the exception to the rule--you roll with it and expect it to happen twice a week.
There's some kind of family activity after dinner or some TV and then off to bed by 8 and maybe mom and dad get to play "hide the sausage" if she isn't too overwhelmed by the freakin male dominated workforce--which I admit is a much harder bitch to tame than it is for a man.
So bitches--stay home and be smart. It's a much harder world out there than it is for you at home with the kids.
you hit the nail on the head, and i think there is a lot of ass-hattery going on in the comments here.
background: i'm now a SAHM who, for most of the last four years, was in about the same boat as your wife - cleaning lady twice a month, no nanny.
i'm an RN and worked as a staff nurse for six years, and before that i was a part time nanny. my husband is a lawyer who does mostly writing and research.
first of all, being a SAHM is WAY different from being a part time nanny, let alone watching the kids for a couple of hours here and there. when your default status is "with the kids", it makes everything more complicated and stressful. everything you try to do - whether it's typing a comment on a blog while your kids attack the keyboard or climb on your head, or trying to do something in the house that is getting undone or whatever AS you are in the midst of doing it, or going to the store to get one thing and dealing with the scene that is a mother w two children in a store, or taking a shit - becomes a procedure.
also, w comparing work - when i worked as a nurse i was dealing w peoples' craziness, blood, tears, and poop. BUT. when i left at the end of the shift i was free! AND - i did have to deal with tons of bodily secretions but and was often too busy to eat but if i did get to eat at least i did not have my meal interrupted by dealing w someone else's feces. with motherhood that is not off the table and not such an uncommon occurance. and if i miraculously had a minute to go into the bathroom, i could rest assured that my patients wouldn't be in the bathroom with me, trying to wash their hands or put toilet paper everywhere or do G-d-knows-what. meanwhile, someone who works at a desk has the luxury of pooping in peace at the time of their choosing (mostly).
finally - to the people who are saying that you shouldn't bitch about something that you chose.... are you high? do people not bitch about their jobs, their neighborhoods, their relationships?!?! duh.