I freaking hate being a woman sometimes. You don’t ever see catfights among men, do you? Instead of being happy for one another, we fight amongst each other.
So the next battle to be fought is that it is so much easier to be a work at home mom than a working mom. I’ve got two words for you: Bite Me. No, seriously. I would LOVE to work in an office. I would love to not have my house be a mess, but since I am on call 24/7 from all facets of my life that falls to the waysite. Oh wait, so does my blogging (have you seen how I’m not updating lately. Yeah, that’s called lack of time). Unlike “working moms”, on top of running my own freelance gigs, I have to drum up new business too. Oh yeah, I have to still get up and shower and get ready since I have video conference calls and I meet with clients — sometimes at my house too. While I am meeting prospective clients do I get paid for that? Nope. Do you get paid for every minute your at work? I am pretty sure you do. Yesterday, I went to a conference. Nobody pays my way to go there. That’s out of my own pocket. I put in over 40 hour weeks most weeks. You go home — your “work” day is done. I suck at work/life balance and I work from home. I actually find that balance harder when you work from home, because you always have to on.
Don’t get me wrong. I love freelancing. I live in Chicago — there is no way we can afford daycare even if I did work. I am able to work around my kids activities How did we pull off staying home? We gave up the extras. We sold our house and moved. It’s called making sacrifices. My freelance work I do now has allowed for the extras, the trips, the basement remodel, Madison’s tuition next year, etc. It use to pay for bills. You know, the grass is always greener elsewhere. I just don’t appreciate getting told (from another woman none-the-less) that I am less worthy than her since she works outside the house. It comes down to choices. I choose not to go back into the work force while they chose to work outside the home. That’s your choice — don’t look down on me because that’s not my choice.
To be honest, I think all moms work just as hard as the next. Your thoughts?
This is so true…and the other thing is when you work at home, the other mothers will call you to see if you can pick up their kids, meet their cable guy, or even ask why can't you ever meet for lunch…hey I'm working my office in just in my house..ugh..great points
Great post
Beth
Ouch! Women can be so catty at times.
Working outside the home allows you to walk away from all the crap for 8 hours, be more productive and to be more organized. You still have to do all the 'at home' work in the evenings and weekend – and it's exhausting, but I don't think it's as stressful as being a full time Mom working at home.
You are one of the hardest working blogger Mom's I know & I'm sure your kids are going to benefit from that.
Yup – Bite Me is a good response to her!
I must've read different posts about this than you, because I'm not hearing fighting. I'm reading people saying that there are DIFFERENT stresses that WOHM face that WAHM/SAHM MAY NOT face….and it all stems from a video in which moms were speaking about working but seemed to have left out WOHM moms mostly from the discussion.
I never read that anyone was saying WAHM/SAHM moms have it easy, on the contrary, what *I* read was that they understand those stresses and PERSONALLY feel that the WOHM stresses are harder FOR THEM.
SHRUG. Just my 2cents. But I don't think it's a fight, and it's not worth turning in to one.
@Beth – I agree totally.
@Heather – Thanks for the compliment. 🙂
It just irks me that they think my life is roses compared to theirs. It's just different.
@pgoodness – I don't want to make it a fight. I'm not the one who stated that if you work out of the house that its so much more difficult. As a work at home mom, I have the same stress (except the commute). I just felt extremely marginalize by the post I linked too. I would give anything some days to work in an office for 8 hours a day. Our lives are just different but I would never say that theirs was easier or hardier than mine. Its just different.
That's the great thing though we can agree to disagree 🙂
I am the original poster of that article.
So you're aware I am a WOHM as well as a WAHM. I have my own business while I work for someone else during the day. I am on both sides of the coin, therefore, I feel I am entitled to the post I wrote. I own what I wrote and I stand by my words. It's not a one-sided post about my views of someone working from home. I do both.
Thank you for posting your feelings on the subject, I truly appreciate that you've taken the time to write something about it.
Thanks for stopping by and being so nice. 🙂 I just completely disagree with you. But it comes down to what your particular circumstances are most likely to where you fall on this issue. I put in much longer, more stressful for less pay working at home then working outside the home. So my take on this comes from there.
I don't think I could go back to office life again. I worked in an office for several years, I was even the manager. One day (my birthday actually) I said, "I quit" picked up my pictures of my kids and went home. I've worked from home ever since. Working in an office full of women can be a real headache! We're not very nice people!
@Beth:
God, you're so right! I just hate women who think that just because you're not going away from home to work that you're having a blast or just chillin' while working from home.
A office is a office, no matter where it is and people should just know better!
Cheers
I think it's all a silly, made-up argument. I've done both, and I can tell you neither is a cake walk, particularly without considerable support from a spouse. Or somewhere.
I've worked in an office and had to super-hustle to get everything done before day care closed and THEN come home and put in two, three more hours at night after the kids went to bed. I saw my job review suddenly downgraded from outstanding to merely meets expectations, when nothing at all had changed but the fact that I had to leave the office by 6 p.m. Ironically, it was during a time when I was doing some of the best editing work of my life on a high-profile murder case that drew national attention. Anyone heard of Scott or Laci Peterson?
I currently work at home, – and, no, it's not a "fluff" job. Or, at least, my paying clients don't think so. I don't get days off, because I fit work in around school schedules. I start working at 4 a.m. to accommodate clients in different time zones. I rush to get the bulk of my work down before kindergarten lets out at noon, though I still get IMs and emails throughout the afternoon. No, a boss won't call me into an office for a lecture about carrying the load if my kid is sick. The clients will simply quit calling – it's much easier to get rid of a contract worker than a full-time employee in most states.
Yes, I still have bosses, except they're called clients now. And I still have to bow to "higher authorities" because in the end, the clients are always right, even if they're wrong.
For the time being, at least, because of my husband's military career and because I want to be there when my kids get out of school, I choose work at home. But does that mean I'm any less of a professional than when I worked at an office? No. Well, maybe, because the IM doesn't care if I'm dressed and in makeup. But I'll stand behind the quality of work both then and now.
The real solution here is to come together for better work-life balance conditions for all moms – all parents, for that matter. For the day when "I have to leave early for a school program" is just as valid a reason as "I'm going to be out of the office for a golf outing." As it is now, the latter can be proclaimed with pride, while you have to slink out covertly if you say the former.
Had flexible scheduling that the few golden children enjoyed at my previous workplace been available to everyone, for example, I never would have left. I never wanted to work less, and I never wanted to work only when it was convenient – I still don't. I only wanted to have a little breathing room in order to avoid totally sacrificing my children. Working as a contractor was the only way to get that.
I think all moms DEFINITELY work hard, regardless of what they do or where they do it. I am in NO WAY cut out for the working at home gig…or at least I wasn't when my children were younger. I'm sure it'd be much easier (on the parenting end, at least) now that they're teens and actually in school all day during the school year.
I do think that they are nowhere near the same, though – not that one is better than the other. And am still shocked that that Momversation panel or whatever it was (to my knowledge) didn't include WOHMs, which is a pretty big and important demographic.
One of my best friends works from home and it stresses her out a lot because, even though she is able to take care of her daughter, she can't really play with her or do anything fun with her during her work hours. And of course it was really hard on her daughter, who was too young to understand why mom is there but can't play with her during work hours.
And then, the actual job you do probably determines to some degree how much stress you'll have. But that's another thing entirely.
I've kind of done all three options – worked outside the home, and right now kind of a combination of staying at home and working at home. And there's definitely pros and cons each way – it just depends on what's right for you and your family. In some ways I miss having an office to go to with more than 5 minutes of uninterrupted work time during the day, real adult conversation, etc. But I also love being able to do things with my kids during the day that I never could before, and not having to worry about taking time off if the girls are sick or have a day off from school. But no matter where or when or how moms are employed – we all 'work'! 🙂
How about this thought: IT'S NOT A CONTEST. We should all support each other because first and foremost we're all MOTHERS.
I agree with you 100%
I agree with you 100%
I left a comment on Sam’s post that says the same thing that Trenches of Mommyhood said. It doesn’t matter who works where. We should support each other no matter what because we are all MOMS. And I stumbled the post.
I experienced the same thing sometimes. I'm contradicting myself sometimes and I don't know why that happens. It sounds funny though but that's the truth…