I don’t think of myself as a stay at home mom, even though I am. It’s true that I am a mother of three children and I do “stay at home” rather than go out into the world for work. With my children in school most of the day, I’m not their direct caretaker from 8 am to 3 pm – that’s the job of the school system. So if I’m not taking care of my kids during the day – I’m not staying home with them – I don’t feel like I’m satisfying the responsibilities of a typical stay at home mom.
Frankly, I feel more like an unemployed mom. I don’t work a traditional job outside the home, and I don’t significantly contribute financially to the household. Tim, my husband, works full time as a data analyst and programming engineer, and generously brings home the proverbial bacon. Thank you, Tim! I’m more like a side-hustler, without a main gig. I sell a few crocheted items each year at local craft fairs and occasionally on Etsy. I’m cultivating (or rather collecting) an ever-growing inventory of tropical houseplants – sale pending. These micro-preneurships keep my busy when I want to be and satisfy the work itch. Plus it’s fun and reasonably time-intensive, meaning it shouldn’t take away from ever-present banality of my many required, seldom fulfilling, stay-at-home duties.
So why don’t I turn my side hustle into a full time thing. I could – no one is stopping me; I’m not held hostage by the stay at home mothership. Granted, I’m frustrated. The mothering process is sequence of random stuff that goes on and on without end, like pi – you know, 3.14 and on and on. There’s no order or bias; it’s just a string of life happenings – mess, clean, praise, cook whine, drive, chase, pant, catch, soothe, sing, sleep and on and on. There’s no end. Just as mathematicians study the endless numbering of pi, so too mothers devote their lives to the endless stuff mothering brings. (I bet you didn’t think I could compare mothers with mathematicians.)
So, really, why don’t I turn my side hustle into a full time thing? I’ve established that full-time, stay at home mothering is hard and frustrating. So what’s stopping me? Well, I guess it’s me. I want to be full-time available for Elaina, Allison and Sam. On call, no matter what. When I had kids, I signed a non-compete agreement with myself that I wouldn’t work for someone else while my kids were kids. Contract expiring at age 18. Until then, I’ll stick to profiting from my hobbies and occasionally part-timing for extra cash. While the banality of staying-at-home -when-the-kids-are-not-at-home work is as mind numbing as higher math, there’s a lot of great stuff in there that makes it worthwhile. And I plan to see it through until the end.