Tuesday, April 19, 2011

SAHM

Remember me? I am the girl that used to blog daily.

There is no real reason for the lack of posts, blogging is just the "dropped thing of the week". I have one (or two, or three) of those every week.

My master list has 12 vague items on it that I try to do daily. They are:
1. School
2. Devotions
3. Read (can be as little as 10 min)
4. Pray
5. Spend time with Noah
6. Family time (something fun with all of us)
7. Blog
8. Exercise
9. Daily task (1-3 assigned per day of the week)
10. Task of the week (1 floor assigned per week)
11. Calls/emails
12. outside home commitments

It is rare indeed for me to have a day that I cross all of those things off of my list, but it is what I aim for. And this last week, blogging got dropped.

Here are a few things running through my brain:

1. Last week I had a brief conversation with a stranger. He said something about stay-at-home moms not doing anything. I thought it was an odd comment. I mentioned this conversation to a coworker. I said, "HE SAID STAY-AT-HOME MOMS DON'T DO ANYTHING!!!!!!" (look at me all exclamation marky and offended, even though I am not a true SAHM). My coworker said, "a lot of them don't". He was not all exclamation marky and offended.

I have been thinking a lot about those short comments. I think that is very easy to take advantage of a SAHM status. After all, we don't really have supervisors to make sure we aren't slacking and to keep us from shopping or facebooking online all day. We ourselves have to stay disciplined and to work on making sure that as individuals we can't be accused of "not doing anything".

2."Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood." - Fred Rogers

"I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I can't do everything, I will not refuse to do something I can do." - Helen Keller

I saw the above quotes last week and of course philosophised about them while running. As a (partial) SAHM, who spends a lot of time monitoring play, I guess I am simply supervising their work. "Supervising my children's work" sounds fancier than "watching my kids play".

hmmm...enough comments for one day...I am off to continue to supervise my children's work and to continue to try to do the things that I can.

2 comments:

Thia said...

It is definitely easy to slack off as a SAHM, but at the same time, I do not get "a lunch break" or a "coffee break" unless I make myself sit down, and even then, very seldom uninterrupted. And I work 24/7. Out of my four, only one consistently sleeps through the night. I think the biggest problem is that everyone looks at everyone else and either complains or thinks the grass is greener elsewhere. Personally, I'd like to figure out how some SAHM's find time to nap in the afternoon.

The Three 22nds said...

That is why I give my husband errands to run to/from work and on lunch! It is much easier for him to stop at the post office because he doesn't have 4 children in tow!

And I think you are also right in that our job doesn't have an "end" time, when we are off and can just be done.