Mommies Paradise

Every time I hear the term Stay At Home Mom, or SAHM, I get this weird squint in my right eye and I am sure my nostrils flare.

I could never quite figure out what it was that was bugging me about this term used to describe women (or men because you can also be a Stay At Home Dad or a SAHD -don’t even get me started on that acronym) who “opt out” (cough *bullshit*) and stay home to take care of their children. Then one day it just came to me, like a brick on the head. The whole term insinuates that I never actually leave the house. Because see, I am a Stay At Home Mom (a Stay At Home Parent or SAHP) . Then this brick of a term pounded home that same vision with terms like ‘bon-bons‘ and statements such as ‘Don’t bother me while I am watching my stories!‘

This term also brings to my mind visions of a woman who is so totally dedicated to her role as a mother that nothing, I say NOTHING will ever compare. SAHM’s, in my mind, can’t imagine any higher calling than the job of parenting - no matter how thankless. When I hear the term Stay At Home Mom I think of those women who just loooooove being pregnant because they “…never felt better…” Women who say this do exist and to them I only suggest that they get a physical when they are not pregnant to find out what does in fact ail them the rest of the time. What is that smell you ask? Oh, that is snark.

The fact is, in case you haven’t noticed, I am not that woman. Nor do I want to be that woman. Maybe these visions have been planted in my mind by a media that has also hammered home the idea of the Mommy Wars (Working Mother VS Housewife Relishing in the Joy of Motherhood). I don’t buy into that war so I really couldn’t say.

After discovering that I detest this term because it is false and misleading I remembered that I work at home too. Yes, while ’staying home.’ This should make me a Work At Home Mom or WAHM. But if I stay home AND work from home does that make me a SWAHM? How exciting! More letters=bigger acronym=must be more important. And then I got to wondering … what exactly constitutes work? Do I only qualify as a SWAHM if the actual Work I do at home brings in money for services rendered and/or a product created? Well, it has at times, so maybe I rate that extra letter. But, does the other work I do in order to care for and raise my child (around the clock) and to maintain my home really count as work in the true sense of the word? Oh wait. I forgot. It doesn’t! Maybe I only get that extra letter on certain days. Good to know.

The term Stay At Home Mom is misleading and derogatory and offensive, to me. It says nothing about me or what I do everyday as a parent or a contributor to a household. It does not explain the type of person who is not employed outside of the home for actual real live cash but rather works in the home for some cash and takes care of their home and children.

I was going to come up with some other witty term to replace Stay At Home Mom or SAHM but my brain started to hurt because I realized that would be stupid too. Why add another term, and subsequent acronym, to a culture that is constantly creating new ridiculous terms and ever important acronyms in order to place everyone into neat little organized boxes? I won’t contribute to that waste. The truth is that most people drift from box to box pretty frequently, depending on a whole myriad of reasons. By labeling people we just perpetuate sweeping generalizations and thus limit our ability to strive and fight to be more.