The Pear Tree

A lot of stay-at-home moms I have encountered feel uncomfortable calling themselves stay-at-home moms. They feel that there’s a stigma in the moniker that downplays the importance of their role and the magnitude of their responsibilities.

For some, it makes them feel inferior – especially in a crowd of “career” women.
So they give themselves a title like Domestic Engineer, or Home Manager.

A SAHM myself, I’ve been thinking a lot about the work force lately, and how it compares to motherhood. And I’m not sure that I like that comparison. Here’s why:

There was a time when I was self-employed. That’s businessese for single. I had no one to answer to, and no one to keep in line. I was quite successful at it, but I was lonely, so I thought I’d turn my business into a partnership.

That business venture was so successful that before long we started expanding the company and bringing in employees. Now let me tell you about these employees.

One was brought in less than two years ago and is still learning the ropes, but the other one has been with us for almost four years and still hasn’t learned his place. Even though I’m the boss, most of the time neither of them will follow my instructions. After asking 10 times, I usually have to do whatever it is myself.

Just this morning, my business partner told our youngest employee not to go near the stairs, only to overhear her co-worker quietly try to lure her over anyway, directly contravening the boss’s directions.

They won’t keep regular hours. Sometimes they want to start work at 5:30 in the morning. Other times, they refuse to call it a day at the end of their shift. Tears may ensue if the boss insists that no, really, it’s time to clock out.

During working hours, any tasks I try to accomplish around the house while they’re around gets undone behind me as I go.

And then, when I think I can’t tolerate these working conditions any longer, they try to appease me – not with increased productivity, but cuddles and kisses. I can’t imagine that going over well in the workplace.

I’ve been barfed on, pooped on, peed on, and had my hair pulled out. I’ve been screamed at in public and had to leave stores carrying one writhing, blathering employee in each arm, trying to hold my head up with a modicum of dignity because I am, after all, the boss.

And on top of it all, while I make sure my crew gets all the proper workers’ benefits – warm beds, home cooked meals, a closet full of clothes each and way too many toys – I’m not getting paid. Let’s just reiterate that: I’m. Not. Getting. Paid.

Not that you could pay me to do a job like this. You couldn’t. There’s no way. In fact, if I was really the CEO of this business, I would be doing some serious firing. Or I’d quit and start a new business somewhere – something small with just me, and maybe my long suffering business partner.

But because I’m not the boss, because I am the mother and this is a labour of love, the benefits are out of this world. They include (but are not exclusive to) company shares in a life that I helped create and am privileged enough to influence…

Sleepy hugs and “love you’s” at the end of the day that you can’t put a dollar figure to…

Hearing a small and warbley voice sing You Are My Sunshine while stacking blocks…

There are quiet moments, watching little eyes pour over the sketchy pictures of Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends in the Hundred Acre Wood, knowing their imagination has really taken them there…

Or a small body climbing into your bed in the wee hours because you are who you are and that’s the only person in the world they want to be near at that moment.

No, I think I’d better keep this position of mine in its proper context. I’m a mother. It’s not a career, it’s a life. And now that I know what it’s like, I don’t think there’s a job out there as impressive as that.

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The Mother Load is a mommy column by Pear Tree editor Lori-Anne Poirier that runs weekly on thecalgarybeacon.com and in The Penticton Herald’s Southern Exposure.

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- Words and photo by Lori-Anne Poirier

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