A Salute to Moms That Work Outside The Home

Here’s the situation: I’m the stay-at-home parent. My wife, Claire, is the the parent that works outside the home. If you want to know more about the how and why that came to be, you can check out the rationale here. Given that dynamic, I thought I’d touch on something really important–an appreciation for moms who work outside the home.

Before I proceed, it’s important to get something straight. No one is better simply because they stay at home, or simply because they work outside of it. All parents have a tough gig. All parents work extremely hard. No parent’s day ends at 5 pm. It’s a twenty-four-hours-a-day slog that requires patience and perseverance. Whether you’ve spent the majority of time from 9 am to 5 pm with your kids, or with colleagues, clients, and bosses, everyone’s tired come quittin’ time. But, as we know, no parent can quit. Ever. I just want to be clear on that. We good? Great. Moving right along!

As a stay-at-home dad, I have a unique perspective of the mom who works outside the home. I don’t have a regular outside-the-home job. Sure, I have some side-hustles, but nothing that requires me to show up to an office on a regular basis. I determine my schedule, what I do, who I work with, and where I work. What’s that mean? It means I see everything that goes on at home–all the work it takes to watch the kids and take care of the house. I know how isolating, or frustrating, or repetitive it can be.

Sometimes, I get frustrated that I’m the one that’s left to deal with the tantrums, and the spills, and the blowouts. Normally, that frustration spills out in the heat of the moment. When two kids are crying, one covered in spit up, the other in poop, and I’m by myself to deal with it. But, when I’m thinking more clearly, I realize that I don’t really have it any easier than my wife.

Then, I start thinking about everything that my wife does as the parent that works outside the home, and I’m amazed. I know why she does it, but I wonder how she does it. It boggles my mind, really. As a result, I thought I would salute all the moms who work outside the home. Don’t worry, I get it. You don’t need a man to tell you how great you are. Think of this as recognition, appreciation, and respect for all you do, one parent to another. Here goes

Dealing with A New Body

It’s no secret that a woman’s body is hijacked during pregnancy, and she doesn’t really ever get it back the way it was. Not identically. It takes work to deal with a changing appearance. You don’t look the same to yourself, you don’t look the same to others, clothes fit differently, your body moves differently, and you feel differently. That’s a lot to put up with from a mental standpoint. While some take it in stride, others have a tough time with it. Regardless, it takes mental work to process and make sense of all that.

Now, imagine, you have to put up with all that and be on display in the office. You’re not pregnant anymore, but you’re still carrying some extra weight. After all, a woman, on average, gains about 30 pounds during pregnancy—that’s over the course of nine months. And, because there are no 30 pound babies, she’s left with weight that she didn’t have before she was pregnant. Weight that was put in over a span of months, and likely will come off over the course of several months. Let me ask you something: How fun do you think it would be to get dressed for work in your pre-pregnancy work clothes? How do you think that would make you feel? If it were me, I’d be thinking about my weight. I’d also be thinking about how others perceived my weight. Whether I should or not is irrelevant. Whether others are paying attention to me or not doesn’t matter. It all takes mental work. Nevermind the physical element of trying to get back into something that fit well when I was 20 pounds lighter.

All that was the mental side. Next, let’s look at the physical side of things. Over the course of my wife’s last pregnancy, I gained about ten pounds. Unlike my wife, I had no reason to gain weight besides being undisciplined around my activity level and what I ate. Nevertheless, I’m 10 pounds heavier. You know what that’s meant for me? I wake up feeling like I did a lower-body workout the day before–every day. Imagine that. I wake up sore and fatigued. But that was my own fault. Now, imagine waking up with all that because you selflessly provided life to another person, and now have to go be a rockstar at work. It was hard enough to do that when your body didn’t ache all the time!

Functioning While Sleep Deprived

Speaking of being fatigued, do you know how much sleep a mom with an infant gets? According to a recent study, the average parent gets four hours and 44 minutes of sleep each night. I’d guess that number is lower for moms. Just to let you know, it’s recommended that adults get eight hours of shut eye to maintain optimal health and performance. How effective are you on less than 5 hours of sleep? For one day, I’m alright. For two days, I start to be at bit…off. By the third day, I’m angry, loopy, and far less sharp than I’m capable of being. Last week, my wife pulled an all-nighter. A few days ago, a friend of mine (who has two kids under three) did the same. Moms that work outside the home have to maintain the productivity and work quality of their before-kids selves with a body that’s full of new aches and pains, and far less sleep than before. Amazing!

Doing More in Less Time

Speaking of productivity and work quality, what do you think happens when you’ve been out for three months? I don’t know why I’m playing a guessing game with someone who can’t really answer back. Anyway, work piles up. Now, imagine you’re breastfeeding your child, and need to pump every two hours for about 30 minutes? Translation: You now have to do about eight hours of work in six hours. I mean, if you could do your job in six hours, rather than eight, don’t you think you would have been doing that all along? So, all that work that piled up, along with the work that normally would come along each week, needs to be done in less time. Oh, and in what workplace is it feasible that you’d even be able to pump up to four times a day for 30 minutes a pop?! Waiting. It doesn’t exist. ‘Cause, again, if you could do your job in six hours, you’d either already have four to five breaks a day, or you’d be given more work.

Some folks might say, “Well, don’t breastfeed.” Alright, Mr. Shut Your Face. Look, I’m not a fundamentalist breastfeeding zealot. When our second came along, we used the formula in the hospital. And for anyone out there that wants to tell me how “bad” that is, just go away. I’m fairly certain that a malnourished and underfed kid while you wait for the breastmilk to come in is sub-optimal. Besides, name a place, name a time. My kid will drink (breastmilk) your kid under the table. Anyway, if you choose not to breastfeed, you need to put up with the judgy breastfeeding brigade, you pass up an opportunity to bond with your baby, and your baby misses out on certain key benefits that breast milk provides. If you’re able to breastfeed, even a little, I’ve yet to meet anyone that elects not to. Which means telling a breastfeeding mom to just not breastfeed is dumb.

Managing Constant Hunger

While we’re on the subject of nourishment, a breastfeeding mom burns close to 500 calories when it comes to producing milk and extracting it. Put in proper perspective, if you eat a 2000 calorie diet, that’s 25% of it. If you consume fewer calories, as many women do, that percentage goes up. This means that breastfeeding moms are always hungry. Always. When I’m hungry, I’m not a good person. Nor am I prone to patience or rationality. Hmm, that doesn’t sound like an outlook that lends itself to professionalism. Oh, and never mind the cruel joke of being hungry all day while also trying to cope with burning the extra pounds that came with motherhood.

Working through The Emotions of Separation

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a mom that works outside of the home has to deal with doubt and loss. They are simultaneously guilty and grieving. They are guilty because they wonder if they should be at home with their kids. It starts with a biological need to be present in order to feed and nurture. As a dad, I can’t produce nourishment for my kids. Moms can. Before long, this turns into deep attachment. Mom and baby become almost inseparable in the early days. Which makes things really tough when it comes to to go back to work. The attachment gets broken, and mother and child must learn to function without each other for significant stretches of time. For mom, this looks like temporary stretches of grief where she finds herself intensely missing her little one. Over time, I’d imagine that immense attachment dissipates, but occasional bouts of missing your kid persist. That’s only natural. Still, mom must find a way to work through the feelings separation brings with it to get stuff done at work. No small task, at all.

To recap, the mom who works outside of the home has to deal with a lot. Changes to her body take a mental and physical toll. She’s tired, and hungry, and guilty, and grieving. She has to make up for lost time, while trying to squeeze in eight or nine or ten hours of work into what seems like six, all while maintaining the same levels of pre-child productivity. Then, when the office closes, she comes home to kids (and maybe a spouse) who miss her, and want her love and attention—the work never REALLY stopping. This is why I felt compelled to offer my deepest appreciation and respect for the moms out there who work outside the home. What they are able to do is truly remarkable. We’re proud of the mom in our house, and we love her very much.

Note: Header image courtesy of Pixabay