I’ve worked outside the home for the duration of my motherhood, and I decided long ago to leave the mommy wars.
{I don’t think they really exist anywhere except on the internet and with a few crazies running around in real life anyway.}
With that preface out of the way, awhile ago this article from Babble made quite a wave in social media with its discussion of how having a stay-at-home mom is a luxury…for the working spouse.
I read it, and I thought it was great.
Even though I can get over-sensitive sometimes and have to check myself, this particular article brought up absolutely zero defensive emotions about my own role as a working mother. In fact, in my obviously qualified non-stay-at-home-mom opinion, I thought it was spot on.
Then I browsed the comments, running across a bunch of “Agreed!,” “Perfect!,” and a few “I’m sick of hearing that SAHM’s are better than working moms.”
{And then I thought, did we even read the same article? But I digress. There will *always* be those. It is the internet, after all.}
But there, in the midst of them, was the comment that won the day. It was a reminder that stay-at-home moms are not only a luxury and a blessing to their families, but to all of us working moms as well.
TRUTH.
This was a fact I was reminded of when my phone rang immediately after a friend read a desperate post of mine about scrambling to find early-dismissal childcare. “I read your blog. Did you get it covered? I can do it!”
Then there was the time when a friend texted me about Vacation Bible School at our church. “Does Conlan want to go? Sign him up! I’ll bring him home when it’s over and he can spend the afternoon with us!”
And it’s something I was acutely aware of when there was a weekday afternoon birthday party that we wouldn’t be able to make it to. “I’ll pick Conlan up from school and take him to the party so he can go, too!”
{She even put together a costume for him so he’d fit in with the party’s theme.}
Mamas, these are just the times that my dear friends jumped in to help before I even asked them. There are millions of other times when I actually asked for help and they saved my skin.
Ladies, motherhood is not a war. It’s a sisterhood. It truly is a luxury that I have a sisterhood of women who stay home with their babies, and the support they give me is part of the reason that I feel I can do working motherhood well. They allow my son to stay connected and involved and cared for and loved in the moments that I’d otherwise feel like I was failing him.
This sisterhood is a lifeline, and it’s to be celebrated.
So stay-at-home moms, thank you. Thank you for supporting your husbands and sacrificing for your families. Thank you for volunteering in the classrooms and organizing things at church and signing up to bring dinners to others in the weeks that I can’t bear to cram another thing into my schedule. Thank you for the service you give to the community.
Thank you for staying home and taking care of your kids.
And thank you for loving mine so that I can be a better working mother.
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A version of this post originally appeared on Family. Work. Life.
