What I Learned From My Week As A Stay-At-Home “Mom”

I never pictured myself the stay-at-home mom type. My own mother worked full-time all throughout my childhood. In my circle of friends, she was one of the few moms that did. I remember always looking for rides home from my after-school programs and play practice. It was a bit of a source of anxiety for my younger self, if I’m being honest, but looking back now, I couldn’t be prouder of my extraordinarily talented mother, who dedicated her career to helping adults with developmental disabilities.

But this post isn’t about the working moms, brave and strong and extraordinary as they are. This one is about my own experience at the other side of the table: staying home with a baby. The baby in question is my niece Ruby. She’s nine months of chunky baby goodness. She’s really a good baby, I’m told, as she keeps to a relatively easy schedule, loves to eat whatever you give her, and rarely cries. Her dad is my brother and best friend. Seeing him be a dad is one of the greatest joys of my life. My sister-in-law and I have a newfound closeness, bonding over tiny socks and dirty diapers. She had to go back to work full-time less than three months after Ruby was born. She’s still struggling with the decision, but knows that her family needs her to work. And so off to work she goes, every morning before 7am and home around 6:30pm. She truly blows my mind.

Since starting my new business, I’ve been working from home most days, and so when Ruby’s nanny went on vacation this week, I was called in to pinch hit.

The first few hours were bliss! I’ve never gotten so much alone time with Ruby. And since she’s the first baby to come into our family in a long time, we’re all constantly vying for time with her at family gatherings. Now, I had a whole day of nothing but uninterrupted Ruby time!

I learned very quickly that this wasn’t all playtime. Not in the least. Usually, I get to play with her for a bit, get tired or bored, and hand her off to some other eager participant. But now, I had a very strict schedule of feedings, bottles and naps. One missed nap or late bottle and this adorable little munchkin turned into a screaming banshee baby.

It was around day three of my sojourn into stay-at-home mommying when I realized that this gig was way harder than I ever gave anyone credit for. I was out the door at 6:30AM to commute from my apartment in Battery Park to Queens, where my brother lives. Then it was straight into the routine. She’s at the age where she’s crawling, so no more just laying her down on a play mat and relaxing on the couch. No, this chick is mobile, and everything around here looks like it’ll kill her, so I’m constantly hovering over her. After an hour of crawling after her, it’s finally time for her to eat. I’m ecstatic to pin her down in a highchair, away from the dangers of the floor. But I quickly learned that eating can be harder than crawling (for me, at least!). She just started on solid food, and so now every bite seems like a quest not to kill her by choking!

There was an hour there where I was so bored and tired of following her around, that I took out the laundry basket for a makeshift baby jail. This gave me 15 minutes of peace.

So, yeah. This stay-at-home mom stuff is no joke. It’s not at all the lazy days of baby kisses and moms who lunch that I thought it was. It was incredibly hard and emotionally draining. My brain felt a bit like it was melting. I had no one to talk to other than a nine-month-old.

And this was after only a week with only one kid who wasn’t even mine! I clearly was not a mom. Not yet, anyway. Moms are incredible, herculean women who make sacrifices no matter which way they play it. I was just the aunt who barely lasted a week without jumping.

To stay at home or go back to work? That’s the real question.

What I’ve learned from my friends and family grappling with this choice is that none of it is easy. And either way, no moms I know are 100% happy with their choice. There’s tons of guilt and emotion that goes into this choice. And sometimes, like in the case of my sister-in-law, you don’t even get a choice. You just have to find daycare and trust others to watch your kid.

My biggest takeaway in all of this is to tell myself and other non-moms that it’s our job to never judge and always support those women in our lives and in our workplace that have to deal with this decision. None of it is easy, and all of it deserves our support.

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