I don’t know about you, but when I tell people that I am a stay-at-home mom their eyes glaze over. Or they raise their eyebrows in judgement. Or worse still they immediately assume my husband is a lawyer or a doctor or something that makes us rich so that I don’t “have” to work. *chuckle, chuckle!* All this aside, I AM looking for a part-time-after-Rick-gets-home-from-work job, but it’s hard to go into an interview and say, “Oh yes, hello. I have my degree and I have loads of experience, but if you could only schedule me from 5-9 and not on weekends and oh yeah I have Bible Study on Wednesday nights that I am committed to until June, Okay? Thanks!”
I’m sick of people judging me because I don’t have a professional 9-5’er. I mean, let’s be serious here. I don’t judge parents who both work and put their kids in daycare for 12 hours a day. I’ve worked in that atmosphere and I know those kids need a.) more sleep b.) more mental stimulation c.) more lovin and d.) more mental stimulation than what a daycare can give. I also know that this is what works best for some families. I also don’t expect my husband to come home, put his feet up, smoke a cigar and have dinner served to him by me in high heels, freshly applied make up, wearing a clean, cute little apron (no offense to those of you who CAN pull that off, by the way!). I expect that man to dig in and get his hands dirty with us, too. My job doesn’t stop once he gets home, why should his, right? My family sacrifices a lot so that I can be home with Sam. The biggest thing for me is more experience. I would love to have a professional career. I mean, come on now – who WOULDN’T like more money, the opportunity to help others, and some recognition? And while I sit here with no new clothes since maternity wear, a crappy dented van, and the only jewelery a wedding band – I see my twenties QUICKLY dwindling while my counterparts live the T.V. life (or so it would seem). I have a little more than a year left. And I’m only on child #1! But I LOVE my job and the negatives outweigh the benefits – at least for us.
And this is why I think we need to come up with a better name for ourselves. Housewife sucked. Mostly just because it put women in two different (warring) categories – gainfully employed or not. Homemaker? Eh. Stay-at-home mom? Come on! How many of you spend your days actually AT HOME!? Plus all of these labels suggest that we just sit here on our ever expanding asses waiting for our husbands to come home so that we can finally start our day. (I must admit here that when the time draws near for Rick to get home I do get pretty excited. I’m almost as bad as the dog who waits by the door. But this doesn’t mean I don’t still have stuff to do…)
I am suggesting something much more professional. Because, in reality, we are professionals. And we don’t want to exclude the stay-at-home-dads, now do we? I suggest something like the following:
*Director of Family Economics
*Home Maintenance and Welfare Manager
*Chief Educator
*Chairperson of Housing, Education and Dietetics
That’s all I’ve got right now. Any more you’d like to see up here? I’m getting pretty excited to redo my resume!
Filed under: Housekeeping, Marriage, Mom Stuff | Tagged: family, homemaker, housewife, resume, stay-at-home mom |
On Joy, Happiness and Sam 
Domestic Engineer works for some.
How about these:
Chief Economics Officer
Home Economist (tho I’ve seen this – truly – listed in multiple cooking/home making magazines lately and never realized, til now, that it was a “real” job title – so that may mean potential employers assume you can work a test kitchen like a she-wolf on Whole Foods acid)
Domestic Engineer (I’ve always thought this one rather dopey, personally, but then, maybe that’s because I could never be a real engineer)
Chief Operations Officer (one that also = a real job title, might be iffy. But really, you ARE the one running operations at home – not even counting any surgical operations on skinned knees and torn stuffed animals haha)
Home Front Liaison (that looks spelt wrong. *chuckle* But Firefox claims it’s right…..)
Chief Cook and Bottlewasher (which is truly dopey but my mom uses it all the time as her home business title. scary, that.)
I must admit I’ve been mulling this over myself lately, and honestly the best I’ve come up with is a fun little abbreviation to go after my name. Those are always fun, and I recall hearing of an older woman who did something similar and everyone was so impressed – professionals – and yet none of them ever DID ask what it *meant* (in her case it was something along the lines of WWNE – wise woman who knows everything – or some such)…so here’s my abbreviation idea:
Melonie K., MWHE (military wife, home educator)
Won’t they wonder?????
You hit it on the head. I can’t tell you how many times I get the “glazed over look” from working women/moms when I tell them I’m a “stay-at-home-mom.”
Even though I’ve been at home with my two sons for almost seven years now (and I do feel blessed to be able to do so), at times I crave my former life as a working professional. As you said, getting recognition for a job well done. I miss those days when I’d sit down in my cushy chair in my a quite office and begin my day. Oh, and the chance to pee alone – the little things. When I first left the work force to stay home and raise my kids, I can’t tell you how many women and working moms told me how lucky I was. It was like I was going on a permanent vacation to some tropical island. With that said, here are my (and my husband’s) ideas:
EVP of people and places
Chief of staff
Ring Master (this one’s my favorite)
Oh how I love those….I have to keep up with this post, I may need these some day!!!
As usual…I completely agree with you!! A few years ago, our life insurance agent was coming up with an amount of life insurance my husband needed to take out on me…it was unbelievable the amt. he came up with…because once you add up childcare, cook, cleaner, seamstress, educator, manager, etc. etc. etc…hey, we’re unreplaceable!!!!!! I have to remind my husband of that every now and then!
I have a job idea for you…it’s not a ‘professional job’…you won’t need your college degree for it. Before I mention it, I do have to say that I am a huge encourager for moms to stay at home if it at all possible!! I’m SOOO thankful to be able to stay at home (although, yes, it does put a financial strain on us at times!!). However, I know in some cases, the mom has to make some money. I got this idea from some friends of ours…she has always stayed home, but they have gotten themselves into a boatload of debt…the only way they saw to get out of it was for her to get a job. They have 3 kids, and homeschool so her opportunities were limited….but….she got a job delivering the city newspaper. She does it from like 2-5 am…she’s home by the time her husband has to leave for work. She goes to bed early and tries to get a nap each day. The newspaper pays for her gas/mileage and on top of that she makes $1200 a month. Just an idea…it works for them!
Have a great day!! (Sorry for the long comment!!)
Christy
thanks for writing this…
I’ve had conversations about this with my friends who work part-time job shares, but I stay home full time.
we came up with a title that i could put on my email signatures :
CEO Child life Coach/Domestic Goddess
[…] week I posted about my new job title as a stay-at-home mom, or “Domestic Goddess”, etc. (LOVED that one, by […]
Don’t you ever feel bad about what you do- being a mom, wife, homemaker. That’s a huge job with lots more responsibility. Tell them your a professional organizer and multi-tasking genius. “smile” You’ll get a job! Not to worry!