President of Child-Rearing

Today a colleague stopped by my office to say her goodbyes as today was her last day at the company.  She has resigned from her sales job after 5 years to be a stay-at-home mom.  "How cool and how lucky you are" I beamed.  I immediately thought of all the crazy reports I've heard on poor conditions and carelessness at day care providers and I can see why my colleague would not want to leave their newborn with strangers.

While I was a little jealous, (not sure why, I don't have any kids yet) I wondered how many stay-at-home moms are out there and what they do everyday.  Well, I did find that the U.S. Census Bureau reported 5 million stay-at-home moms in 2010.  That's quite a bit, but it didn't mention what exactly stay-at-home moms do all day.  I don't have any close friends or family members who chose to give up working outside the home to stay at home with their kids; but when I hurriedly venture to Target on my lunch break, I always envy those mid-day shopping moms who get to leisurely peruse the aisles and comparison shop in peace.  Is that what my "stay-at-home mom to be colleague" will do?  But what else?  Feed, change and play with the baby or toddler can only take up a couple hours; housework all day, every day, I don't think so.  Well, maybe these SAHMs are using the time to start schooling their kids, so that they can be super-genius kids who are overly prepared for Pre-Kindergarten.  Or, maybe the majority of that 5 million is really running some sort of home-based business.  So technically they are working moms...

Whatever it is SAHMs do, good for you and more power to ya!  Who knows, I one day may start a Power Apron blog and I will at least know for sure what a SAHM does then!