(No, really, if you don't read it before you read my response, I'll just sound profane and defensive).
In Response to "Dear Stay-At-Home Moms: Shut the Eff Up" by Susannah B. Lewis published on "Your Tango: Your Best Love Life" (wait...what?).
Is this for real? First of all, I drive a [bleeping] station wagon, not a minivan. Second of all, I can't come at you with sharp kitchen utensils because they are all locked away in childproof cabinets that I haven't been able to open since installing the childproof locks. And thirdly, I know exactly zero moms who "dream of backpacking across Europe"- I speak for many moms when I say that most post-parent desires can't be fulfilled by a rucksack and Cinque Terre. An 11th Century Convent converted into a boutique luxury hotel on the Amalfi Coast? Now THAT...that sounds fulfilling.
So here is my open invitation to all of you SAHM (and work-at-home moms and working moms and pretty much anyone with the title "mom")...
Come over to my house and vent, ad nauseum, about how [bleeping] hard this [bleep] is. You can be "sad, and resentful" while you "whine" about your "sink full of dirty dishes" and I will pour you a bottomless glass of high-test coffee (and/or wine) and listen, empathetically because I get it. I [bleeping] get...it.
You can vent about your "ornery children" without feeling like you need to count your blessing before complaining about your blessings. You can rip on your "unhelpful husband" because I probably know your husband- and he's not intentionally unhelpful, of course. It's just that you don't want to have to remind him to take out the [bleeping] garbage 1,000 times before you lose your [bleep] and just take it out yourself sometime after bath time, in between the nine million other things you need to do before bedtime.
(As for considering myself "blessed" to have a faithful husband- excuse me while I run a quick source check to find out what decade/country this post was published in).
Moving on.
Please, complain to me about how "weary, exasperated and annoyed" you are because it will only validate my struggles with weariness, exasperation and annoyance. And I promise I won't consider you "indignant" or ungrateful if you don't start every conversation by acknowledging that we are among "one of the most privileged species on the planet" (I think everyone's pretty pumped to be human, but what I think the author is really trying to say here is that we are lucky to be home with our kids...lucky to be part of the stay-at-home-ma-sapien species).
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses of stained yoga-pant wearing moms and let us all "[moan] about the dust accumulation on [our] furniture, the temper tantrums in Target and the gas [we] burned hauling [our] children to baseball, ballet, and soccer practice."
Keep knocking on my door with your "greasy hair" and "caffeine withdrawals" and we will bond over our desires to maybe, one day go back to work, but only after we've witnessed those incredible baby milestones, of course- and then we will giggle because that very sentence explains the cluster [bleep] that is parenthood- our desire to achieve the parent/professional balance.
And I promise I will never tell you to "shut your piehole" or to "quit your whining"- mostly because that's crass, but also because I understand the value of venting about situations that are difficult and because I want to be a good friend and validate your feelings. And also because I'm not a mean mom bully who thinks she deserves a badge because she "manages [to not] constantly sigh in disgust at [her] choice to care for [her] children or vent to anyone who will listen in the grocery store line about [her] unfulfilled life".
I'll listen because I understand the intricate complexities of choosing to be a SAHM and the past life regret that sometimes happens after shelf-ing the dimensional life you had before kids.
And to the author, Susannah- you are also welcome to come to my home and vent about how hard it is to be a SAHM when you don't have anymore SAHM friends after you offended all of them with your insensitive and pretentious post.
RELATED: "Blessings" that are ok to complain about sometimes
Your family
Your friends
Your Life, in general
Your job
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