1995
Several years ago, like too many to count, I was watching a talk show...I used to watch them while folding laundry or making cookies or any number of mundane home jobs that sometimes seem boring in and of themselves. The talk shows helped keep me entertained. But, this one day, I saw the mother of all talk shows, and I have never watched one again. The people on the show were totally dogging on the stay at home mom. Saying how they didn't carry their weight in a marriage, we were lazy and someone even had the audacity to compare a stay at home mom to a "kept woman". Are you kidding me? Isn't a kept woman someone who doesn't do a dang thing? Someone who lays around eating bonbons and is there for her husbands every sexual whim? Like I need to be paid for sex! Not me! Nope...This show was totally demeaning, and I actually let it get to me for a while. But, then I remembered my job as a stay at home mom was akin to a sacred calling.
I LOVED being a stay at home mom. I worked hard, too! My home was always clean, the kids were happy and KT always had a dinner to come home to even if at times it was mac n cheese from a box. I felt good about my accomplishments throughout the day. KT used to have people ask him what his wife did, after he told them I was a stay at home mom, it was like I was suddenly not interesting anymore. "Oh," they would say. Bless his heart, I love him for this, he would tell them "Well, she probably works harder than me most days." Fo sho!
Five years ago I went back to work. The kids were all going to be in school, and I was just darn afraid of being home by myself after all those years. I think I was afraid I would become that bonbon eating kept woman. But you know what? I now long for the days of staying home. Even if I only work part time, they were days of far less stress and a far less stressed wife makes for a happier husband. I'm just sayin'. But it's not so easy to just stay home anymore. We've become accustomed to the extra money. I have a son in college right now and another who is a senior in high school. So, really, staying home again is not in the near future. I guess I just long for the days of being a "kept woman" again...Those days of more simplicity...
