Can you really say that being a stay home Mother is a career?

[SheilaT]

35. It's certainly not a career in the traditional sense of that word.

It's a job. It's a 24 hour a day job. It involves all sorts of skills and a lot of flexibility. You have to be pretty good at managing your time.

I stayed home the entire time my two sons were growing up. We were not rich, just decided to make do with less. Plus, since I did not have education and training for anything other than entry-level work, when the boys were very young it probably would have cost as much money as I could make to have them in day care.

Here's something else I honestly don't get: a lot of women who have stayed home for some length of time with children, say they were bored and unstimulated. I never felt that way. I had no problem connecting with adults as I needed to. I read books, discussed ideas with my husband, never lost sight of myself. Now, granted, I never had a job that I just loved, never had a promotion of any kind, never had a career, just a few jobs in the years before I finally married at age 32. But every day with a baby, toddler, child, was different and interesting.

I also, once the youngest was about four, returned to school part time and started taking classes I wanted to take.

I saw the immense struggles of working mothers, especially single mothers, and absolutely wanted no part of that. What made me crazy then, makes me crazy now, is the extent to which the world of work is totally incompatible with the world of having a family. THAT'S what needs to change.