Can Someone Tell Me Exactly What the Difference Is?

Every so often, it seems to spring back up on the interwebs. We’ll go through a period of time where we’re not picking at one another, and then WHAM! There it is again—which group does more? Who is the bigger martyr? Who is doing more damage to their children? Who has it tougher? Who is better? The stay-at-home-moms? The working moms? The hybrid moms? The robot moms?

Normally, I just ignore it. Anyone with a lick of sense realizes that stay-at-home-moms are not relaxing the day away and using their children as an excuse, and the working moms are not power hungry women putting the aims of their careers over those small beings that were expelled from their wombs. We all do what we gotta do, and more often than not, working moms work because they have to work and stay at home moms stay at home because they need to stay at home. More often than not, it’s a matter of economics and meeting the needs of the family, and not the pie-in-the-sky esoteric debate that we tend to try to make it out to be.

I see we’reon the cusp of rehashing the debate once more. We like to come back to this time and again. It made me think, this time around. I’ve been both a stay-at-home-mom and a working mom. I’ve been on both sides of this fence I currently ride. And when I think about my experiences as both, I start to get confused.

The long and the short of it is this—I don’t see much difference in what I did back then and what I do now. I even read through some of my old journals this morning—from several years ago, when I was just starting my master’s degree, and Ant was just over a year old. The one thing I notice—there seems to be a lot of overlap… Would you care to see what I mean? Great! I made a table to show you my premise. I call it exhibit A:

Sarah’s Highly Oversimplified Typical Day
Time of Day	Stay-at-Home/Grad Student	Working (Like, Yesterday)
Ass crack of dawn	J is leaving for work early, because of problematic issue at work. I get up, make the bed, and start coffee	J is leaving for work early, because it’s inventory time. I get up, make the bed, and start coffee
Getting children ready for the day	K gets in the shower, I wake Ant up, change him, feed him, change him, clothe him, snarf down coffee, force K to eat breakfast, get myself around in less than 20 minutes	K gets in the shower, I wake Ant up, force him to eat, force K to eat, force Ant to get dressed, brush hair and teeth, snarf down coffee, get myself around in less than 20 minutes
School time	I take K to school, Ant falls asleep in the car, I run errands and piss him off waking him up, or go home and pick up the house or fold two loads of laundry	I take K to school. I run errands with Ant, or go back and pick up the house or fold two loads of laundry, then get Ant to school
Morning	Laundry. Try to read for class. Email. Email. Email. Laundry.  Follow Ant around, everywhere he toddles, with my arms outstretched waiting to catch him when he falls for the 50th time.	Late, again. Email. Work. Meeting. Meeting. Email. Email. Email. Work.
Lunch	I spend so much time trying to convince Ant to eat lunch that I forget to eat myself.	I realize at 2:00 that I forgot to eat lunch again.
Afternoon	Try to convince Ant to take a nap so that I can read and prep for class that night. Feel slightly panicky at the amount of crap I have to do.	See entry under morning—if classes have not yet started and the students are still out of town. Feel slightly panicky at the amount of crap I have to do.
Evening	Running late. K home from school. Barrage of random chatter. Homework. Make dinner. Eat dinner super early, due to class. Clean up dinner. Laundry. Wish J luck when he walks in the door. Go to class.	Running late. Boys home from school. Barrage of random chatter. Homework. Make dinner. Eat dinner. Clean up dinner. Laundry. Wish J luck when he walks in the door, as I escape for 30 minutes to myself. Exercise.
Night	Class. Home by 9:30pm. Promptly fall asleep on couch.	Read with Ant. Finally convince children to go to bed by 9:30pm. Promptly fall asleep on couch.

So, correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t I doing all of the same things? Well, perhaps with the exception of exercising—which if you consider following my toddler around all the time when Ant was a toddler and peeling him off of everything he tried to climb—well, I think that counts as exercise. I don’t think there are any significant differences here… Which I think might be handy to point out the next time someone tries to instigate a fight between the stay-at-homes and workings…

What have your experiences been? Have you been in both roles with children? Have you ever had someone try to pick THE fight with you? Do you have a good way of telling people to come off it if they intentionally or unintentionally diss you?