The question of the century, SAHM or WM?

I could not do those heels! 

With Mother’s day approaching us, and the future on my mind, I’ve been thinking a lot about the difference between Stay at Home mothers and Working Mothers. The stresses that both jobs bring upon a woman and the differences between the two.

I honestly can’t find any statistics for 2009 after the economic downfall when families begun to rethink their finances and their future. How many mother’s had to decide to go back to work or how many have decided to weigh it out, hoping for the best. In my case, I’m looking for a little of both worlds. Working from Home.

The debate between SAHM and WM has been the talk for the past 20 some odd years. The economical standpoint of it all is mainly, can you afford it? Both ways. The cost of daycare has risen in the past 5 years, at an average of 300-500 dollars a week. Low paying jobs don’t give you an option of a daycare onsite, so you’re stuck with either paying for it yourself, having a trusted family member watch your children, or receive public assistance. The last, I’ll explain the uproot of Western NY in a bit.

The cost of commuting, business clothing, and other expenses weighs together on is it really worth it? For some people, most people, they have no choice. The idea of getting an extra 100 dollars a week after the cost of going to work is worth more than not having a paycheck at all. For others, it’s a choice. Going forth on their careers, maybe the children are in middle or high school where they’re more independent after school to take care of themselves. Or maybe they just enjoy their jobs that much, personally if I had my dream job as a journalist, I wouldn’t think twice about not going to work.

Then the debate on staying at home. Raising your own children instead of someone else doing it. I know this sounds harsh but the 9+ hours that parent’s aren’t around their children really do affect them in a profound way. The influence of the daycare workers and the other kids influence how your child is raised. Their ideas and philosophy’s bring on a different view of life other than your own, if they don’t co-exist, then this can be a problem.

I give major kudos for both Working Mothers and Stay at Home moms. In the 4 years that my son has been alive, I’ve been both. Working a full time job and trying to maintain a household is extremely hard. On top of that, my partner is going to school full-time. It’s all in the balance, and the time management. We do certain things on some days and other things can not be doing during the days that we work. Our social life and holidays are based on our work schedule.

Being at Stay at Home Mom, I had the pleasure of seeing my son’s first crawl, walk, and talk. The first milestones of a long life ahead of him. Patience and learning how to not go insane was the first things I learned. I couldn’t just not plan anything on a daily basis just like working outside of the home, I had to have a game plan or everyday was boring and no structure.

So here’s the question of the century. Which one do you prefer? Working from home? Staying at home and not working? Or working away from home?

Are there anymore options that I missed?

Also, I found this quiz to determine your “Mom Paycheck”. Don’t we all wish we could get this in our mail each other?

Meds

So the kid has a cold. It's a coughing, running nose, headache thing that the entire household and it seems the world has.

My work has it, so does my ex and his family, both Aaron and I have it. My best friend's kids have it. It's horrible. UGH!

So I took some medicine at work... Pamprin was the only thing I could wiggle out of people. Going around cubical to cubical asking people if they have any drugs makes me look like a loony, so I asked my favorite medicine girl. I owe her a bottle of midol from my last period though.

It did shit, absolutely shit. I was sitting there with a bigger headache but my cramps were gone! Blepf. So another girl gave me some aspirin, old school aspirin that actually said it right on the pill. I took one. Was high as a kite for like six hours. Took the other, was giggling at customers. It wasn't a bad high, I didn't see any dancing unicorns or anything, unfortunately, that would of made work a little more tolerable. But I was happy, my headache was gone and I could stand people the rest of the day.

Mind you, I didn't do this on purpose. I didn't know the reaction would be like that. I'm not intentionally getting high at work. It was an accident. Aaron will never let me do it again. Me being happy, while he's being a miserable bastard at work? Never again!

So after I got home, my baby is coughing like a 60 yr old chain smoker. I give him some meds. He hates the shit. I tell him he can have a sip of his apple juice if he takes another sip. A chaser at three? Why not. He asks me to take a sip too.

Omg. This is the most horrible crap I've ever tasted. It's like stale orange juice with lemon and something else. It tasted mediciny and disgusting.

I checked the expiration date on it, it's legit. I just bought it a few months ago before cold season hit, thank god he only really got sick once and it was a stomach bug.

Tomorrow we're going to the store and picking up better tasting shit. Because after having to swallow your snot all day from your sinuses running, you wanna taste something better to make you feel better.

He's asking for bubble gum flavor. Yummy.