Briefly, on being a stay-at-home mom

I haven't actually seen Little Children yet. It's on my list. I hadn't even heard of it until Kate Winslet was nominated for the Oscar for her performance, but then one day I found myself on the movie's website watching the trailer, and I wanted to see this movie.

And now I want to see it even more. That's a really well-written essay about what it's actually like to be a mother and have ambitions outside your children's lives. I am recently discovering a whole contingent of people whose feelings on topics like staying home to raise your kids are similar to mine. Should I stay home or go to work? I've often thought to myself that if I had a career to go back to, I'd be at work in a heartbeat.

Unfortunately my lack of an attention span has prevented me from finding a niche for myself in the working world (I could write a book on all the careers I've considered, but I'd lose interest two paragraphs in), and now I am at home with my beautiful, amazing son. It's a little soul-sucking at times, honestly. At other times it's mind-blowingly awesome. Listen, I'm not trying to get deep here. Most of the time it's just normal everyday life. I'm not depressed or miserable, and it doesn't mean I don't love my son. I am perfectly normal, and what I'm trying to say is that I bet even those "perfect moms" hate their lives some days. If you don't understand what I'm saying, I encourage you to read the essay I linked to up there (which is of course why I linked to it in the first place). Bottom line: it's not an all-or-nothing proposition - a woman can be happy and be a mother and love her child and at the same time sometimes long for something different, whatever that may be. More women need to admit this to themselves and to each other, and if they did, a lot of moms might not feel so bad or so alone about whatever choices they've made.