I have a confession to make…

Lately I have been extremely jealous of stay-at-home moms. I work in an office 40 hours a week and, while I enjoy my job, there are many days when I daydream about what it must be like to actually spend the summer with my child as so many other women get to do.

On my lunch break at work I check Facebook on my phone and see status after status from moms proclaiming things like:
“Headed to the Munster pool!”
“Going to the zoo today!”
“Let’s see how my kids do at the beach this time.”

When I read these things—sitting in my windowless, fluorescent-lit office—I can’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of jealousy and just sadness that I can’t do those kinds of things with my daughter. In fact, almost every day of the year, Isabella and I are separated more hours than not, and on top of that, she goes to her dad’s at least two days a week. I just feel like, compared to other moms, I’m missing out on her childhood.

I KNOW that doing recreational activities with small children is no easy feat, sometimes more work than it’s worth, and I’m sure that many moms are jealous of ME for being able to step away from parenting for a while and be my own person. There are definitely pros and cons to both sides of the working/non-working debate. But I would think that spending lots of quality time with your children, difficult as they may be at times, beats success in the workplace any day.

I’m not itching to quit my job because we need the income and it is fulfilling for many other reasons. I guess I just want to encourage all of you stay-at-home moms who may sometimes wish for a different life. The fact that you don’t have to work outside of the home is a blessing. The time that you spend with your children while they’re young is precious. They will remember these years forever and will be grateful for the time they had with you. And they’ll probably be better people because of it.

Now, go have fun at the pool.