The SAHM and “What did you do today?”

When my husband gets home from work he likes to ask the innocuous question, “So, what did you do today?” Nice enough, right? Just checking in, seeing how things are going, looking for an update on the kids, wondering what’s been on my mind– it’s a fine question. Really.

SO WHY DOES IT MAKE ME WANT TO BANG MY HEAD ON THE KITCHEN COUNTER?

Rebecca Tredway Photography

The question makes me have this moment where it’s like my life flashes before my eyes, but instead of the highlights of my life, I see the day flashing before my eyes and it’s just all mundane nothingness. Opening string cheese wrappers. Pulling a shirt over a head. Picking up squished grapes from under the table. Putting books back on the bookshelf for the tenth time. And sometimes nothing flashes before my eyes. Literally nothing. “What did you do today?” “. . . . Ummmmmm. . . . Nothing?” Awesome.

I didn’t do nothing today! I know I didn’t. But in that moment my mind grasps for something of interest that I did. . . and that’s when I draw a blank. I mentally zoom past all the parts of the day where I was wiping jelly off the counter, the part where I peeled three different oranges for other people’s lunches, and then the part where I ate leftover spaghetti for lunch at 2 in the afternoon because none of that seems like a fantastic conversation starter and I’m so longing for something of MEANING to prove I’m worth it. I feel this drive to prove that what I’m doing is worth supporting, worth working to provide for. There’s this immense pressure, but it’s hard to put a name to what I do all day.

I think this is one of those hard parts about stay-at-home motherhood. There’s this dissonance between what I do and what would be deemed interesting or noteworthy by anybody else. Fact:  I actually liked wiping up the jelly. It was there and gross and looked bad and then I wiped it up and now you can eat off that countertop. . . or, more likely, spill more jelly on that countertop. I like the nothingness of my days. I also like breaking up the nothingness with a phone call or email conversation with a friend. And then I read an article that’s interesting about kids from trauma or about some new scientific discovery or I run across a recipe that seems fun to try and then maybe I spend some time writing. But then it’s back to The Nothing.

I’d like to make it sound like my day was more noble. Today I rescued a kitten! Today I taught our children all about what a cell looks like with the help of play-doh models I created! Today I painted a mural in the guest bathroom while the children were napping! But this is not my actual life.

This frustration gets intensified for me when I talk to other people about what I do. . . or rather, what I don’t do. When I hear other women talk about how mind-numbingly boring it must be to do what I do. How unfulfilling. What a waste. I want to argue with them about this and also feel like if you don’t get it, you don’t get it and maybe there’s no point in trying to explain it.

It IS mind-numbingly boring at times. You know what, so are a lot of jobs. It CAN be unfulfilling to have a college degree and find yourself arguing with a three year-old about what number comes after 6. But intellectual fulfillment is only one kind of fulfillment. The emotional rewards for both mother and child when you’re able to just be present with them are intense and beautiful. And I don’t think my life is a waste unless I choose to waste it. I could do that staying at home with my kids or in a full-time job, depending on where I’m finding my worth and how I use my gifts.

It can also be frustrating to have a conversation with someone who seems to idealize what you do all day. How sweet to just sit and read stories with your children! How precious to sing them lullabies and do craft projects and have them help you bake cookies. Somehow in those conversations all I can think about are the million ways I fail at this stay-at-home parenting gig. The times I told my kids to leave me alone because I was reading something or how my child ended up crying into the pancake batter because I told her to stop licking the spoon between stirs, or how I quit in the middle of a lullaby because the baby kept putting his finger up my nose.

The reality is that being a mom isn’t generally either of the extremes. It isn’t a day of nothing. It isn’t a day of extreme meaning and fulfillment. It’s usually a bunch of both. I’m trying to stop seeing the worth of what I’m doing as determined by some kind of product at the end of each day. Motherhood isn’t something you accomplish. It can’t be checked off your to-do list. “Success” is going to look different from day to day. I’m trying to learn to reorient my perspective and see what I’m doing through the eyes of my children. Today they were safe. They had the freedom to explore and play creatively. They were well-fed. They had access to toys and books and crayons. They had words of love spoken to them. These things matter. They aren’t nothing.

My husband isn’t asking me to defend my worth or the value of having me at home. It’s my own insecurity that does that. I’ve got to stop putting that weight on him or even putting that weight on my children to make me feel like my life has worth. Even if society doesn’t value what I do, I know it matters. It isn’t a waste of my life or my gifts to invest in my kids. Even if today I feel like I have nothing to show for it, I did something today. And it matters. Even if I can’t remember what it was.

(*I come at this topic from a “work-from-home” mom perspective. I hope there isn’t anything in here that would be hurtful to my “work-outside-the-home” mom friends. That certainly isn’t my heart. Our issues may be different, but I’m hopeful we can support and love each other.)