I did this post as a short Facebook live video a while back and decided to turn it into a blog post. The idea came after a friend asked me a very simple, but very difficult question to answer. Like, my mind went blank. If you know me, I talk way too much so it made me laugh that I wasn’t quite sure what to say. The question was,

So now that you’re a stay at home mom, which is harder? Working full time with kids at home with a sitter or staying home full time with your kids?

You see, I couldn’t answer because that’s like comparing two completely different things. It’s like asking two Olympic athletes which one worked harder to get where they are. The answer is they both worked their ass off but in different ways, because their sport requires a different type of work. Different training, different muscles…but each one still had to “work” really hard.

After that conversation, I began to think about the kinds of questions and comments I got at different stages of my life.  Before I had kids, I was really busy but people would say, “oh you think you’re busy now, wait til you have kids”. Seriously? Because teaching full time, coaching a varsity sport, and running multiple academic programs was definitely not work at all. What people fail to realize at times is that the definition of busy is subjective. What your busy looks like compared to mine may be completely different, but it doesn’t mean either one of us works any less hard. When I didn’t have kids I filled my time with things that were important to me at that point in my life.

When I had kids but chose to continue working full time I would get asked, “Aren’t you afraid that choosing to work means missing all the special moments?” In my head what I wanted to respond with was, yes, I wake up each and every morning hoping that the career I love causes me to miss everything special in my kids’ lives. No! At that point in my life I loved my job, it brought in an amazing income for my family, and it fulfilled a part in me that made me happy every day.

Imagine my surprise when the time came for my family to decide that staying home became the better option for us personally, I got questions and comments from the flip side. People loved to stress to me how they could never leave their job to stay home, or that working meant they were setting a good example for their kids about work ethic. And these very well may be true…for them. They’re just not my reality. My favorite question so far has been, “So, what do you do all day?” Again, in my head I am thinking, oh you know, I wake up and have coffee alone while reading a book, because of course my kids sleep in til 10. Then when my kids wake up, they play nicely together all day while I watch Netflix and my housekeeper does laundry and makes dinner. No. My day is a constant flood of chaos with 24 straight hours of me being an absolute hot mess and just trying to make it until 5:00 when it’s socially acceptable for moms to open a bottle of champagne.

What do I do? EV-ERY-THING. And more.  

My point is, it’s all hard. At every stage it was hard, and busy, just in different ways.  So the next time your friend complains of a tough day, whether she’s single with no kids, a working mama, or a SAHM, bring her some champagne and ask her one simple question.

“I know you had a busy day, so would you like a glass, or the whole damn bottle?”