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How I Know You Are A Stay-At-Home Parent

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Do you ever talk to your spouse about something “important” like he is next to you when he is two rooms over and then get extremely frustrated when he doesn’t answer? I mean, you are so used to everyone you’re around (your kids) being at your side all day long, and they hear everything (what they choose to hear is a different story…) so what’s your spouses’ excuse?

“Are you doing that thing you do where you talk to me in a normal tone of voice when I’m not in the room with you, and you expect me to hear you?” Your spouse says when he finally catches wind (you may have sent an angry text) that you are trying to speak to him and you finish your tirade with a loud roar of: “NO ONE EVER LISTENS TO ME.”

This happens,

ALL THE TIME.

Does your spouse call you on the way home from work to listen to you deal with the kids because he’s so bored in traffic? You are so in need of adult conversation that the two of you are a match made in bad-conversation-heaven. Sometimes you forget he’s on the phone, but lo and behold, you hear him randomly chime in…

“Listen to Mommy!”

“Why are you still there?” You think, but take what you can get. You are having some sort of adult conversation, so you say cheers (with an empty bottle of milk) to that.

This happens,

ALL THE TIME.

Do you ever get to bed early? Nope, of course, you don't.

You are too busy trying to get tasks done that you couldn’t complete throughout the day because you were taking care of tiny human beings that can’t function properly without your assistance. You are cleaning, working (if you work from home), putting together the next day's snacks, bottles, food, etc. Oh, and when you are done with the busy work, you crave one moment to clear your head and the scrolling on social media, news sites, gossip rags, begins. Before you know it, it is midnight, and you are scolding yourself because you need to get up in five hours to do it all again. I repeat--do it all again.

This happens,

ALL THE TIME.

Do you ever have to cancel your wax because you try bringing your daughter and she freaks out because she thinks you are at a doctor’s appointment and this whole “waxing you speak of” is a cover-up? And this is week five of no eyebrow maintenance meaning your brows resemble the caterpillar from The Very Hungry Caterpillar? (and yes, you think of THAT caterpillar because you have read that book 1,000,000 times) Oh, and those eyebrows don’t look feminist-strong-distinguished-chic like how they look on Frida Kahlo. Nope, not one bit.

If one of the above sounds familiar, my occupational guess for you, is that you are a stay-at-home parent.

An exhausted, overwhelmed, on-the-brink-of-a-meltdown stay-at-home parent.

Your work never stops.

Yes, the house looks the same as when your partner left in the morning, but he should have seen what it became when he was gone!

When you are a stay-at-home parent, every move is a lot of work. You move as a team, a pack--together. Every transition is an argument of what should be brought where and what shouldn’t. Every transition is a test of wills because, it’s so fun to challenge EVERYTHING, don’t you know?

Oh, because for those that have doubt, we work until we are mentally and physically exhausted. We work around the clock, with very little break time and zero pay. We do something called gods work, and nothing is more important than that.

And I have one more guess about you, stay-at-home parent. You wouldn’t trade your job for anything.

Because even though your schedule is filled to the brim,

So is your heart.

This article originally appeared on the author's Facebook.

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