PART-TIME MOM MY ASS

    I will apologize up front if this post seems like a rant, because it is. I am not too sure if this post will be what this assignment called for, but it is what is on my mind today. While having a conversation over the weekend with a few friends the phrase part-time mom came up. See my friends were having a discussion about me with some other people who are not my biggest fans. They were discussing my plans to move and go to grad school and make more of myself. One of these people made the comment it must be nice for me to be a part-time mom. When asked what they meant they said well she goes to school all the time and works and still has time to go out and have girl’s nights. I appreciate my friends standing up for me at this point, for their response to that was a lot nicer than what I said.

Yes I go to school, work, and manage to find time for girl’s nights, but that does not make me a part-time mom. I work a part-time job 20 hours a week. I go to school full-time 18 hours this semester. I do find time for girl’s nights which 8 times out of 10 include my oh so charming little one.

I do not think I have a second shift when I get home. My at home job is my full-time job. The cleaning, cooking, washing, folding, putting up of clothes, waking Bently up, tucking Bently in, changing diapers, digging cheerios out of the carpet, the bubble baths, motorboat spoons, tickle tickle, showing the world my belly button because he needs to know it’s there, are the things I live for. Those things are the reason I work and go to school.

I understand that women work as hard as men in “real” world. But when it comes to home life, women work so much harder. It is not ok for a man to be “domestic”, but it is ok for them to be part-time fathers. It is ok for me to not cook or clean or do the laundry. A woman is not only expected to compete and excel in the real word but she is expected to be Martha Stewart at home as well. Most women now days have two full-time jobs. They have the 8-5 “real world” job then they have the twenty-four hour job. Being a mother is a non-stop job, and for those who are not mothers the job at home is still never done.

I would not call it second shifting, because if anything it is the first shift. The home job is what you wake up and go to bed to. The 8-5 job is the second shift that gets you away from the first for a little bit.