I'm off to populate the Earth, develop character and moral fiber, and make a tuna casserole

December 17, 1:46 AMWichita Stay-at-Home Moms ExaminerShaunna Millar

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So I am talking to a woman in the grocery store, and she asks me about my life.  Am I working?  When I tell her that I decided earlier this year to stay home with my new baby and two other children, she looks aghast, and says, "God, you must be so bored."

Yeah, that's the ticket.  I never have to anything to do.

What is with this undercurrent of simmering disdain that I keep experiencing over and over with my decision to be home with my kids?  I haven't quite figured the phenomenon out, but I find that it keeps repeating itself with friends, acquaintances, and perfect strangers.

I am part of the post-'70s, pro-woman, kick-ass, get-a-job-and-rule-the-world generation that emerged from the women's movement.  I thank the heavens that I did not have to work in a secretarial pool or be forced into a marriage or homemaking not of my choice.  I am happy to call myself a feminist.  I was taught that girls could do anything they dang well wanted to do, and that the choices were limitless.  When I was twenty, I wasn't sure I even wanted children - but when I decided to be a mom, I wanted to "do" parenting as well as anything else I had approached in my life. 

Believe it or not, this choice did not involve trading in my professional life for one that allows me to sit around watching Lifetime TV and eating Doritos all afternoon.  I can't remember the last time I quit working before everyone else went to bed, and there are nights when I stay up (like tonight) just because it's quiet and I can have my much needed regrouping time. 

There are times when I miss having a lunch hour alone, and there is something to be said for the NPR-listening 5pm drive that I miss sometimes.  When I have one too many days of making meal plans instead of washing my hair, I have to admit to wanting adult conversation and shoes with a heel.  There are trade-offs and pros and cons, and somewhere in there is where I have found what I needed in my life.  That thing was time - to do the little, multiple life things that are important to me and my family.  I like having a to-do list a mile long that involves caring for the people that matter.  I chose to get two degrees, a few good jobs, and then quit them for this one.  That was my feminism-given choice.  The work is harder than my twenty-year-old self could have ever known, and I'm a stricter boss that any supervisor I've ever had. 

Not to digress into mushy, but there is something to be said for the value of holding your baby for hours when he is still small enough not to squirm away.  I like seeing my kids out the door each morning, knowing they are okay by their smile, and seeing if they're okay when they come out of their school door.  I can tell now if it's been a good day or a bad one simply by the rate of time it takes them to walk to our car.  Happy days are faster.  I never knew that before.

With a life like this, who could be bored?