I have been lucky, blessed, and created the circumstances that I'm mainly a stay-at-home mom. I have never fully given up my paid profession. Sometimes I work more, sometimes I work less. It depends on my family needs and the needs of my employers. Currently (but very soon to change), I'm working for pay less and essentially only on weekend. Most, if not all, SAHM (and dads) get their share of "you have all the time" and "it must be so easy". Dipping into both worlds, I seem to attract even more of these comments when I'm in one of my working for pay less phases. Particularly from co-workers. I recently got a comment about how having an 11 day vacation from work is so nice but I wouldn't understand because all I have is free time. I was ticked. Let me tell you about all of my "free time".
Now both of my boys are in school. I still don't have 'hours' of free time. Obsidian has a minimum of 1-2 appointments a week in the middle of school. Two days a week, an hour and a half of my 'free time' is spent at the school helping, prodding, and keeping chaos and noise to a reasonable level during lunch. There is not enough staff to ensure kids get their food and actually eat it in the 20 minutes they have to do so without help. So I help. In many of the lower grades in particular, there is a lot of prep work that needs to be done. Papers to rip out of workbooks. Word flash cards to be copied, cut apart, and made into sets for each child. Packets to be made and put together to be sent home. Teachers that are underpaid and have 34 seven year old they are responsible for educating and keeping safe and healthy for 6 hours a day. So I help. I copy, cut, collate, listen to books be read, read to your child, go over the math your child just can't do alone, help keep order in the class, and just help how I'm asked. You know all that the PTAs do, well yes, I am an officer in not one, but two of the PTAs. You know the rugs in the lower grade classrooms that the kids sit on, and all of the furniture in the library, the 'free' books your child brings home several times a year, snacks during standardized testing week, smartboards in your child's classroom, the playground, classroom parties, scholarships, and, and, and, why yes, all of those things are brought to you by the PTA. By the hours of volunteering and work that those of us that are active in the PTA do. There are working moms and dads that are active, but most of the heavy 'lifting' are done by us SAH people and those that work part time. Days where the school gets too hot, I have to come get Obsidian and bring him home to cool off. Then there are the literal hours I have been spending each week in the attempt to get the medical care Obsidian needs. I've been learning how to file a formal complaint with the State as of late.
Since you listed me as someone your child can be released to, I get the phone call to pick up your child who has lice, or a 104 degree fever, or is vomiting, and needs to leave school, but can not go to day care for the same reason and you are in a meeting 2 hours away or presenting a large project or whatever other reason you can not get your child yourself. I do not like my own children in these circumstance, let alone another person's child. The said child is usually less than pleasant to deal with. Yet I do it, and do not mind as long as this is not abused. We need people in this world to do this. When your mother needs a ride to a doctor's appointment, or you need a ride to an outpatient surgery, it is me you call or the ride. And I will rearrange my schedule to do so. For this is what people should do for each other.
When my employer is in a tight bind and I get a phone call, I will rearrange if I can to try to help for a few hours or whatever I can.
When you have 11 days off of work, no one calls you during the day because no one thinks you are home. You (for the most part), don't have a chunk of time in the dead middle of the day that little people are depending on you in order to get the chance to eat a full meal. You have 11 days off of what you normally do. This simply does not happen for me. I don't remember when (if ever) that I haven't had a phone call to please come help with this, that, or the next thing. And I don't mind. We need people to be full time paid workers. But we also need people to fill in and help. Please don't tell me how I wouldn't understand how nice it is to have 11 days of free time. I can think of plenty of things I would love to do if I had no commitments for 11 days. I don't get to call in sick, and when I call mercy that I am sick and need help and can meet my commitments, chances are, I'm really really sick (as in the last two times that happened, the one time I got admitted to the hospital and had surgery, and the other I had a CT and was sent home on powerful meds that prevented me from driving). I do have vacations, but this is scheduled just as much as yours. If I'm staying at home for my vacation, my phones are turned off, and my answering machine is set to take messages silently.
So please, don't tell me I don't understand how nice it is to have 11 days off. I do, really. My job is just mainly unpaid, and far more unpredictable and varied than yours.
