A Bad Day

Some days are just not good. I realize that shouldn’t require a declaration. Most people realize this. Most people who go to a job everyday outside of their house have a very easy time telling you that they had a bad day.

However, there is secret little rule amongst the ranks of the stay at home moms. We’re not supposed to have bad days. Or at least if we do, we can’t talk about them openly… because that would mean we are somehow making a negative statement about the pure joy that is staying home with your kids. Sure, we can call our best friend and vent about the theatrical display our child just provided everyone at the grocery store or how we’re feeling incompetent as a result of our child’s most recent doctor’s appointment, but these aren’t things you post on Facebook because, well, it starts to reflect poorly on you.

If you go to a job everyday, it’s easy to not like it. You have a wide choice of enemies to choose from – you can complain about your boss, your co-workers, your commute, your customers. All things you can’t control and are allowed to not like. But if you complain about staying home with your children, or the hard day you had, who are you making the bad guys here? A one year old and a three year old?

And imagine if you had people always admonishing you over your shoulder at your job to “enjoy these days, they’ll fly by before you know it”. That might shut you up from complaining, right? Or at least make you re-consider being quite so talkative about what it is that you don’t like about your job, out of pure guilt.

All this to say, I am over feeling guilty for having endured a bad day and then having to act to the outside world like life is fabulous. And I don’t think that doing that is particularly helpful to other stay at home moms either. If they see me walking around like I have everything under control and I am successful at making them believe that nothing goes wrong in my life, doesn’t that just make them feel worse about their own situation? Doesn’t that just serve to continue the vicious cycle that is… Have a bad day – Feel guilty for not enjoying every second with your kids - Don’t tell anyone so as not to look like a bad mommy – Push down feelings – Have another bad day?

And please, let me interject here for a moment and state that this is not something that I haven’t already shared with my husband. Not only is he keenly aware of when I do and don’t have a good day, he is so attuned to me that he can now tell how my day was by the tone of my voice. On those days when I call him at 5:30 and suggest heading to our favorite Mexican place for dinner, he gets it. And once we are sitting in a booth, with kids happily munching chips and salsa, he’ll knowingly look up at me and say, “so tell me about your day honey.” That’s really the only invitation I need to open up.

So yes, the last couple days have not been great. Whether it’s been the “getting back into a routine” thing after the holidays or the “it’s cold outside and I’m tired of bundling up three people every time I leave the house and worrying about lost gloves and hats and is that fleece jacket making her too hot once we get in the car?” thing, I have had a poor run of it the past few days. And I’ve decided that not putting it on my blog and instead posting only happy winter moments and memories doesn’t really help anyone. I don’t think it’s helpful to put unnecessary pressure on each other to be perfect. No one is perfect. No one’s life is perfect. A girlfriend of mine said to me this week, “you know, when you really get to know people, you realize, everyone has their issues.” And they do. My issue might not be your issue. And your issue might seem like the worst possible thing that could happen to anyone at that moment, but rest assured, everyone has a bad day. Or two.

So here’s to bad days. To going to bed in a crumpled heap and waking up the next morning to start it all over again with renewed hope to see what the day brings. And here’s to being honest. Being a stay at home mom isn’t easy. It’s not always fun. But it is what I’ve chosen. And I’m grateful to have had the choice.