by Jocelyn Rieck

Created on: September 29, 2009   Last Updated: September 30, 2009

The Joy of being a Stay at Home Mom

I have the most important job in the world. No, I am not a doctor or a lawyer or CEO of a multi-million dollar corporation. I don't travel the world feeding the homeless or spend hours in a lab researching mouse DNA. I don't make a six-figure salary or wear designer suits. I will never be elected to public office, find the cure for cancer or speak to the country through your television set. My picture will never be on the cover of People or Time or Newsweek and no one will ever follow me around trying to take my picture

I am a kisser-of-booboos, a peanut butter and jelly gourmet. I am seeker of lost shoes, blankie washer, story reader, tear wiper, lullaby singer extraordinaire. I spend my days talking about dinosaurs and army men and the latest Taylor Swift song and answering questions that start with why. I have watched countless hours of Bear in the Big Blue House and have danced to every Wiggles song. I have read every Dr. Seuss book in existence and can recite more than one of them from memory. I can speak and interpret Toddlerese fluently and I even understand a bit of Teen Ager. I have excavated little boy's bedrooms that would intimidate seasoned archaeologists and dredged the depths of clogged toilets that would have made Jacque Cousteau cry. I am Mom.

While others have been out navigating the Corporate Jungle, I have been home with my 4 children. I have watched childhood friends graduate from college with fancy degrees and land promotion after promotion, their egos swelling along with their paychecks. My path has been a different one. Instead of a swelling paycheck, I have a swelling family and with each child, I have become more confident that my decision to stay at home with them was the best one I could make. I find more joy and satisfaction in knowing that I get to be there to watch my children grow than I have ever found in a job or a paycheck. Nothing could ever compare to witnessing the milestones that I might otherwise have missed.

There have been days when I have envied working Moms for the adult interaction and the recognition that I don't necessarily get as a stay at home mother. I have had bad days and lonely days and days full of frustration when I am tempted to try to find a job just to get out of the house. But then one of my children gives me a big hug for no reason or my baby daughter learns something new and I realize that if I had been at work, I would have missed that moment with them. The working world will always be there and there will always be other adults to interact wit. My children will only be small for a short time. I would not trade this time with them for the world.

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