Thanks for this, Jen! I often feel like caring for my 2 year old and 2 month old requires every minute of every day. Between clothing, nursing/feeding, diapering, bathing, cleaning up after, staving off meltdowns, and making sure the 2 year old doesn’t seriously injure himself or his baby brother, how can I possibly have time to cook meals, wash dishes, do laundry, and clean bathrooms? Ahh - it is so overwhelming at times! Of course, they are “good” days that I can get some of this accomplished, but there are also days I feel like I’m just surviving. We don’t have room in our budget for outside help right now, but thankfully my husband isn’t too upset when the house is in shambles and we’re eating frozen pizza for dinner!

Oh, Jen. THANK YOU. I really needed to hear this this morning: it’s okay to be totally stressed out by my privileged life! After yet another move (that’s four in the last two years!) I was feeling so isolated and down. I’m going to play with our budget tonight: I think a mother’s helper or something similar would be great.

May I confess, as a longtime regular reader of the Conversion Diary, that I’ve been wildly jealous of you for your wonderful mother-in-law?  You mention dropping the kids off at her house; I burn with envy.  (Not quite, but there you go.)

I agree wholeheartedly, but then again it’s not an easy problem to fix.  I have four kids, not all little anymore, but the youngest is almost two and very much a handful.  His sisters are 5,7, and 9; a big help around the house now that they’re big, but it was challenging when I had a baby, a 2 year old and a 4 year old.  I have never had help at home and I have struggled with feelings of resentment over it.  Since the kids were born we’ve always lived thousands of miles away from relatives, and even if we lived closer they’re either busy with their own lives or not the type to bring me a casserole or take the kids for a few hours.  I had friends around, but most of them were in the same life situation as I (multiple small children) and often had military husbands who were in and out of the house, so they were in no position to be helping out anyone else.  And our budget has always been tight, and babysitters/house cleaners are not cheap.  As it is, we can barely afford to pay a sitter to take a date night or to go my husband’s work Christmas party three or four times a year….and paying someone to clean the house is out of the question. 

So it’s all well and good to say, “Moms need help!” and I would agree with that….but what to do when you can’t afford to pay someone and there’s no grandmas down the street?

Thank you for this! I was a SAHM for 1.5 years and it took me a long time to admit that yes, it is HARD.  Luckily I have a very supportive husband, but we did not live near any family and we are slow to make friends, so…there was not a lot of support.  Still, I am glad I got to experience it.  It was definitely character-building, in a good way.  If I did it again, I would really think about getting some help.

This was written so well and exactly how I feel.  We moved last year from a state where I had no help but did have several friends and playgroups which I took my children to several times a week to just spend time together with someone outside of our living room.  And now, we live in a state where I know noone and where I can’t find a playgroup.  And it’s hard.

Thank you so very deeply for writing this!

We have no money for extra help, but thanks for the acknowledgment of all we do.  (stay-at-home mom of 5 ages 10, 8, 4, 2 and 2mos)

Thanks so much for this post!  It is often overwhelming to try and manage all the responsibilities of being a SAHM when one doesn’t have *any* help to speak of.  (And then I feel like I should just “buck up” b/c it is such a privilege to be home with my children…)  I think about what my mom or my DH’s mom did when they were raising a family with so many little ones, but I do know they had extended family in the same town—a luxury we have never had in our entire married life.  Like a previous poster, we have a good network of friends, but virtually all of them are in the same boat we are—lots of little ones, single income, no family nearby—so it is with a great amount of guilt that I even ask any of them to help out from time to time.  The other part is that it seems that it is much more difficult to make it on a single income nowadays ... everything from gas and groceries to clothing and housing costs substantiallly more now than it used to (not to mention that having a parent at home is the exception rather than the rule), so the sacrifices seem disproportionately greater, too.
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Besides getting an occasional “mother’s helper,” any other suggestions on how to ease the stresses?

Stay at home moms are special, Jesus took time out when He was getting overwhelmed, you have to take time off and recharge your battries, think about your life, think about God, Talk to Him. Talk with your husband, I’ts not easy but your reward will be worth it. God Bless you.

Every time Jennifer writes something, by the end, I’m always thinking, “Wow. She’s really right.” Thank you for this!

Single income families living in a dual income world! That’s what we are. Everything is more expensive and not just because of the economy but because people assume that there are two incomes paying for it. Every dual income family makes it that much harder for the single income families.

And most of us grew up with, and still have, pretty dysfunctional families. Let’s ignore the rose colored glasses and recognize that back in the “old days”, you could count on most of the people in your community and your family to share your same values and principles. Not the case anymore, especially with family members.

My parents are divorced like most Gen X’ers parents. My mom has offered to take the kids for weeks during the summer from the time they were little but I refused because I didn’t want my children to experience what it was like to be passed back and forth between divorced grandparents who live in the same city the way I was passed back and forth as a child. It was more important to me to protect them from that than it was to have alone time.

I think first and foremost, wives need to get help from their husbands! Gone should be the days of the man who arrives home from work and plops himself in the armchair with a drink and newspaper. But in the event that husbands are unavailable, as in military service or out-of-town employment, then turning to a fellow mom who shares the same values and the same burden might be the best bartering option. I’ll watch your kids if you watch mine. But I agree with you that if outside help can be afforded, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it and no one should feel embarrassed about enjoying that kind of help.

Sorry if these comments sound critical, they aren’t meant to be… I just have serious reservations about the whole “it takes a village” mentality in today’s day and age and really caution people against looking to the “good old days” to determine today’s best course of action.

Here’s something that keeps surfacing in my mind.  Getting the help you need, as Karen says, ought NOT just be a function of having money to pay for it.  If those of us who know and understand the truth of Catholic teaching on marriage and family and stewardship are serious, we need to band together—in community—to make it happen.  Take me, for instance—60, kids grown, economically comfortable.  I need to be giving of myself, my time, my resources to help young families.  It’s not enough to agree with you, Jen, I need to show up and clean house or take the kids for an hour or bring dinner one evening.  It’s not enough to give your husband attaboys for supporting his family and valuing his SAHW, my groom ought to volunteer to take the car into the shop for its oil change and provide interim transport….ok, I know these are goofy examples,but you get my drift.  If we are, in fact, the Church and thereby a family,we need to start acting like in for those who are closest to home!  So…how does this start?

Oh wow, I LOVE this blog post!!!! I am a full time working mom, about to take Maternity leave in November, with a 3yr old and a newborn, for a year. I am already running around like crazy trying to get all the daily and weekly chores done, not to mention baby prep. I have always thought we were not made to live and work and raise our kids in isolation like this. Makes so much sense to me!

Of course a busy middle class house needs help.  This was a ubiquitous part of running a house througouth the 19th and early 20th centuries.  Households w/o any servants were poor.  That’s that.  If you are middle class, you should have help.  How can anyone maintain the children, one’s spouse, their attendent possesions, a moderately large home, and the modern hobby of driving one’s offspring to activities, w/o help?  My wife and I had a cleaning lady for a short while before our circumstances were reduced,  It was wonderful.  We were more relaxed, the kids were more relaxed, and we were able to focus on the art of child rearing and on social obligations.  By all means, get help!!  My mother says the dumbest thing she did was dismiss my Grandmother’s maid when she and my dad got married.

@BHG, you are spot on with your comments.  As faithful Catholics we should be looking always for ways to help others as Mary helped her cousin Elizabeth.  As we become older and have more time to give, we should reach out to help, even in the little ways.  Being a SAHM is sometimes a very lonely and difficult (grocery shopping with four kids…)and even sometimes thankless job, and I am ever thankful to those who have stepped up and said “Let me help”, be it with rowdy kids during Mass, or volunteering to take the whole crew so my husband and I could go out for our anniversary. Thank you for this blog post; I have been saying the same thing for years…

THANK YOU so much for this post. While I feel it is so very valuable for young children to be close to mom, sometimes i feel like I have to shout to remind people that hte currrent state of the “stay at home mom” is not at all what it has looked like throughout history.

Not only were communities much closer with more opportunities for moms to work together on their daily duties, but husbands tended to be closer too. Families worked the farm TOGETHER. If the husband had a business, it was frequently at the home or right below it, and the wife often helped. I’m not saying this was always the situation, but to say that a husband going off to work away from his family all day long while the wife stays home in isolation is the “traditional” situation is far too simplistic.

Thank you for recognizing the hard work of moms and how important it is to have rest time, in whatever form that might come! (I have done exchanges with moms in the past since we can’t afford cleaning help. Sometimes a morning of absolute quiet while you clean is very restful!!)

One of the things Jennifer said really resonated with me but not in the way most of you would see it: She doesn’t know all the people on her street, and not many of them have kids anyway.

We don’t have children and have lived on our street for over 20 years. Since we both work demanding jobs 30 miles away from our house, we aren’t home that much and on weekends we are busy doing all the things we don’t get to do during the week.

SAHMs might be isolated but so are the people on their street who have no children.  Kids are the great socializer (at least once they hit school age) and it’s the way neighbors get to know each other - at soccer games, school functions, etc…  Those of us without kids, working 50+ hours per week - don’t have those opportunities.

So as isolated as you SAHMs might feel, those of us in your neighborhoods without children are likely feeling the same way.

It’s a different perspective, that’s all. Not a criticism of anyone.

Oh and one other observation.  If you think the guilt you feel as a SAHM around getting help is unique to you - you are wrong.  As someone with no kids and 2 incomes I often dream of getting help - just someone to clean the house every other week would be heaven-sent and I am fortunate to say I could afford.  However because I have no children I feel guilty even thinking about it. I have nothing at home that keeps me from cleaning my own house - except my job and other responsibilities.

So what is it about modern women - SAHM, working moms or working women w/out children - that makes us feel guilty about getting help in the house? Because I’m not the only one among my friends who feels this way.

Stay-at-home dads too! :-)

@Erika Evans - “So it’s all well and good to say, “Moms need help!” and I would agree with that….but what to do when you can’t afford to pay someone and there’s no grandmas down the street?”

Great question. One thing I did that helped before my mother-in-law lived here was hired younger babysitters (usually homeschooled girls) who had very low rates (one offered me $3/hr, though I paid her more than that). Since these girls didn’t have as much experience I didn’t leave the house while they were here, so that I could be on backup to help them with my crazy kids, but it was still a big help to have an extra pair of hands around, and I could fit it into the budget by cutting back on groceries.

I realize that some budget are so tight that that still wouldn’t work, but I just thought I’d throw that out there. I asked the readers at my personal blog for input, so hopefully you’ll get some other tips as well. :)

I also think that houses are bigger, there’s more stuff that needs to be cleaned, and there is the ever present TV showing how your house is supposed to look.

I once read an article about the introduction of vacuum cleaners.  Before that, you swept the rug and called it a day (OK, you also beat them outside twice a year).  I wish I could find that article again.  It was talking about how the increase in cleaning tools kept raising the standard for “clean.”

I see so many moms on the internet wondering how to keep up with laundry.  How did they do it in the past?  Clothes got washed once a week.  Now that we have machines, there is the cultural expectation that any article of clothing worn for a few hours must be washed.

Another possible solution: pair up with another mom or two.  Agree to watch each other’s children once or twice a month for a couple of hours.  I did this with a friend for awhile and it worked great. The kids loved playing together and we even managed to do some light homeschooling (spelling, reading aloud, math facts) on those days. This was a great way for me to visit the doctor, grocery shop, or eat lunch with my husband.  I always tried to spend a few minutes at the adoration chapel to pray for my friend and all the kids. Alas, she moved away and I miss her dearly (and not just because of our childcare arrangement!)

In response to BHG in the lines of Kris. Yes, those without kids should be helping out, yet often we are engaged with so many other activities that it seems impossible. I often feel guilty for not offering to babysit or help out more often, but with my schedule of other things I “help” with it becomes overwhelming.

However, the Lord can still make things work. I recently had someone catch me off guard and ask me to babysit. I said yes then wondered exactly how that was supposed to happen (with everything else going on that weekend), yet the Lord provided the time and working vehicle to make it happen…and I somehow managed to get everything else done. Perhaps limiting the time to do the tasks got them done faster than I normally would have.

When I was in grad school, I helped out a classmate of mine by watching her young son and helping her with housework, laundry, etc. The benefits were mutual - she had time to study (or just relax!) and I (then single, still childless) gained a lot of valuable skills that I’m sure will bear much fruit once God blesses my husband and I with a baby!

What I’m trying to stay is that stay-at-home moms (as well as student moms, part-time moms, etc.) have something very valuable to offer: “hands-on” training, if you will, for the next generation of wives and mothers. (Just another reason why it’s okay - and even a GOOD thing - for moms to ask for help!)

Jennifer, this piece just rings soooo true.  Thank you for saying it.  I definitely have to make some changes in my life and routine in order to have some desperately needed time to myself.  My first year as a homeschooling mom left me so burned out and irritable I literally sat in the van late one night thinking I was going to run away.  You’re not kidding when you speak about isolation.

Look around for a local church/parish that has a mother’s day out program.  a lot of them are free or cheap.

Or, my sister has created a babysitting co-op with her fellow home-schooling moms.

It is truly a personal decision as to whether you want to have help or do it all yourself. A stay-at-home mother has a tremendous advantage of being the one to give first hand care to their children. But whether you are capable of doing that without help purely depends on you: stamina, level of patience, need for personal time, child development expertise. There are well-trained nannies who have made this into a career and are very good at it. Sometimes even a mother needs this kind of assistance.

Cleaning your own home is fine if you know how to do it properly so that your environment doesn’t begin to deteriorate. Everyone has different standards as to what “clean” really means. In my profession, I have at my disposal any top notch cleaner available; yet, I actually prefer cleaning my home myself. From it, I get exercise, ability to try new products to review and the pleasure of knowing that it is done right to my standards.

THIS!  This is what I think about every. day. of. my. life.  Thank you so much Jen for writing about SAHM-ing, and I hope you can write more on this topic.

I needed to hear this.  Most of the time, I am mortified to ask for help from anyone, husband included.  I think about how my day includes walks and playgroups and a two hour nap (I only have one toddler), and then think about what my husband does all day. . . and very wrongly determine that I do nothing and deserve nothing in the way of help or breaks.  I know that I’m wrong, and it helps tremendously to hear someone else say so.

I too spend a lot time thinking about how unnatural it is that SAHMs live in isolation, and I get jealous of cultures in which extended family lives together/near one another.  But, as much as I adore my far-away family, I also treasure my privacy and independence.  Still, it’s hard!

I agree with the poster Kris, that it’s not just stay-at-home moms who live in isolation.  I think we live in very lonely times. 

A wonderful woman at my church recently initiated weekly pot luck supper in the church hall, and although it had low attendance at first, it has been overall a huge success.  It requires very little planning and is a great community-builder.  I thought it was a great idea.

Please write more about motherhood, Jen!  You are an excellent writer!

RE: Wendy, I stopped washing my laundry with every wear a while back. There is no need to do it as my “high activity” life of sitting in a chair in a cube hardly makes them smell at all. And stuff such as workout cloths - no one cares if it stinks a little - air it out and you’re good to go for another wear. Further, frequent washing causes cloths to fade that much faster. The only thing I don’t do this with is undies - but I have enough of them to last until the next wash cycle.

Although, I could see the need in washing boys’ cloths every time, they wear an item for 5 min and it’s smelly, dirty and full of cooties.

Yes, yes, and yes.  I’m lucky to have my mom in town, and that helps a lot.  I wish I had more family in town, and more built-in babysitting!

When my first child was born, I fell into a group of friends who moved to my city from out-of-town, and who were all new-ish mothers.  We (I say “we” even though I was the cheater who had a mom in town) were very deliberate about relying on each other in place of the family we didn’t have.  We traded babysitting and hand-me-downs, we brought each other dinners, we gathered for Easter dinner, we made emergency tylenol and gatorade runs.  It was wonderful to be part of such a group of friends. 

I’m also a big fan of mother’s day out or preschool for young ones if there’s a good program where you live.  The parent’s day out at the church down the street saved my sanity when I had just about reached my breaking point with my high-needs 18-month-old.  His teacher happened to be a retired special ed teacher from the Catholic school system.  It was a wonderful experience for me, and my son, and it cost something like $4 an hour (best money I ever spent, and I would have paid 3 times that, at least!)

I don’t mind doing my own cleaning, but sometimes I do have my groceries delivered.  It’s another way to save time on an essential task (that I dislike, too).

I am an ‘auntie by choice’ in 2 families who graciously allow me to help care for their kiddos and do things for them.  It hasn’t been as easy in relation to my ‘auntie by relation’ family.  Seems like it is harder sometimes with your actual family.  Anyway, I would encourage you to look around your social network and see if there are some folks that might really enjoy being an auntie or uncle to your kiddos and nurture that relationship and see what comes of it.  Sure, I’m busy and I’m sure to someone looking in that doesn’t know me well, maybe I wouldn’t be interested.  For those that have fostered the relationships though, they know I’m always there for them and I deeply love their kiddos.

You might be able to get together a group of fellow moms through your church, school or the neighborhood- so many people are in the same boat.  1.  Trade babysitting hours- we’d put the kids to bed and have a neighbor come over while we went out, and do the same for them later. 
2.  Set up a casserole club - take turns making an extra batch of your favorite dinner casseroles for each other
3. When you take your kids to the playground, offer to take someone else’s - hopefully they’ll reciprocate.
4. Kids preparing for Confirmation usually need service hours for which they can’t be paid.  Ask if any of these kids are interested in helping with chores, cutting grass, babysitting…

@Kris about your first post.  I’m sorry you feel isolated in your neighborhood, but from my perspective (SAHM of 5 young kids) you are not “trapped” in your home.  You can join group or go out to eat or ? w/o having to think about 5 other people.  The responsibility of several young children can be daunting, even on a simple outing .

Jennifer—thank you for your kind response : )  Our teenage babysitter charges $10/hour when we’re out in the evening, but I hadn’t thought of seeking out a homeschooled teenager who would charge less to spend a few hours here or there just playing with my boy to keep him out of trouble and so I could do exciting things like pay bills without him destroying the house.

Also, I have joined MOPS for this fall; a friend (who may be reading this; hi JDM!) is very involved in her town, and they have a great babysitting co-op set up.  I hope that by conscientiously networking as a group we can help each other out a bit. 

I was really pleased to see the older commenter above who was so kind to mention helping out young families in her parish; that reminded me of something I forgot to mention earlier.  More in line with your original point, Jennifer:  we need to give ourselves permission to seek and accept help!  There are two ladies at my church, one in her 50s with no kids, and one who’s a homemaker with two teenage boys, who have offered to watch some or all of my kids to give me a break.  I haven’t taken them up on it because it seems like imposing.  But I need to practice what you and I both know is true, and you have so eloquently illustrated-that we’re not meant to do this in a vacuum. It’s great if we have the means to hire help (somehow that’s less guilt-inducing, I think) but if not we need to be ok with accepting help when it’s freely offered.

None of us was made to live our lives in a vacuum, that’s why God gave us each other. I can also vouch for finding another mom (even if it is short term) who can watch your kids for a couple of hours and you watch hers. You would be amazed what can happen.

I have a special needs child. My daughter, who is five and on the lower functioning end of the autism spectrum. I have two other kids too. It takes an incredibly special person to watch just my daughter, let alone two very active little boys. I can’t leave them with just anyone. I feel like one of the reasons God gave me my daughter, was to learn how to accept help. Out of foolish, selfish, pride, I far too often do not ask for help when I desperately need it or turn it down when it is offered. Along with the birth of my daughter, God blessed me with two amazing friends who are now the Godmothers of my sons. These women each have only one child themselves, but move heaven and earth to help me. And I can trust them with all three kids (and one of their own, occasionally). I fought and resisted their help for as long as I could until I realized that I couldn’t do it alone anymore. (My husband works two hours away and is gone for five days every week, after all that, he is more than happy to jump right in and be hands on with the kids to give me some down time to do whatever I need—which is typically cleaning something but occasionally might be a bubble bath.)

My biggest piece of advice, if someone offers you help: take it! Don’t feel guilty be thankful and realize, someone else in this world sees what you do and values it.

For those on a small income without family nearby:  Try a babysitting co-op.  We were in one when our children were smaller (5 years ago).  the idea is that couple A will babysit for Couple B and Couple B will sit for Couple X and Couple X will sit for A and everyone gets sitters and people are happy to do it, because they will earn credits that will allow them to go out.  We used “BabyBucks” which we printed ourselves and came up with a “fee” per hour.  You couldn’t spend bucks that you hadn’t earned.  It worked well for a few years.  Highly recommend.

We had a babysitting co-op based on points.  You earned Points per child, per hour whenever you sat for a fellow member, and lost points whenever someone sat your children.  Everyone started with 100 points, and it seems about the ideal number of members was around 20.

IF memory serves, we started new each school year, and we had monthly meetings.  Sign in was required, and usually held at a child-friendly place (parks in the summer, fast foodery in the winter/bad weather).

Each member took a turn being the Secretary for each month (hence the need to gather every month, to hand off the book, and everyone checked their points).  It really is a good idea to gather every month.  That way, all the moms and all the kids get to know each other, and it’s not upsetting for a child to be in someone else’s house vs. a total stranger because they are familiar face.  Dues were $1 at joining, and each member received a printed roster of members and pertinent details (name, address, children, pets, food allergies, extras (ie, trampoline, swimming pool, etc) and phone numbers, of course.

When the need for a “Sit” was called into the Secretary, she then emailed the group of the anonymous need.  IE:  “A sit is needed on Monday from noon-2pm for three children.”  That way, there isn’t any sort of avoidance and remains fair for everyone.  When the Sit was booked, the Secretary email the needing mom with who took the Sit.  Each sitter called in the Sit details to the Secretary after the fact so that Points could be recorded (sometimes arrangements would change…doc appt turned out to be longer, meeting got canceled and pick up the kids early, etc).

There were also by-laws and member guidelines - nothing that I can remember now, but could probably find out.  I am friends with the group’s founder; wouldn’t surprise me a bit if she still has all that stuff, but no promises.

New Members were had to be referred by existing members, and had to attend a monthly meeting before they could give or receive a Sit.  Group-wide, this ensured that everyone was comfortable with everyone else.  This group stayed active for years, despite people coming and going (we were largely military).

One last thought:  please don’t hesitate to ask your military sisters for help.  Yes, deployments are overwhelming at times, but not all day, every day.  It feels good to be needed, and to not be forgotten.

Cheers to all the moms!

I had a woman clean twice a month while i was breastfeedig my babies.  There is no way that I could have physically kept up with the demands of breastfeeding if it had been otherwise.  Now that my breastfeeding years are over, i no longer have outside cleaning help.  Now my kids chip in. This was a nice column.  Some stages of metherhood certainly require extra help!

We have a very simple co-op. Four families on the cul-de-sac. Each family sits one night a month and each gets a night. It’s always Saturday night 7-11. We have a google calendar where we sign up for which nights we want, first come first serve basis. It’s great b/c we all know each other, and we don’t have drive anywhere. I also feels good knowing the kids are getting to know and trust the neighbors. I also suggest getting on the local neighborhood listserve, if there is one, and any church listserves. I just find it easier to put out a message asking for something than calling or going up to someone. It’s a great way to find other mothers who are in the same boat or find a kid who wants to be a mother’s helper. My friend “hired” a 11 year old girl to be a mother’s helper, entertaining the kids while she does housework, etc. Very cheap and the girl gets some experience.

@Kris to continue (sry, had to do dishes, some laundry, and make a bed, n/k. :)  ... I think you are exactly the right person to hire a housekeeper.  You work full time and I assume can afford one, so of course! Hire some help. No one will fault you that I can see…  There is no way we could afford that.  I see keeping our house clean as my job, but I don’t see why you should feel guilty.  From what you say you work hard all week so why not?  :)  It’s harder for me to justify it for myself, esp when having someone watch our kids can be a big job.

My thoughts are going in a half-dozen directions here, so bear with me.

1) It’s really important to know what makes for refreshing down time *for you*. What gives you renewed energy to tackle the day? Is it ten minutes looking at a wall with a cup of coffee, 15 minutes with a book, or an evening when you don’t have to cook? Down-time spent on Facebook may (or may not) recharge us. If we’re using our down-time in unrefreshing ways, it’s not really right to wail that we need more.

2) Are we exhausting ourselves, or exhausting ourselves *for God*? If we’re doing things because they’re on our own to-do lists and allow what we do to become disconnected from faith, it’s almost guaranteed to exhaust us. There’s an awful lot of stuff we pile on ourselves that we don’t *have* to do.

3) Too often we think of all the things we need to do as interferences to our spiritual well-being. Instead, we need to think of them as ways through which we can grow closer to God. If we stop and consider why we’re desperate to feel that we ‘have things under control’, the answer’s not all that pretty.

4) Planning reduces the number of decisions we have to make, and automatically frees up a lot of energy. Simple things like deciding on meals for the week before you go shopping, and scheduling what you’re going to make on which day, can transform your life. (It helps the budget, too.) There’s a reason people used to do laundry on Monday, baking on Tuesday, etc.

5) There is tremendous power in the words, “Mom needs a time-out. I’m going to set the timer for 10 minutes.”

6) The key to getting a little break during the day is having kids who have a) gotten enough sleep, b) are not hungry, c) have had enough exercise and social interaction, and d) have had some positive parental interaction in the recent past.

7) We could never afford babysitters (ever), but when my oldest was about 8 (with younger kids at 6, 4, 2, and baby) we started having anniversary dinners by paying the kids to babysit themselves. We paid the oldest two $4 each, and the 4 and 2 year olds each got $2. That was a big enough incentive that they played quietly together—and worked out disagreements—for over an hour. And dh and I had a lovely candlelight supper in the dining room.

8) Buy a hand-held vacuum for the toddler set to use. Makes a great birthday present for a 3yo boy. He’ll use it, too: it makes noise, and has a button, and causes small things to disappear. Totally cool.

9) Practice saying this line: “If it looks like my house was cleaned by kids, it was.” (Make sure it’s true, too.) Even a 3yo can sort socks, and a 5yo can certainly clean a toilet.

I love the idea of a “mother’s helper”.....a younger, sweet, homeschooling (thus available during the day) kid to come over a few times a week for a few hours to play with the kids while I attend to other household duties, score a nap, drink some tea…whatever.

Another thing I am a fan of is friends helping out with a swap…Having your friend’s kiddos over to play for a couple hours and then a different day in the week, having her watching your little ones.

I get lonely during the day, even with the kids….I like to have a buddy. Having a friend you are close enough to invite over to talk to you while you clean your bathroom/fold a pile of laundry/etc is such a blessing. Then going over to her house a different day to give her company and help with her household.

If we had the money, I think I’d pretty shamelessly get a nanny or some sort of regular, almost-family person to come to my house and be an extra pair of hands. Not to raise my kids, but to just be there to make sure the house doesn’t burn down while the baby naps and the pre-schooler is quietly reading and I just need to run to the store for 20 minutes. Or to here, finish chopping these carrots so I can nurse the toddler and no one has to lose their mind.

I have 5 children and a friend with 5 children. For the past year we have been trading babysitting once a month for a date night with our husbands. It’s only once a month, so I only get 6 date nights a year with my husband but that’s more than I ever got before!

So that’s my advice, find someone in similar circumstances, if you can, and work out a trade. If you already have a bunch of littles, what’s a few more? Your house is likely already baby-proofed, they’ll most likely keep each other busy and you’ll just have to feed a few more mouths.

>>>It’s also seen as yet another luxury of the modern era: Moms have been raising kids for thousands of years without babysitters and maids.<<<
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Not to throw my history degrees around but NO, actually, this is not true. Until 1945, middle and upper class women almost ALWAYS had maids and cooks and nannies. Even the poorest had a maid-of-all-work who came in for the day. This was true for nearly every western European country. Your observations about community are spot on for the poorer classes. Add to this the fact that it wasn’t until the 1950s that experts declared that it was downright dangerous for a child not to have his mother around all the time. Domestic service took a major hit after WWI and was pretty much dead by 1945 for everyone but the very rich. Arguably the women’s lib movement exploded in the 1960s partly due to the massive increase in work and pressure that mounted up from increased domestic standards and absence of household helps.
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So no one should beat herself up thinking that babysitters and maids are some kind of modern female wussery. The truth is more like, for centuries women have known that you CAN’T watch and entertain the kids 24/7 yourself AND clean the house yourself AND cook the dinner yourself AND do the shopping yourself AND do all the laundry yourself. Wealthier people recognized that the costs of hiring people to do all or some of these things were just part of the cost of running the household. Poorer people have used their family and community networks, worked themselves to the bone, and (frankly) set lower standards for themselves.

Anne said:  “If we had the money, I think I’d pretty shamelessly get a nanny or some sort of regular, almost-family person to come to my house and be an extra pair of hands. Not to raise my kids, but to just be there to make sure the house doesn’t burn down while the baby naps…”

Hang in there - you WILL get that person!  They are called TEENAGERS.  And they are the most incredible blessing.  You’re in the trenches now, but know that it *does* get easier.  (((hugs)))

Today’s gospel (worker’s in the vineyard) is appropriate to this discussion.  I haven’t read a comment about the value of actually hiring someone and what it can do for their family.

I know of a family who has both household help and yard help - not because they can’t do but because they can afford it and they recognize the need to hire those who want to work but cannot find it.  They feel called to share their wealth with those who need a good job.

There are any number of people who would welcome a part-time income that doesn’t require flipping hamburgers or work on Sunday - including teens, single parents or retired folks who still need income help.

Don’t think of hiring someone as selfish at all but recognize that you may be the landowner who is out in the marketplace seeking someone to hire and be as generous as your income allows.

“Moms have been raising kids for thousands of years without babysitters and maids.”

Well, yes and no. Certainly my potato-farming Irish ancestors raised their children by themselves with the help of just some relatives and neighbors, if that. But up until quite recently, even lower-middle-class families in Western societies had some form of hired help.

It’s easy to find statistics that say that, despite the increase in time-saving devices, today’s housewife spends just as much time doing housework as she did in 1950, or 1930, or whenever. But they fail to mention that in 1950 and 1930 the housewife had a maid, or at least a cook, and maybe both. The vast growth in the scope and burden of labor laws, together with minimum wage acts and payroll taxes, have driven the domestic servant to almost complete extinction. She is now entirely extinct in almost all middle-class homes.

So if you do hire a maid, or a cook, or a nanny, be careful: the IRS and the US Department of Labor are out there, and they have more rules about hiring and paying domestic labor than you will ever want to know about.

“Domestic service took a major hit after WWI and was pretty much dead by 1945 for everyone but the very rich.”

First, thanks for making my point before I could make it myself. That said, I think your timetable is off a bit: I know plenty of people in the South who had “help” up through the 1960s. Perhaps it was a regional thing.

On the topic of having a “mother’s helper”, this was exactly what I did when I was in 6th grade.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays, a mom in our neighborhood gave piano lessons after school.  Her three year old was too little to be able to play outside unattended, and you know what happens when you are trying to do ANYTHING with a 3 year old on the loose!

My job was to walk over after school, and stay for 2 hours or so while she did her lessons, and I kept him out of her hair.  Benefits to her…you know those!  Benefits to me…I learned about baby sitting up close and personal while having an adult right there in case of trouble.  It’s an excellent start for the responsible girl who wants to babysit but is not quite old enough to be on her own.  And I got paid $2 an hour!  To play with a kid!!  whoo hoo!!

I don’t have time to read all the comments above to see if someone else has said this, but ALL MOMs need help regardless of whether they are stay-at-home moms or not. Mom’s working just to make ends meet (not for the love of a career) have the added stress of having to balance it all with less time at home and less family time.

Sharla Glass
www.littlebecomings.blogspot.com

Great post! I was completely overwhelmed when my second was born and couldn’t imagine how any mother managed to keep up with children and housework at the same time.

A good friend recommended the book “A Mother’s Rule of Life” by Holly Pierlot, and it was incredibly helpful to me. This mother basically applies the consistency and schedule of a monastic life to aspects of raising small children and just having the schedule and order makes things a lot easier.

Now, with four kids age 4 and under, I can’t imagine functioning without a solid schedule and routine daily. We don’t have money for babysitters or housekeepers right now, but I actually feel like I’m managing things relatively well.

On the note of moms needing time to recharge… that is one of my favorite aspects of the outline in A Mother’s Rule of Life. Twice a month, Saturday is my day to recharge. My husband watches all the kids except the newborn and I go to confession and adoration and then go to the bookstore and read, go hiking , get shopping done, grab a cup of coffee, whatever is relaxing that day. For other moms where outside help is not an option, I’d encourage reading this book and talking with your husband to plan a day to recharge occasionally.

@Karen - first I don’t want anyone here to think that I don’t have the utmost respect for SAHMs (and SAHDs) and the sacrifices you make for your families. I recognize the challenges you all face everyday, especially when you leave the house with your children (as Jennifer so eloquently and amusingly shared with her Whole Foods debacle…). And Karen, you are right in that I’m not “trapped” in my house, I do have the flexibility and options to go out with friends - which we do as often as time and mutual schedules allows.

I only shared my thoughts as a woman who, even though I don’t have children and I can in fact afford some help around the house, still feels guilty about accepting or even asking for help.  It seems to be a more universal theme among women. (My husband has no qualms at all about hiring folks to help with the yard work in the fall; we have a large yard with far too many trees who drop their leaves into mid-calf-deep piles each year…)

And of course Karen, you are too right - I shouldn’t feel guilty; my husband and I do work hard for what we have, nothing is laid out for us on silver platters - just like everyone else these days. :-) And you SAHMs shouldn’t feel guilty for asking for, accepting or even procuring help when you can.

Again, to me this seems to be an issue for women of all kinds. Even my MIL - who is 73 years old, has bad knees and spinal stenosis - for the first time hired a cleaning service; and went to great lengths to explain why she was getting one; her guilt was quite visible. Why? She’s got serious physical problems and it’s her money to spend as she wishes.

Again - guilt.

I agree with so much of what has been said.  I also have 5 children now 13, 9, 5, 4, and 2 and have desperately needed help but couldn’t afford to pay anyone and what family we have here won’t help.  Pretty much for the last five years we have lived in survival mode, house a mess, just barely getting the necessities taken care of (and sometimes not). We ate a lot of pasta and breakfast-for-dinner!  Now that the youngest is 2 I am just starting to feel like I can get my head above water! Although it will probably take another couple of years before my house is in somewhat decent order.  We’re slowly getting there.  I agree wholeheartedly with the lady that said she should be making herself available to families.  I know this is what I will be doing when my children are grown because I want to help another mother not have to go through some of what I have.  (Two bad bouts of depression because of isolation and being overwhelmed.)  I will also be the BEST GRANDMOTHER and MIL ever!!!  At least I know what NOT to do.  Sigh.

I am a SAHM to a preschooler and baby and it is hard.  I was a nanny for 5 years and loved being a nanny and saw how difficult it was for the people I worked for (moms who were mostly home but worked from home or were attending school or something). Now I find myself wishing I had my own nanny, lol!

Anyway, after being blindsided by some serious postpartum depression after my second son was born my Dh and I decided to hire a girl to come babysit for 4 hours every Saturday morning.  I clip coupons during the week and try to make a careful grocery list and save $15-20 a week on groceries, which goes towards paying our babysitter (a kind 17 year old we know through my husband’s 4-H club).  It’s wonderful!  I’m motivated to get the house clean Friday, she comes Saturday and the kids have a blast while I go off to drive around, sit and read at Chick-fil-a, and then end with grocery shopping and a peaceful drive home myself listening to non-kid-approved music, lol!  My mood has improved dramatically and I’m always better prepared for Mass Saturday evening when I’ve had some down time that morning.

As other people mentioned, I think a young (11-16 years old) mother’s helper is a great idea!  The teen gets supervised experience to help them get real babysitting jobs/nanny jobs later and prepare them for having kids of their own, while the mom gets less expensive help around the home.  Besides, girls that age have a lot of energy in my experience and aren’t quite as distracted by boyfriends :) 

I think we could also learn a lot from the Mormons in how they have structures in place to help each other out as moms.  My Mormom friends always have 2 weeks of meals brought by ladies in their church every time they have a baby/adopt.  That is a ministry SAHM’s can do for each other, it’s not a huge thing to once a week cook double of a meal that can be frozen.

...oops, gotta go the preschooler is dragging the 9 month old across the floor by his shorts, haha!

2 John 1:5 .....“And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another.”  THAT’S Community!  But is it still done as Christ taught us?  Yup!
Though we had 5 pregnancies, only two live, leaving a nine year gap.  The gap widened when mom left, and I became a Single Dad.  My career was much travel, and that was put on hold.  My daughters were 2 and 11, and needed a SAHD.  Daycare was atrocious in price and quality.  I’m choosy, but weariness grew.       

I found a woman at church who agreed to babysit my 2 year old when needed by me. She charged me nothing.
Then, she invited me to join the babysitters group.  28 women and me! Everyone provided names of parents, child, addresses, phone, work, siblings and ages, doctor, how to contact the doctor, allergies, and necessary info typed on a sheet to ALL others.  THAT information was extensive, for ALL members were “on call” for All members children.

If you needed a day off, or an hour to run errands, or get a haircut….baby free….you contacted anyone, and always found someone available to watch your child.  No money changed hands, but meticulous records were kept by each person on WHO they watched, and WHO watched their child-(ren).  Once, every quarter of the year, we met for tea and desserts and went over the books, to match debits and credits of time….measured in increments of 1/4 hour.  Debits and credits had to even out, to prevent any member from abusing and using, but not watching other people’s tykes.

I found a peculiar thing over time.  ALL members were willing to watch my daughter, but were hesitant to have a dad watch their child.  I would be kicked out soon as my debits and credits did not match. 
One woman, an attorney’s wife, brought her 2 year old daughter Dorothy, to my house, for me to babysit.  She asked if I would keep her all day.  In short order, I learned she was making it possible for me to get credits of time in huge blocks, so my debits and credits were equal. 
This went on for years and was a great system for all, as my older daughter was in school, but the younger could never be alone.  Dorothy was at our house all day often.
From kindergarden through graduation in high school, they became the best of friends!
ALL because a mom, had love in her heart.

START a group at your church and use TIME, not money, as outlined above.  And if a single dad needs help with his tyke(s), let him in too, and show the world, “See how they love one another” really works.

Apologies if this is a repeat but I am making dinner and keeping an eye on kids—I know readers here understand!
1) Find a moms group. If the first one doesn’t work for you, keep looking. Try on Meetup. Look at national groups (MOMS Clubs, Mothers & More, etc.). Ask (or start one!) at church. (Ours has a new moms’ group that meets at the school every week for moms and not-school-age kids yet.) It’s not childcare but it’s a way to meet others dealing with and solving the same things you are, and playgrounds are more fun and more rewarding for mom if grownup conversation is involved.
2) Find or start a babysitting cooperative. It doesn’t have to be anything formal—if you and another mom each promise to take the others’ children for one to three hours a week—that frees you both up to do what you need.
3) Team up. A friend and I who were at-home moms at the same time used to do cleanup playdates. Once a week we’d be at her house, once a week at mine. We promised not to judge the other’s dirt. :) The kids played in a playroom or watched a “movie” (usually PBS shows) while we both whipped the house of the week in shape. Sometimes that meant I scrubbed a sink while she purged her own mail, sometimes it meant both of us flitting around a house cleaning bathrooms or whatever while the kids were busy.
Blessings to all and what an amazing resource for SAHPs!

While raising our 4 kids, we didn’t have much help - even though DH comes from a large family and people lived within a mile.  I think it was as much me as them.  Anyway, I participated in several women’s bible studies through Panache Living - particularly the 25 1/2 hour day.  They were literally life savers.  I learned to handle the work load differently and to live in the moment (instead of seeing the work load).  We seldom had help and never without paying for it.  DH and I took two overnight trips in 24 years but we learned that we could go out for a couple of hours for a late night happy hour down the road (when the kids were older) and everything would be ok.  It was nice to be able to talk to him without distractions.
As the kids have gotten older, we’ve gotten busier - the house is neater but our time gets eaten up with activities.  My plan for the future is to provide meals and time for new mothers - with the future starting in the fall (I hope - working full time isn’t helping things). 
There are differences between neat and clean.  Too much stuff leads to clutter which makes life much harder.  I agree with washing clothes once or twice a week - make a schedule for cleaning - breaking your tasks into bite sized chunks will free your weekends for relaxation.  And, find time to relax (still hard for me).  Life is good - the blessing of children is immeasurable - living in His will for the moment brings real peace.

Well, I haven’t read all these posts so I’m not sure if someone else already suggested this solution to the ‘sounds good, but no money’ problem:
My sister and the neighbors across the street ‘swap date nights’ where one parent from one household will watch the other kids for a night while the parents go out and then the next night one of the parents that just got to go out watches the other kids so the other couple can go out. No money involved.
This same idea could probably be applied during the day by moms to give each other a couple child-free hours of cleaning or errands or whatever.

I’m sorry I haven’t read all the posts, so I don’t know if this idea has been covered.  Years ago my friend organized a babysitting co-op in her neighborhood.  I don’t remember all the details but essentially you babysat someone else’s kids for free and in return people baby sat for you.  Here’s a link to one way some families organize a co-op:  http://home.comcast.net/~mhw60/coop.htm

And, as an aside, thank you for writing this article Jennifer!  I have been able to have cleaning help for most of my parenting career (12 years). DH & I have always viewed it as a more of a necessary expense, like electricity. Even women I know who could afford the help often don’t get it because they feel guilty.  It isn’t like there isn’t any cleaning to do in between the times the cleaning person comes!  If you like to clean, trust me, with kids around, you’ll get plenty of opportunities.

I agree with the commentter about hiring a young girl to come help. My daughter started doing this when she was 14 and now (she’s a grown, married woman) works full time as a nanny (for a wealthy stay-at-home mom who is expecting her fifth child this fall.) That first job and subsequent baby-sitting jobs helped cement a life-long love of working with children. Obviously her skills needed developing when she was a young teen but she was a great help to the family she worked for and learned a great deal about running a household and working with the children. So, not only does the young mom get some much needed help but she can help mentor and influence another young life.

See if there are any kids in the area that need service hours for school or a club or just want to help out! I often babysit for a family friend for free just because I love her kids, but she’s also acted as a much needed reference for me for paying work. See if you can find a great person in your neighborhood who would be interested in helping out a few times a month as a service activity, but offer something in return (a great letter of reference, feeding them dinner when they help out, etc.)

When my kids were smaller—like when I had three babies age 3 and under—I went to La Leche League meetings and made friends there.  No, they didn’t help with the housework, but those connections continue to this day.  They’ve been a great help to me with future babies—not with breastfeeding, but just by way of being friends—they were great to talk to and meet up at the park.  Just knocking heads with someone made the load of SAHM a little lighter.  LLL isn’t for everyone, and between me and you and the wall, I think the organization has gone off the deep end, but you can start something at your parish for moms to get together.  Help won’t materialize overnight, but it’s better than being lonely.

My husband and I have seven children, and we have rarely left them with sitters when they were small, but totally acknowledge the need for a break and some re-grouping time.  One of the strategies we have used is date nights on the couch.  Once a week, we pick up a treat, get the kids to bed and have a date on the couch.  Our kids now, are between the ages of 5 and 24, now we have to tell the grown up kids to go to bed so we can have a date on the couch!

Another thing we found helpful was swapping time with other parents.  Sometimes just the moms, or sometimes as a couple, we would leave our kids with friends for an afternoon or evening.  The children were happy with friends to play with, whether at someone else’s house, or our own.

When our children were small, we also sometimes swapped housework.  I would help a friend while the kids played, she in turn would help me while they played at our house.  We accomplished painting or spring cleaning or massive baking session this way.  It was more fun and more productive. 

The single most important thing we ever did, though was to live in a community of other Catholic families with stay at home moms.  It has been vital over the years, not just to feel you belong, but to have people to call in crisis.  To have someone notice when things aren’t right with you or your family, when you’ve locked your keys in your car or are out of eggs.  Community is so overlooked these days. We moved an hour from my husbands business in order to live within a community of solid Catholic families.  It was the best move we ever made.  Living in community can often feel like you are getting a break, even when your kids are with you, as you have other like minded parents to connect with or complain to, or just to know your kids are normal.

Blessings, Bonnie

Ask the young adult community in your parish for help.  Generally we are single or unmarried, stable in a new career or studies, with minimal responsibilites of our own. At my parish our young adult community has a facebook group, a perfect place to put up announcements like “everyone who can, let’s make dinner for the Turners!”  Being recognized as adults with talents to share might also help us to find our place in parish life, a sometimes difficult task in modern Catholicism.

I was both a stay-at-home mom (great privilege because of my supportive husband) and a career woman when the kids were older.  Now, I am in total awe of my 2 daughters, both SAHMs, both with special needs children, who both live on the other side of the country from their mom.

I absolutely supported the older when she found an angel of a “nanny,” someone who would come in a few times a week.  This lovely young woman gave my daughter the opportunity to go to the store without the kids, or pay bills and make uninterrupted phone calls, or even shower in peace (luxury!)

And when my younger daughter brings her little one home from the hospital, I hope God willing there is an “angel” nanny available to help her as well.

I grew up with family—grandmother, aunts, cousins—and I know how vital this community is to all SAHMs.  But here’s what I learned in my parish—I am the grandmother substitute to many of the kids.  I am the older wiser sister to many of their moms whose siblings are unavailable.  I am the friend to many elderly whose children live so far away.

I bet your parish-community-neighborhood has a few women like me whose arms ache to hold a little one or read to a child again.  She may even keep toys in the closet for these small visitors.

Hi Jen,

As older mom (my youngest is 16) I would like to out a call to all the other older women out there to step up and help younger moms.  A couple of years ago I kept a younger woman’s baby several mornings a week for the payment of a good lunch (she’s an excellent cook) and a “baby fix” to tide me over until I have grandchildren.  Just because our children are grown does not mean that we should just live for ourselves.

My 16 year old enjoys spending a day or two a week with a stay at home mom with three small children.  She loves little ones, so its a treat for her.

In the meantime, maybe you could organize the play group in such a away that half the moms watch the kids one time and the other half the next time.  That will give everyone an occasional break.

Hope this helps. 

Susan

Caitlin, What a fantastic idea!  I would love to provide this help to families in my area as all my favorite kids and large families live so far away that Aunt Jules only gets to come for a visit about once a year if that!  My friends that stay at home would be so blessed by connections with young adults in their parish!!

Hi Jen,

I so wish I lived in Texas so I could help you and your friends out.  I had three within 4 years myself and so I do know how you feel.  However, I was blessed to live close to my family.  Still, I do have a few suggestions.

First, if you just need someone to play with your kids while you do something else in the home, consider hiring a girl who is too young to babysit on her own.  You can pay her less, and she can get experience that she can use in the future.

Next, consider restructuring your play group so that half the women watch the kids on alternating weeks so others can have a break.

Another though is to teach your children to help, even if they are very young.  One of my greatest discoveries was that a vacuum cleaner is the ultimate boy toy:  it rolls on wheels, has a motor and makes a loud noise.  I let my oldest son start vacuuming when he was five and he loved it.  Likewise, if you don’t have a lot of bric a brac, even a young child can dust.  Preschoolers can learn to sort clothes by color and match up socks.

Since a maid is expensive, look for other ways to save work.  Go to a large warehouse store and stock up on some pre-made meals.  Use paper plates and cups. 

Dress everyone in matching colors.  I know this sounds crazy, but if everyone is wearing the same color, it can all go in the wash together. 

Consider setting up a common, family closet where all the clothes go, so that you don’t have to go all over the house putting things away.

(I got these last two tips from Michelle Duggar of 19 Kids and Counting fame)

Hope these help.

Susan

Very good post. Women shouldn’t feel guilty about getting help. However, we should also change the way society is going. We shouldn’t be living in suburban desert islands. Man was not meant to live alone. We need community. Not just the mothers and children, but everyone else as well.

I have to give another boost to the babysitting coop suggestions.  When my children were very small, we moved across country to a town where we didn’t know anyone.  My husband travelled a lot, and so I was home alone with the kids all day.  I was desperately lonely and going crazy keeping up with the kids.  I didn’t know any babysitter, so I couldn’t go anywhere without the kids.  When we joined the local parish, we found out that they had a babysitting coop.  It literally saved my sanity.  Ours was a bit less formal than some of the others mentioned in that we had cards that represented 15 minute blocks of time that we used as “babysitting dollars”.  We arranged our own trades of babysitting.  We found that 15 - 20 families was the “magic number” for making things work well.  In addition to the babysitting, there were many activities - field trips for moms and kids, family activities, potluck dinners, camping trips, service projects, etc. These gave both plenty of opportunities to know the other parents watching your children, as well as a chance to build friendships with the other parents.  As families “graduated” from the coop, new ones came along to take their place.  Our kids that started in the coop are now in college, but our coop friends are still our closest friends, and those kids that grew up together are still close friends as well.  I cannot recommend this highly enough.

I also don’t have relatives nearby who can help and I did very occasionally swap children with friends, but mostly what refreshed me was hard core scheduled rest/nap time.  As soon as my babies were schedulable around 4 months, I became fanatical about having a down time in the afternoon.  If kids were beyond napping, then they had quiet time in their room.  Knowing there was a break coming every afternoon was sanity saving.

I am not quite sure what you mean by this statement, “She doesn’t even have the age-old mother’s release valve of banishing the kids outside and telling them to come back at mealtime, since safety concerns mean she has to keep them within sight at all times.”

Older children should be able to go outside, play and come back for dinner. I hope that mothers don’t feel they need to watch their children every second of every day. That is not really possible, and an impossible expectation would be a heavy burden.

I was not a stay-at-home Mom; I always returned to work as soon as my latest baby was 3-6 weeks old. I could not afford not to do that because I had two children with multiple birth defects—megabucks required to keep them alive and I needed the group insurance. My husband and I often worked opposite shifts because babysitting was pretty expensive even many years ago when I was raising my kids. No money for housekeeping or any of that stuff. A couple of things helped. Once was our subbotniki, a tradition during the Soviet era when Russians of all ages gathered to “voluntarily” clean up their cities on Saturdays. Even when the kids were quite small, Saturday mornings were spent in cleaning—the bigger kids did the more complex chores, the littlest ones put things away or other age-appropriate tasks. It usually took 2-3 hours, but with four kids and two parents, soon the house was clean, at least for a few hours, after which the build-up would begin for the next week. We made a game of it. The kids, for the most part, liked the subbotniki because it was a family event. When my younger son turned out to be too gifted to be taught in schools (the school district’s diagnostic office made this pronouncement), he begged to be home schooled and was homeschooled from grade 4-12. When he was old enough to be left home with assignments, which, as a naturally inductive learner, he accomplished through self-teaching (each evening we would discuss what he had produced during the day), he would often finish early and frequently I returned to find the house in good shape and dinner in the oven. (He is a great cook today.) I don’t think many will find an 11-year-old capable of that (or one, like him, who also taught computer science in the elementary school). He was rather unique, but I would think that part of the home-schooling day could include learning how to cook, clean, and all those other housekeeping details that will make the kids great spouses and parents some day. Just a thought from the “old days.”

Our church has babysitting for a nominal cost @$5 during holiday times so families can go shopping for gifts.  This idea could be implemented at other times of the year as well.  The teens from the church get community service hours.  My neighborhood had a babysitting co-op where mothers traded babysitting with each other. Encourage your church to have family social events.  We have a Pasta night each February which is a very low cost way to feed the family, visit with friends and have the children entertained with face painting, a bounce house and other fun activities.

Start a babysitting co-op with Moms in similar situation. You trade childcare based on the amount of children/amount of hours so no one feels it’s unfair. Since there are many members, you may not “pay back” the Mom who helped you out, you’re basicaly earning points in the bank. My co-op also paid a point for the Mom that did the books for the month.(kept track of points). Free and fun!

Hi,Jen-love your blog! I have been a SAHM for our 6 children for 12 years. We live in a rural area where the nearest neighbor is a pretty little hike away. You are right on the money with this article. Unfortunately, most of us with large families can only afford to be SAHM’s because we have already adjusted our budgets to include only the bare necessities. For us, there is no realistic option for paid help. What really drives me nuts is when my work-outside-the-home friends comment on how “lucky” I am to be able to stay home. It isn’t luck- it’s a lot of sacrifice.  We just make it work. Wish there was a solution to this, but for the foreseeable future, most of us SAHM’s will just keep doing as we’ve always done. Thanks for the article and the acknowledgement!

We just pay for the help. We go without new clothes for a year, but the help stays. My husband saw how serious it was when, after a difficult birth and ho help, I sank into a serious PND for 18 months, in which the doctor wouldn’t help me either, in spite of asking repeatedly. So my husband packed me on a plane back to my own country for proper diagnosis and treatment, and decided to budget for a cleaning lady once a week. The consequences of not having help really came home to him, and although I certainly didn’t set out to get PND deliberately, I almost thank God that I did. We live in a country which is post Christian, there is no community like I was used to growing up - we are literally on our own with this. So the Lord has provided J and the cash to afford 3 hours of her time per week. I can’t have the sisterhood, but he has granted me the paid alternative. I don’t know that there is a solution that will help everyone. We do what we have to, with what we have, knowing that the sacrifices have to be worth it, in the end.

My friends and I all have very young kids and tight budgets. We swap babysitting - sure it’s hard when I have six kids here instead of three, but then there are the times when I have NO kids here!

I talked to mothers of older kids at church - several of the girls were a *little* too young to babysit, but were looking for babysitting experience. They come to my house once a week (on a volunteer basis) to act as a Mother’s Helper, and get some supervised babysitting experience. When they’re old enough, they’ll know what they’re doing AND have a great reference from me. Lots of parents I know call the local high school to find help like this. There are always young people looking for volunteer opportunities (just make sure you interview/screen them the way you would with anyone watching your kids).

Any way I can get a break to catch up on housework (or sanity!) helps.

Oh Jennifer, thank you so SO much for “saying” out loud what so many of us have been thinking to ourselves, muttering under our breaths, or whispering about. I’ve been an at home mom for 8 years now and “only” have 2 children, ages 8 and 6. I can testify to the “lonely in the ‘burbs” feeling, and feeling all in at the end of the day, on top of feeling so alone.
You are right, mothering is meant to be done in community, and our society is set up to not support at home moms very well, if at all. This also is in conjunction with our society at large not placing a value on at home mothering.
And, for any mom who struggles, like I do,  with depression, either post-partum, SAD, or run-of-the-mill depression, this can be a double kick in the pants. It’s hard to be “out and around others” when you either have to pay through the schnoz for it, or no one’s at home in your neighbourhood, or your friends are so far-flung that getting together is a major event like the parting of the Red Sea.
So thank you for writing honestly about this, and putting this out into the open.
This Protestant, Canadian, SAHM thanks you deeply for this!

Hello Jennifer

I wanted to read all of the comments but ran out of time :-) I’ve been in the same boat for many years. With a single income that is stretched constantly, we cannot even afford a gardener. Thankfully I have teen-aged daughters who help (not enough but every little bit helps).

As for a solution…I have Christian friends who use a system called “mothers’ helpers”. The children are usually home-schooled and training in the arts of home-making is part of the curriculum for the girls.
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They are sent to help out mothers who have just had babies etc. I guess a system like this would be beneficial on two counts…the girls get extra training and a mother in need gets help. Talk about the Body of Christ at work!

Maybe something similar could be done within communities. Renumeration for the girls could be anything from a small tip, help with home-work or produce from the garden etc. I love how close-knit these communities are..they live as Christians are meant to. In this modern age where its normal to take care of your own problems and ignore everyone else’s.. it gives so much hope.

Hope this helps!

God bless!

Good article and this quote is important for new mothers (and fathers) to understand, “In pretty much every time and place outside of modern Western culture, people lived around family all their lives. The average person was surrounded by brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews. For women, the work of raising children was not done alone: Younger nieces and cousins would help with the little kids, the women would socialize as they gathered water or washed clothes, all the children playing together around them. This is the kind of life we were designed for.”

My wife is from an island and the culture is closer to this as you stated.  Family and extended family is very important.

Another issue I see, and it applies to the spiritual life too (both men and women), is that “SAHM choose this life, so you must be failing if you need help.”

Organize a babysitter Coop with other mothers of young kids. No money every changes hands; you pay for babysitting with babysitting, and schedule constraints pose no problem if you have enough mothers on board.

I agree that stay at moms need help!  We sometimes think, “What else can I give them to do?” rather than “What can I do to encourage them?”  right?  I think having a sense of community amongst the moms is so important.  They need to know they are not the only ones out there drowning in the labor of it all.  And then for practical helps—develop a network of friends who also need help and get together and share the burden.  Clean Susie’s house this week and Joanie’s the next?  Even once a week teamwork would help out.  I am past that stage, but I distinctly remember being overwhelmed most of the time!  So, hang in there mommies!

I have a suggestion-when my children were young I belonged to a babysitting co-op.  We rotated the log book, for each hour you babysat for one child you received on hour free babysitting.  You could accumulate hours, but there was a limit on the negative balance.  It worked very well and our children made new friends and got used to being with other adults.  good luck

Jen, thank you for saying this clearly and well.  I definitely feel the “guilt” over hiring help, even though I’m actually aware of the history of motherhood (thanks for pointing it out, Titus) and hired help.  I think guilt is totally Satan’s insidious way of getting to us.

BHG’s comment about older women helping younger…amen!  I wish all our churches could find a way to organize this.  It would be such a help to have a kind, competent pair helping hands once a week or so!

Oh, I also wanted to mention something in regards to the young mother’s helper.  While it is a great idea, theoretically, I’ve found that it often isn’t practical.  For example, there are some great teens in this age group in our church.  However, they live 20+ minutes away from me, and need to be picked up.  The logistics of getting my kids into the car, picking her up, having a couple of hours of help, and then loading everyone into the car for another 40 minute drive to take her home and return to our house…?  It isn’t actually worth it.

Does anyone have ideas about how to find people in one’s parish who might be willing to help a SAHM?  Would you suggest going through the parish staff or asking around or some other way?

So often, over the past 12 years of motherhood I have contemplated this need for stay at home mothers.  I have two thoughts:

1.  I have started training my pre-teen girls to view mother’s helping as a tithing of their time and talents.  I want them to understand the value of giving to someone without expecting to be paid at this point.  They are being paid in experience and the blessing that comes when we give generously of ourselves. 

2.  I see such an opportunity for a parish ministry here—I have often looked forward to the day that I can call a mom, and surprise her with the offer of a morning to herself.  Though I’m still in the trenches of young children myself, I know that I will use my knowledge and free time (when it becomes available) for this purpose.  In the meantime, I offer dinners whenever possible.

We in the western world might be trending to the “old” ways now.

A stay-home-with-the-children-mother should have help.  It starts when the first-born is a toddler and mother has him help her pick up the toys before lunch.  It continues with the help of a smaller, child-sized broom and hoe and instructions and demonstrations how to sweep and work in the garden.  It progress to where the mother can say, “Please go pull me a couple of onions” and the child can accomplish the task on their own.  As the child grows, so does their ability to help around the house.  That does not mean it is “slave labor”, it means the parents are teaching their child to be a responsible person.

A few observations:

Unless I missed it, I didn’t see a single call for a government based solution.  Good for all the commentators.

In my neighborhood it just me, the nannies and the gardeners.  There are no other visible SAHMs.

I take my children to the parks and walks around the blocks and even on the weekends I never see who lives in the houses next to me.  If there is only one nanny at the park, she will talk to me in English.  If there is more than one nanny all conversation is in Spanish.  The atmosphere also changes because they are “on the job” where I’m playing with my children at the park.

Very lonely, I don’t have a solution.

I’d be very interested to know why so many married couples move so far away from their parents.  I can understand it if it were for a financially lucrative job opportunity, but it doesn’t sound like there’s all that much extra money around for nannies and cleaning ladies.  So why move?  It seems like that’s the first step away from a connected community.

If we stayed closer to immediate families, there might be more hands to help raising young children.  I’ve been plain with my kids: when you get married and start families, live near me.  Yes, older women should help young moms and it should start with their own grandchildren. 

(Let me clarify that I still think this is a good idea, even if you get no grandparent help, which I didn’t.  But it’s still less stressful to be within commuting distance to grandparents and aunts/uncles/etc.)

Here’s what we did: we alternated weeks when we’d take our friends kids at about 4:30 pm and play with them along with our own, give them dinner, etc, while they went out. About 7:30, one of us would take their children home, do the bedtime routine, and hang out there till 10 pm or so. Next week it was our turn (joy!) to have all those lovely hours of free time and return home to kids all tucked in and mostly asleep. And no worries about teens who didn’t know how to handle problems!

Verushka- Just to point out, some grandmothers are still working. Mine was 52 when I had my first a few years ago. She still works as a nurse and is has a few more years before she can retire. She helps me when she can, though she is also in the rough position of many middle-agers of also caring for her parent. So not always a sure thing. :)

Susi- Yes my 4 year old is help. About a quarter of the time. The rest of the time he is part of what is requiring all of my energy and patience! LOL. And the 1.5 year old…well she is just work. Precious work though.

I have four children and have to survive without any family in the area who can help me. I often find myself sad and down when I see what a benefit it is to the children and parents of people who have grandparents in town. They often take the children for the night or babysit for free. But, the one thing I do have is a very good community of people within a 3 block radius of our house. We are all 4 blocks away from our school/church and all have large families and stay at home. None of us have any help. We are all in the exact same situation!  We are a support for each other and often watch eachothers children for doctors apptmnts, etc. The one suggestion I would recommend for childcare is find a young girl who has to do community service hours. I have used a friends daughter on a number of occasions and it is free and very, very helpful! I also switch off once a month and sometimes we have done once a week for dates. The kids enjoy playing with other kids and it is free for us. Hope this is helpful!

Kris, I know what you’re saying. DH and I don’t have kids yet, but we moved into a kid-filled neighborhood two years ago and we barely know our neighbors. Well, DH knows the guys because they are always outside and do chit chat from time to time. But it’s still isolating since I’m not home all day like the other younger women. I’m also an anomaly since I do yard work and other “dirty” chores, with my DH and alone. I never see the other ladies doing things like that! It’s been hard for me to make friends since graduating college (um, almost ten years ago!!!) so I do feel alone much of the time. Thankfully my parents live ten minutes away.

As for helping those with kids when you do not have any…what about when people don’t take your offers of help? That’s super frustrating when you have the time but no one wants the help. It has happened to me, and then I wonder who would help me when i have kids? Or, if your parish doesn’t have a group for younger adults. No where I’ve lived has had one in any parish. Nothing post confirmation, nothing for the post college people or young marrieds. That in itself is isolating, kids or no.

For Kris, in New England,

I’ve come to realize that I can only make friends in some sort of structured situation ...  In my own schools, or at my job, then later through my kids’ schools.  When I had no kids, I never knew how to connect with my neighbors.  Like you, I worked too many hours to find a way to connect in a meaningful way.

Simply brilliant!  One opinion from one man.

Kris and Ellen, yup, I am the same way. I’m not SUPER tight with anyone at work, but we do talk about non-work stuff. So that helps. But on weekends, it’s just me and DH. We would love to find other people to have over for dinners, game nights, etc, but people like that seem to be hard to find…

Verushka: My husband and I don’t have children yet, but even though my parents live three miles from us, we wouldn’t expect help other than occasional weekend babysitting. My mom plans to work well past 65 if she can, and told me years ago not to expect much help with my children. Duly noted. My husband moved two hours away from his hometown because there were NO job opportunities for him there. There’s a lot of family dysfunction on his side, which makes me uncomfortable with the idea of having my in-laws involved with childcare.

I agree with you to a point, however I think you are wrong in assuming that all SAHMs have to squeeze and wring the budget to come up with a little extra help around the house.  Some SAHMs are wealthy beyond comprehension and my sister is one of them.  She hires someone to do everything- grocery shop, prepare meals, houseclean, nanny, garden- all this amounts to thousands of dollars a month.  She has so much time now to herself that she has essentially made herself obsolete and guess what?  Now she has a prescription drug addiction and I’m sure she suffers from anorexia and a shopping addiction too.  Of course this is hard to imagine for most women but there is a subset of SAHMs that make their lives so easy to an almost dangerous degree.  I think there are indeed seasons for assitance (early pregnancy, bed-rest, a new baby) but for the most part, a woman should clean her own dang toilets and sweep her own kids’ crumbs off the floor- unless she can get a kid (of hers) to do it, of course.

@Verushka: I can only speak to my family and the families I know in our town who are in the same boat—raising young families far from grandparents.  For most of us, we chose to move to our current location for some combination of job opportunity and quality of life.  Most of us come from large metro cities and did not want to raise our families there (high cost of living, lots of traffic, high crime, very little sense of community).  We live in a relatively rural part of the country, making it difficult to physically see extended family but once or twice a year.  However, the payoff is that we can more readily support our families on one income, benefit from an area with a low crime rate, and enjoy a bit more of the small town feel and friendliness while still accessing some of the important aspects a metro area would offer.  It is a trade-off, to be sure, but there is simply no way we could afford to live in the area where I grew up on only one income.
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As an aside, even if we were near my parents, we likely wouldn’t have much help—they both still work full-time and travel extensively (but not here).  (DH’s parents have both passed away.)

For the record, although many extended families consist of well-adjusted individuals with healthy boundaries who appreciate and respect the ways that other family members prefer doing things in their own home, unfortunately, there have been stories in my extended family of local grannies, live-in great-grannies, nearby mothers-in-laws, and aunties, who have been very willing to “help”, but along with the “help” there has all too often come a good deal of pushiness, attempts to dominate, meddlesomeness, nagging, fault-finding, criticism, unsolicited advice-giving, and generally a seeming effort completely to usurp and to marginalize the authority and autonomy of the actual young parents and heads-of-household, and instead a determined effort to accord to these young parents the status of eternal “kids”, to be ordered around and told what to do in their own home with their own children.

A little taste of that sort of thing from time to time is perhaps inevitable, and most healthy families with good relationships can get past it without any problem.

No, what I’m talking about here is *mega-doses* of undermining and interference.

No amount of “help” is worth that kind of negativity and nastiness.

So, if your all or part of your extended family is (a) local; (b) respectful (for the most part); and (c) willing to pitch in and lend a hand, then you are truly blessed.

If you live in a college/university town, get connected to the students at the Newman Center.  Many young women (and men, but mostly women) with the desire for and call to marriage have no idea how to handle children.  I was one of them.  Then I started helping out a family with 3 preschoolers as a Mother’s Helper.  It was like I was interning with them!  It was absolutely a ministry to me to be able to learn how to care for children in a non-critical situation.  I never asked to be paid, because I knew it was an invaluable learning experience.  And I became great friends with the parents who have taught me so much about beautiful, Catholic marriage!  Definitely a win-win.  There are young people who WANT to learn from you and your children.  Especially for college students, a little kid-time is so refreshing from studying!  My prayers are with you all - I wish I could multi-locate to help!

Great article.

My kids are older now, so I have built-in help.  They make a heck of a mess, so it’s not too much to ask them to clean up the mess they made!

I didn’t have that when they were younger.  My dad’s still working, in his 70s.  My mom was an hour away and had health problems.  My inlaws are still working, plus my husband’s sister and SIL were dumping their kids off on them without warning (they live next door and five minutes away). 

Not to mention these people - the aunts and uncles - are playing this “whose grandkids are the favorite” games that DH and I wanted no part of, so there was never any help on that end.  I guess that was a side effect of being raised in the Me Decade and the Greed Decade.

The neighbors are all too worried about keeping up with the Joneses and paying off their huge mortgages and CC debt to form any close neighborly relationships.

While I’m not a fan of the small town everyone knowing everyone’s business thing that was the norm in another generation, people had a lot more people they could count on.  It’s been a sad trade-off.

Nevertheless, I’m surviving, and my family is thriving.

Just a clarification.  My parents have taken the kids for sleepovers (they’re now 20 minutes away) from time to time.  We visit both sets of grandparents regularly.  I’m glad the kids have that.  What we won’t do - like some others in my husband’s family did - was expect or even demand they help out.  Be a bit more respectful of your parents’ time than that.

I haven’t had a chance to read every comment but will soon! I just wanted to say this: Most girls from the ages of 8 to 12 really LOVE playing with little ones. My 10-year-old, sad that we have no more tiny babies, has started a small “mother’s helper” business in the neighborhood. She charges $2 an hour and simply holds babies, plays with toddlers, and distracts anyone else while the mom gets some uninterrupted time.

If you need this type of help, you can ask a likely daughter of a friend or parishioner. This is the kind of work that lots of girls this age would be excited to do, esp. since they are really too young to be full babysitters. Don’t be afraid to ask!

We got a housekeeping service every other week for the busiest rooms in our house a few months ago.  It is wonderful!  About the same price as cable and I get a lot more out of it.  I work parttime and currently only have a single 7 month old so I do feel a little guilty about it but we can afford it and I cook my meals from scratch and do the yard work.  I haven’t told my mother about the cleaning lady yet, afraid of her reaction.  It also puts us in a better spot for the 3 kids 3 and under we might be adopting next month….

Thanks, Jen, for the insightful, thought-provoking article!

@Emily - you indicated guilt is “Satan’s insidious way of getting to us.” I agree, but also wonder if perhaps it is pride, thinking that we have to or should be able do things on our own. I have come to realize that we are the Body of Christ because God equipped us each with unique gifts to offer others within the Body. Also, many women posted about and/or alluded to isolation. What better way to for the enemy to attack the woman - the heart of the home (the domestic Church) - than to make her feel as though she is alone, or somehow inadequate or “less than” if she asks for help? As someone who has been in a position to need help many times in her life, I honestly believe that sometimes it’s more of a blessing for the person we allow to help us than it is for us to accept the help. We are built for community. I love all the ideas to help us perpetuate this God-given reality!

Practical suggestion:  Team up with your local high schools and parishes to find teens willing to come over for a set amount of time to PLAY WITH THE CHILDREN while you clean your house.  While you would probably prefer to have someone else do the cleaning chores, this is a cheaper solution.  It works! 

The teens could get service hours and/or a reasonable “stipend.”

As a mom of 6, with several little ones under foot, I think it is a necessity to have help, HOWEVER, we have never had the luxury to afford such things like a maid or even a babysitter. Plus, asking relatives to watch our entire gang is never an option (maybe one or two at once but never the whole lot).

As to the idea of having local teens to help, I admit I hesitate with that one. There are great teens out there and then there are very inexperienced teens out there. I just imagine the worst case scenarios and, well, I’d never be able to relax or get anything done, wondering what the children are doing now and IF the teen-sitter is actually watching them. Sounds bad, I know but others moms I’ve talked to also are hesitant to hire out a sitter.

I agree with your words on the element of community, especially in the care of children. Sadly, our society (especially) seems to have been torn apart in this regard. I fear this is why many families are isolated financially (and then have to seek state programs for help, as one example) because they are not able to get help or share with their extended family members. Divorce, unmarried couples, ... all add to that element of instability which does not help strengthen a family with children. And of course people having to move around so much since employment is not stable, there are not many long-term benefits with companies anymore. Intact families have to leave relatives to find better work or livelihood away from each other.

I glanced at the previous article about the Missionary of Charities schedule and I agree, that it does look simplistic and peaceful.

Before I was married, I tried religious life myself. I was a postulant in a Discalced Carmelite Monastery. The Sisters wore the old traditional habit and it was like living in the time period of St. Teresa of Avila! It was cloistered and I followed a schedule much like the Missionaries. There were periods for prayer, meals, rest, etc. Though during our recreation time, we still “worked” by making rosaries or other religious items but you basically sat in a chair and worked with your hands, while talking to each other (though not about yourself, as the idea is to give up self). The older Sisters did knitting which is a very therapeutic craft for anyone to do (even read in a book once written by a neurologist that working with your hands can help fight off depression).

The one aspect I wanted to point out was that one can not compare a life as a mother, to a nun. In the monastery they are able to put aside their work (sorta like when you are working outside the home, you leave work and come home and well.. the work is out of site and hopefully out of mind… especially if you don’t bring work home on a laptop or cell phone). A mother, however, is not able to put aside (or escape from) her role. It is more like being on-call 24/7, and as a result, one can not neatly fit your activities into a simplistic schedule.

A really good example of this is bedtime. Most years I’ve not had a problem with bedtime, however recently I have a little toddler that has become immune to sleep. He fights naptime and especially bedtime. We’ve tried all the methods we’ve seen on Supernanny and still, little success. As a result, Mommy (aka me) rarely gets alone time and I have to do things in spurts. And sleep deprivation is a way of life (for many, many years.. but that is the motherhood story I guess).

I do envy those moms who run a tight ship and can stick to a schedule. I’ve tried it and it never works with our family. Part of it is me. I’m just not a schedule person (though I LOVED the schedule in the monastery and did not have a problem with it at all, except the very very early morning rise!... too early and freezing!) And part of it is the children. Little ones, especially don’t understand that Mommy needs to use the bathroom without someone banging on the door every five seconds. And yes, the bathroom is often the only retreat to stand, splash some water on my face and take a breath or two. :)

I like Verushka’s thoughts on telling the young ones that when they are older, to stay near family (so they can help you).  I guess the problem today with many families is that the modern image of being old (or becoming grandparent age) is that you have this new-found freedom and you need to unburden yourself FROM your family. Freedom to go play golf or find new friends, etc.. which means, saying “no” to babysitting and other responsibilities that a grandparent might normally take on.  I think that is the image many people get from tv and magazines today and so they push aside their grand-kids to serve themselves instead.

I am saddened by the response of History major, Julie, who writes, “Poorer people have used their family and community networks, worked themselves to the bone, and (frankly) set lower standards for themselves.”  Most respondents to your article seem to living comfortably, or affluently, on one income; and probably live in big homes in the suburbs.  My husband live in Hartford, CT, which has it’s share of the “poorer” people that Julie refers to.  These “poorer” people have not “set lower standards for themselves” but have come from generations of low-wage jobs that they often could not break out of.  Minority populations were left in the cities during the 1940-1950’s exodus to suburbia. Sixty-years later some of these sons and daughters are doctors, lawyers, and other professionals, but not all. Add to this the immigrant population who strive, on low-wages, to get their kids through school.  Why do I somehow feel that Julie is a white, upper-middle class woman, who writes about “poorer people setting lower standards for themselves” from the comfort of a well-appointed home in the suburbs?  And has had throughout life the kind of financially supported education that allows her to be an armchair historian?

It’s wonderful if you have the income/wealth to be a stay at home mom. Many mothers in this country would love to do that, but then they’d have a problem of how to feed their children, or live in a home. Most women are working because it is not an option to stay with their kids.

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You are living in the past—obviously you haven’t gotten over “The Feminine Mystique” by Betty Friedan. Wake up—we have a terrible economy and low paying jobs (if any). There is nothing wrong with staying with your children instead of going for a career, but many women don’t want to and many more have no choice.

Amen to Adrienne and Marjorie! I live in the greater New Haven, CT area, so I know all too well what Marjorie is saying. So many women want to stay home, it’s true, but they cannot always afford it. A few weeks ago, I read a very well known blog, written by a Catholic woman. I’m not saying which blog because I’m sure many of you eat up her advice. The post was about working outside the home and if you are feeling guilty about doing so, you should quit. I was shocked, her post was insinuating that most of us are choosing to work out of a sense of greed! And that one should quit work and live at the very edge of poverty if you weren’t “lucky” to marry a man who made lots of money. When I pointed out that for many of us, this wasn’t an option, and if given a REAL choice, most of us would gladly stay home, I was treated as if I was a spoiled brat. Apparently, her husband didnt always make a lot of money, and they had many more that 2-3 kids and were quite happy living in near destitution. My husband is in a very low paying field. I am blessed to be in a medium paying field, but have worked at my company for five years and have received modest increases in salary. DH has already been laid off twice in our four year marriage. We have health insurance through my job. If I wasn’t working, and we had kids (we dont now, mostly because of his job situations), we’d be on welfare. I believe in “responsible parenthood” and for this house, that includes me working, at least until DH can make more. Maybe that will be before we have kids, and I could stay home, maybe it won’t be until we have one or two, maybe never! But whatever the case is, I think we need to stop assuming that so many women have this luxury of staying home. And I know it’s not all fun and games, and that not everyone has husbands who make tons of money, yet they still stay home and manage just fine, albeit a little tight. We also need to remember that some of us have husbands who don’t even make enough to pay for rent on a one bedroom apartment! Not to mention those of us who live far from family (it’s a sad fact of life, deal with it instead of bemoaning how things used to be), or those of us who have younger parents who will be working for many more years, either because they stayed home with us when we were little or have lost most/lots of their retirement savings. I don’t know how we will afford day care for an infant ($1000/month). Thankfully our parents live fairly close, but my father is self employed and will work until he dies. My mother stayed home with us for years, but has a great job with excellent benefits. Since my dad doesn’t have any, she needs to work until they are eligible for Medicare. She’s 56, so many more years… My MIL is deceased, and my FIL is retired, but he does things on his own time.

When I went to university at Steubenville, we had a ministry started for SAHM mothers by Kimberly Hahn. College-age girls would volunteer three hours of their time each week to help out a mom by babysitting, cleaning, assisting with their homeschool, etc. In exchange, the moms would offer to let us do our laundry at their home, share a meal with their family or be taken on a family outing. Since many of us were either from large families we were missing or never had much of a family life, being able to share in family life in this way was as much a blessing to us as it was to these families to have extra hands to help lighten the load. I think such a ministry could work with high school youth as well as college.

I am a Filipina living here in China for 2 years with my family. My husband’s work is based here. I have two kids, 7 & 3. It’s a handful especially if their—‘difficult’. The language barrier is a very big problem. Since only a few a speak and understand English. I’m a SAHM… Everytime I’m close to freaking out because of the load and stress I pray to God to give me more strength…

@ Lisa S.: No, I don’t EXPECT anything from either set of parents, nor would I demand it. My mom told me, apropos of nothing, that she wouldn’t be available to help when I had children (I think I was an undergraduate at the time). My parents raised me; my only expectation for the situation at all is that I will raise my own children. It would be nice to feel that I could rely on family if needed (obviously not all the time and not even regularly), but since I have been told otherwise, I expect not to be able to rely on anyone for help with my children. I thought it was very nice for Verushka to immediately put out that offer of help for her children and grandchildren, but not all of us receive such an offer, hence the reason why not all of us feel terribly conflicted about moving away from family.

I agree with Immuno_geek. I would NEVER think to ask my parents to help us with our kids, daily/long term! If my mom offered, I might not turn her down *grin* but I wouldn’t say “OK now, this is how you can help me when the baby comes. You can watch the kids, every day, year round.” For one, as I wrote in my PP, she’s 56 and needs to keep working for the benefits. She won’t be retiring for another 9 years, when I’m 40. So, a little too late, I think. Also, she has her OWN life to live! What if she wants to travel with my dad? I can’t stop her. She doesn’t OWE me anything. If my parents want to babysit every now and then, great! If my mom’s work situation changes to part time (doubtful) and offered to take the kids one day a week, I would take her up on it. And of course, I’d want my mom to be there for me when I first came home from the hospital (or adoption finalization) to help me adjust. I wouldn’t even have to ask; she’d probably be in our house, waiting for us with dinner on the table and a clean bed! She’s the type to just DO and to BE THERE without being asked. (Example: when we arrived at our apartment after our honeymoon, we found groceries awaiting us in the fridge/cabinets and a rotisserie chicken in the oven to keep warm so that we didn’t come home to nothing and have to worry about food the first night back!) She’d do anything for me, my DH, and my brother in a heartbeat and is one of the most selfless people I know, BUT she would not be Nana Day Care. It’s really bold for anyone to assume anything, but really, after many of our parents sacrificed for us, it’s especially bold to think that our parents would want to care for our children. How many of us were cared for daily by grandparents? Before Kindergarten, I saw my dad’s parents almost daily because my dad worked at a family business that was next door to my grandparents’ house and only a few miles from our house. My dad worked long hours, so in order to see him during the day, my mom, also looking for something to do with us as a SAHM, would take us over to have lunch with him. This also included the grandparents and an uncle. We also saw them at 8 AM Mass in “our” pew. But how often did they watch us? Ha, hardly. They went to bed too early so no evening babysitting. The rare times we were watched by them, it was at their house only, like if my mom had a doctor’s appointment. Maybe my family is the anomaly?

@Jen in regards to not being able to afford to stay home ever. While I completely agree that there are cases when a mom MUST work, as when my ex walked out and refused to pay child support(which yes is a legal obligation but takes months to fix), the original way to avoid a working mom was not to marry until you could afford for one of you to stay home with the kids. I find it curious that modern culture believes it a “right” to marry and possibly have kids regardless of income. My husband makes a US median income. We own an average house for the rural US. We own 10-30 yr old cars. We make all repairs to house and cars ourselves. We only eat meat 3-4 times a week and substitute with beans and eggs for the rest. We eat no prepared or processed foods. I am trained as a High School teacher and could increase our income by 30-40% but we feel it more important for me to be home and teach our kids at home. There is no “luck” about it. I chose to marry a man who could afford to support me and the 2 children of this marriage(the 3 from my first are grown now). You chose to marry a man who could not afford to support you and your kids without you working. Why complain you wish you had the chance to stay home? You must have thought your husband worth giving up staying home or possibly giving up having children for. I feel it unfair for working moms to act like they have no choice but to work. You chose to bring children into a situation where you could not stay home, no one forced you into that marriage, at least I hope not!
As to the question of help, I live in a rural area which is 99% hard core Baptist. A mom’s coop for moms spread about 25 miles in every direction from is parish is not very workable. Any home help in the area is $10+ per hour and no one is willing to drive their young teen 20 miles to help for a few dollars an hour. So I would say it takes more than being middle class to afford help. I would love to have a housekeeper to keep up the day to day stuff so I could concentrate on homeschooling and church stuff but not happening here. My husband’s father is dead and his mom blind and in a nursing home. My parents are 87 and barely able to live in their own. My grown kids either are in college, or don’t drive, or are dysfunctional so even having family in the area isn’t a help.

@Marjorie - With regard to @Julie’s statement about “poorer people setting lower standards for themselves,” I wonder if this is as inflammatory a comment as (by reading your response) you perceived it to be. It could be that Julie was simply referring to material goods when referring to “lower standards.”

To my mind, the “standard” that Western culture sees as “normal” is quite - forgive the terminology - spoiled. Sure, poorer people in the United States have less money; therefore, they most likely have fewer possessions, vacations, and other “extras,” such as paid nannies or other help. Even still, the poor in the United States live better than the vast majority of the rest of the world; do we really have room to complain?

I can agree that, as a quote-unquote “poorer person,” I don’t have as many “toys” and extras as my more affluent counterparts; therefore, my standards for those things are perhaps “lower” than others’. However, have I set a lower standard of love for my children? No way. Do I need more money to model and teach our Catholic faith to my children? Nope. Do I desire for my children to have adequate education? Absolutely. Do I strive to feed, clothe, house, and nurture my children? Undoubtedly, yes.

My point is that, while my “standards” for material things are low in our family because we simply can’t afford them right now, my standards for those things that are most important - faith, family, basic needs - are as high as anyone’s. Money (or lack thereof) doesn’t set the standard in our home - my husband and I do in cooperation with God and His infinite grace. 

@SouthernTransplant - You said: “I find it curious that modern culture believes it a “right” to marry and possibly have kids regardless of income.” It sounds like you believe people shouldn’t marry and/or have children until and unless they make a certain amount of money. Is that correct? If so, I wonder why you feel this way? Throughout the ages, people have married and conceived children regardless of income. I couldn’t find any Church teaching that corroborates your viewpoint. I would appreciate your assistance in clarifying.

Southern Transport: you said “I feel it unfair for working moms to act like they have no choice but to work.”  I hear what you are saying, and I don’t want to get into a debate about marrying someone to support you vs not, I am not sure how I feel about that. I would just like to point out that some women surely share my situation: I ended up being a SAHM because I lost my job, and my husband made enough to support us.  Then he lost his job, and as I am a teacher like you, it was easier for me to find another job than for him. So now I “hsve” to work.  It’s not always a choice.

Kaylan,
I also, am the mother of 6 kids, (and now 5 grandchildren) - you will be at HOME - keeping an eye on things while you address the multitude of housekeeping chores.  Trust in God and give it a try!

@SouthernTransplant: I don’t know where you got this from: the original way to avoid a working mom was not to marry until you could afford for one of you to stay home with the kids but apparently I wasn’t taught that lesson by my OWN mother who stayed at home. And neither was my husband, who also had a SAHM.

Your comment is full of assumptions about me, my husband and our careers. Granted, you know nothing about us, so I’ll let that slide. But I want to explain, especially since this comment was hurtful: You chose to marry a man who could not afford to support you and your kids without you working. Why complain you wish you had the chance to stay home? You must have thought your husband worth giving up staying home or possibly giving up having children for.

Things happen in life that we have zero control over. Prior to our marriage, my husband had a great job and was on track to have a wonderful, well-paying career. We had plans about our lives after we were married—he’d be higher up in his field by then, I’d work for a few years, we’d save that money, then we’d have kids and I’d stay home. Then, he was almost killed in an accident while on the job. Ever since then, he’s been underemployed (and unemployed!), because of shady practices by employers trying to protect themselves by moving him around. He still could work in a higher position, but it seems as if he’s being blocked at every turn. (The accident was over 5 yrs ago, btw) Now he is 3 months into lay off #2. We don’t have children yet because of all of this.

When you combine a bad economy, a career path that gets no funding/respect (nonprofit social services), certain fields being off-limits b/c of injuries, and holes in employment history due to layoffs and accidents, you’re left with…not much. What should I do now? Divorce him? Harass him about things happening to him that are outside of his control. So yes, I chose to marry him, but no one thought then that we would be in the situation we are in NOW. ANY of us could have our situations change in any second. Even the smug SAHMs thinking “I chose well!” could find themselves at facing a laid off husband. Or one who is injured/ill/disabled. Or even, God forbid, a dead one.

I don’t want anyone’s sympathy or pity. I get enough from people in my real life. What I want is for you all to understand that not everyone is working by choice, and that not all of us who work are greedy and are needing to keep up with the Joneses. Some of us actually are paying the utilities! Not funding vacations!!! The horror!

@Erika—thank you for weighing in with your real-life situation of a SAHM needing to return to the workforce because of economic issues outside of ANYONE’S control! :) For some families, it’s easy to live simply and get by on one income. For other families, you can live simply, but one income is still NOT enough. Of course, “simply” is a vast grey area. Also coming into play is where you live, since that impacts taxes of all sorts, prices of consumables, income, etc.

I’m going to stick my two cents worth here.. when did this become a battlefield for defending the choice to be a SAHM or not?!! I cannot believe that so many inflammatory comments are being slung about like this. I know Jennifer F. encourages dialogue but WOW!!

@SouthernTransplant.. your comments are extremely judgmental and, at best,un-Christian. I cannot understand your philosophy.. we are supposed to analyse who we fall in love with and make sure that they are ‘husband material’. The only criterion for doing something like that, in my opinion, would have been to make sure I only dated people of faith.. beyond that, it seems a little mercenary and calculated. You could not be Catholic or even Christian to make statements about people believing that they have a right to marry and have children regardless of income. Are you serious? Really?

You have virtually attacked Jen’s lifestyle without even a proper argument.. though I believe she shouldn’t need to defend her choices to you or anyone. Being a SAHM means sacrifice yes.. I’ve been one for 18 years. I’ve given up many things.. including buying myself things other women consider basic needs. I never complain about that or the fact that I drive a 16 year old car, have no savings etc. Its was CHOICE.. one that was made for my children. I could agree with a lot of the things you stated on what a SAHM about the sacrifices we have to make etc. but I cannot agree with your justification in how someone ought to plan to be one.

Personally, its a question of faith and prayer. If you determine, as I did that God placed it on my heart to give up my job for my children, then lots of prayer to discern how to go about doing that is necessary. You also have to place a lot of trust in God. My family is in need for nothing.. God supplies all our needs. He blesses our sacrifices and trust in Him. That does not mean I have what everyone else has.. but if I don’t need it, He doesn’t have to supply it. At the moment, with the world economy being what it is, everyone’s getting pinched. I may have to go look for a job soon.. we’ve tightened our belt one notch short of complete asphyxiation.. but I won’t jump into anything before I pray first. My trust in Him is absolute and I seek His direction first.

@Jen (with the out of work hubby).. I pray your situation improves and I know what its like.. we’ve had our own ups and downs. My husband lost his job three times in the last 8 years, but God provides, place all your hope and trust in Him. I think that is the key to surviving all the trials in life. Be patient with your hubby and pray hard for him. The enemy is always seeking to place wedges between couples.. he absolutely HATES family life and marriage.

Ladies lets support each other and quit picking each other’s choices apart. There is no cookie cutter way to be a good mother.. its a question of what we give to our children. My mother worked,(she had no choice) perhaps that is why I personally believe that giving the best to my children requires me to be at home. Should circumstances dictate that I have to go out to work.. then I’d have to be more creative to give my children the best of me.

Now lets get back to the real issue.. how to support each other.. both SAHM’s and working moms. We have the future generation to raise.. a large enough task and you know that old saying “it takes a village to raise a child”.. it happens to be true. We each should be taking an interest in others and their situations.. the world would be a much better place if we could work together this way.

God’s blessings to everyone.

@Lisa Maria, thank you for your support, your understanding, and most importantly, your prayers. There is a lot of sacrifice when one stays home, and I’d never argue that, especially if finances are tight. There can also be sacrifice if both spouses are working due to unexpected circumstances. Like you wrote, we need to support each other, no matter our path in life. We are not islands, we are all going to need each other at some point. Everything you wrote, I agree with 110%! May the Lord help us to be as wise and as open-minded as you have been here.

Thank you Jennifer for such a great article.  And Danny, thank you for sharing your great experience with the babysitters group.  This is an inspiring idea!  I agree that it is absolutely imperative to have some kind of help, and I think it’s good for the kids too, to learn to trust others and to learn new things from new people.  We are not utilizing help right now, and it is very difficult.  We’ve been to one movie in 6 years, and out to dinner maybe three times in the same amount of time.  We have definitely suffered from the mindset of “if you need help, you aren’t doing your job” mentality, and it is very hard on everyone.  I encourage everyone to use and give help whenever you can!

When I was a struggling young mother I noticed that there were always several mothers in every group who seemed like super-moms and were able to be so efficient and organized and productive. I envied them so much and wondered what was their secret. Finally I figured it out: every single one of these super-moms had a nearby mom or grandma and a whole army of sisters and sister-in-laws and aunts and nieces and cousins and other female relatives giving them support. Once I knew their secret I was so much less in awe of them! Those of us without or far away from supportive female relatives need to give ourselves permission to hire or barter for the help we need.

@Heather
re: “Throughout the ages, people have married and conceived children regardless of income. I couldn’t find any Church teaching that corroborates your viewpoint. I would appreciate your assistance in clarifying.” Please see I Timothy 5:8

re: “Even still, the poor in the United States live better than the vast majority of the rest of the world; do we really have room to complain?” I think that is an interesting point. Here is a very recent article with really helpful statistics on poverty in America: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2011/07/What-is-Poverty#_ftn5

@Bonnie.. I’m a little confused by your quotation of 1 Timothy 5:8 in which St Paul is speaking of women looking after their duties to their family before all else. He is specifically speaking of widows here and, particularly the ones desirous of becoming active members of the Church (as in the early equivalent of the nunnery) hence further on he advises Timothy not to accept younger widows since their passions may be misplaced and temptation or desire would overcome them. Could you please clarify how this supports the viewpoint that people shouldn’t marry or have children until and unless they can afford to. Personally, I believe that this line of thinking goes against our Catholic teachings, but perhaps I am missing something.

@Immuno_geek, sorry if I implied that’s what you were doing.  I was pointing out what women in my husband’s family do.  They took full advantage of a grandmother who was willing to help out, and they often dumped their kids on her with little to no advance notice.  This is something I (and most people) wouldn’t do.

As I said, the aunts on that side are jealous, resentful women, competing with each other (and they tried to drag me into it) for many years.  They have no relationship, by choice, with my children (and this isn’t a very charitable thing to say, but they’re not the kind of people I want my kids to be around).  So there was no way I could ever play SuperMom when these people (some who I haven’t spoken to in close to a decade) would prefer to sneer at me than help me.

I didn’t mean to turn this post into a rant about that family, but it seems that this kind of dysfunction is more prevalent today than it was years ago.  People wallow in their self-created messes than rise above it and offer to help out.  Just another side effect of our splintered society.

Admittedly I haven’t read all the comments so this may have been mentioned, but single young adults are often eager to help young, growing families.  You can’t simply ask for free babysitting :), but if you get to know them and welcome them into your family, they can be a real support. In college and after there were several families I helped.  There was one family that welcomed me in particular.  I had dinner at there house most Sunday nights, was invited to family celebrations (birthdays, confirmations, etc) and also babysat.  They did pay me for babysitting, because they could, but honestly I would have done it for free (and with others who couldn’t, I did). It was such a good experience for me to be around a solid Catholic family (mine was not) and to be a part of their lives. I learned so much. Because they made me part of the family, I didn’t feel “used” and I had the abundance of free-time to help. It was a win win situation.

You gotta be kidding! At home moms need help???? What a joke! I know at home mothers THINK they have it tough, but gimme a break!As a working mother raising seven children, I (and other working mothers) was looked down upon by the “at home” mothers at our local Catholic school, who by and large had domestic help because their lives were so “difficult”.My happiest times were the six weeks maternity leave I got with each child.  Piece of cake taking care of a house, and seven kids when I didn’t have to work those six postpartim weeks. I did all the cooking, cleaning, shopping, laundry, etc. (no fast food when you have seven kids) and there were chore lists for all the children.My husband didn’t help much. He worked 12-16 hours a day to my 30+ hours.A neighbor watched our younger kids for pay.All the kids were breast fed, and all have graduate degrees today, and all but the most recent grad have families just starting or larger than average.
Anyhow, kvetch, you poor overburdened things, and if you have more than ten kids, I will give you a modicum of credit, but the rest of you are wimps!

My daughter Jenifer is a stay at home mom/college student/apprentice couponer.  She has just recently begun a blog that is a must read.  She is a creative writer and is working on her bachelor degree.  She has a fresh and humorous look on life.  At the very least she will make you smile.  You will find that you identify with what she says, she presents her thoughts in a “glass half full” manner.  Give “Stay at Home Jen” a try.

Stay at Home Jen
http://stayathomejen.blogspot.com/2011_10_01_archive.html

Votre site est très intéressant merci beaucoup.

votre très bienvenues merci de visiter “Rester à la maison de Jen”.

Staying home alone for kids can be dangerous especially when they are left at home alone and you are at work. We live in a pretty nice neighborhood but there are a few areas that I’d rather my children didn’t visit. When I was reading a blog my anationofmoms, I read of a service called SafeKidZone that would help you protect your family. The blog also said something about being able to win 6 months of free service. Check it out if you’re interested: http://anationofmoms.com/2011/08/protect-your-family-giveaway.html

My child is certainly the most precious gift I have ever been given and I take that gift with a great deal of responsibility, both for protecting my child and educating him on how to be an independent responsible adult. That is why I am confident leaving him at home alone because I know he can handle himself in minor emergencies. I was so glad that last month, while reading an article on a blog, it mentioned that there was a service I could use to track my child to be sure he is always in safe places. At the bottom it said I could follow the site anationofmoms and be entered for a drawing of 6 months free of the service. Not bad! http://anationofmoms.com/2011/08/protect-your-family-giveaway.html

I am a mother of 5 under age 7 and teach highschool theology. You mention the Missionaries of Charity daily schedule and it reminded me of when I had some Dominican Sisters come to speak to my students about vocations. The responses were great, my students’: “You have to go to bed at 9 and get up at 5!?” and mine: “You get to sleep 8 hours straignt!? and have daily recreation?!”

I never understood until I had a child of my own.

Thank you for this post.  Well written!  I needed to hear what you wrote. Thanks.

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