Garg.

As I head back to work in a couple of weeks (full-time for 2 weeks, part-time {27 hrs/week} after that), I've come across more than one debate on stay-at-home-moms versus working moms.

I plan on being a work-from-home-mom within the year. In the meantime, I will work part-time at my newspaper job while working on building my from-home business up to a point where I can still have a decent (ie. one that allows the bills to be paid) income. My boyfriend will be our daughter's main caregiver while I'm at work, supported by our respective mothers.

I do not, for one second, think I am lazy or inconsiderate of my daughter's future because I don't want to put her into daycare. The decision to not put her into care was an easy one - I never went as a child and turned out fine. Most kids I knew growing up didn't go into care. In fact, I don't think there was a daycare in my hometown until I was well into elementary school. Yes, we did attend nursery school and some of us were sent to relatives' homes to be babysat, but never an 8-hour child care situation where there are 8 kids for every adult.

I plan on putting Maddy into a few activities as she grows up. We want to get her started on swimming lessons soon; I have a few friends with kids around Maddy's age; we have nephews who, while 4-8 years older than Maddy - really like playing with her. I certainly do not plan on locking myself in the house with Maddy while I work from home. I'm not sure if that's the scenario a lot of working moms think of when they hear someone is going to be a SAHM, but that couldn't be farther from the truth.

Yes, there are days when we don't leave the house. But - and I can't stress this enough - it's not like I'm lying on the couch, eating chocolates while Maddy stumbles around the living room in a dirty diaper with a knife in her hand looking for an open electrical outlet. I have much, much fuller days now that Maddy is in my life. Today alone, I baked 7 loaves of bread, did dishes, portioned out the pears I made for Maddy's breakfast, made some apple-cinnamon pancakes for Maddy, and baked a ham. It is 3:30pm CST right now; I've been up since 6:30am. More often than not, the baking/cooking/cleaning is a typical day; and that does not include feeding, changing, and playing with Maddy, which is a fair amount of time.

I like to be active, and now that Maddy is more independent, I don't worry quite as much about her throwing a fit if I leave the room for a few minutes. I do most of my baking while she's asleep - I don't want to either burn her by accident or end up ruining whatever I'm baking. If I do leave her in the living room - we have this gate which has been a lifesaver - she can see me unless he goes on the other side of the room. And yes, I have been known to use the TV as a temporary sitter while I'm out of the room. I'm not happy about it, but here's how I do it (before I get labeled a bad parent) - Maddy enjoys Sesame Street a lot. Like A LOT. After her breakfast, she gets her face washed, teeth brushed, changed, dressed and I put her in the living room (where all of her toys are), check to see that there's nothing she can hurt herself with within her reach and go back over the gate to the kitchen where I spend 5 minutes doing dishes or tidying up. The entire time I'm in the kitchen, I talk to her - I can hear the TV and will ask her if a favourite character is on or comment on what might be going on. Once I'm done whatever I'm doing, back over the gate, throw a few pillows down on the floor so I can be on her level and play with her until her naptime.

Those 5 minutes I'm not in the room with her? Not the end of the world. At least in my mind. Leaving my daughter with people I don't know from Adam for 8+ hours a day? Big problem.

I may have mentioned it before, but in order for us to send our daughter to day care, I would have to work 2 full-time jobs. One to pay for life, one to pay for the care. So I'd likely be out of the house for at least 10 hours a day (some, probably closer to 15 or 16). What the hell was the point in having her if I was going to work myself to death if I was only going to foist her off on someone else to raise? I did say that we are going to have support from our mothers while I go back to work, but neither of them live here - my mom is 45 minutes away, Keith's is 3 hours away. We can't expect them to quit their jobs and come sit for us whenever we want them to. It's just the way it is.

What's been frosting my ass lately is the working parents/people in general who think that SAHMs or even WFHMs are lazy and are leeches on society. I can guarantee that the vast majority - at least based on my circle of friends - are not leeches. Nor are they lazy. Yes, we do get support from the government, but my $320 a month goes strictly to Maddy. Most parents I know do the same - the child benefits go to the child, no one else. There are a few ne'er-do-wells who have ruined the concept of staying home to raise your children to make them better people for the rest of us (ie. those parents who have kid after kid after kid and don't work as a personal choice). I am quite tired of explaining to people why I want to stay home and raise our daughter over working like a madwoman in order for her to be taught life's lessons by a virtual stranger.

I am well aware that I may end up working outside of home for longer than the next year. I am not going to put my family at risk of losing their home just to fulfill a dream I have. I have no problem (now, at least) of pushing things back a few months or even another year if it means we stay out of the poorhouse. I'm not that naive, but I would like it if people would stop looking down their damn noses at me when I say I want to stay home rather than working in an office while my daughter is growing up. Just because other people couldn't do it - or wouldn't do it - should have no bearing on me and my situation, but in this day and age of lightning-fast commentary, everyone has an opinion and thinks that it's the only right one.