Sorry, but being a mom isn’t a job – it’s even harder

I have an unpopular opinion that I’m going to share here with you guys today. And I sincerely hope that the village people of the internet don’t gather with their pitch forks, torches, and try and storm my Barbie Castle in the night.

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Guys, motherhood isn’t a job. It’s just not. I can’t tell you how many posts/memes/articles I have read that begin with, “Being a mother is the hardest job I’ve ever had.” It’s not a job, and I’ll tell you exactly why it isn’t a job. Can you quit being a mom? Can you walk into your kids one day and say, “Hey, it’s been real but this is going to be my two week notice.”  No, no you cannot.

Can you hope that if you work really hard and are very good at being a mom, someday you will be rewarded with a promotion and a raise? While an argument can be made that you can get promoted to grandmother or you can get rewarded with more children, I assure you, the pay stays the same.

Can you take a vacation from being a mom? Do you get to take two weeks off and go to Cabo with your girlfriends and be completely and utterly not a mom? No. Even if you leave your kids behind for two weeks, you don’t stop being a mom. You don’t stop thinking about them and worrying about them and calling to check in, and maybe secretly regretting the decision to take a trip in the first place because, oh my god what if the plane crashes on the way home, you die your kids are left motherless, and your husband remarries and they forget about you and start calling this new lady mom and did you ever think about that when you take a vacation from your job? Probably not.

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Can you one day decide that these kids aren’t really a good fit for you, and maybe you’d do better with some other kids elsewhere? No seriously, can you? Because mine doesn’t ever sleep and I’m just wondering… no? OK, I didn’t think so.

Do you know of a job where you are on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, all of the years of your life until you die? You do? Does it pay well? Because my daughter’s doesn’t pay me shit for what I do here. That’s a lie, I get paid in snuggles, giggles, and smiles from my daughter (which while priceless and wonderful, cannot be used to purchase that minivan that is in my very near future- yes, I checked).

Motherhood is not a job (it is work though, my god is it work), but it is not a job. Calling it such cheapens what we do.

Post originally appeared at LakeWi.net and BlogHer.

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