I Am a Stay-At-Home Mom

There has been a lot of information, blogs and controversy flying around social media the last week about stay-at-home moms. It all started with a husbands blog post defending his wife as a stay-at-home mother, to other moms of all people!

Personally, I find it quite insensitive of those particular women to wonder what she does all day.

Without trying to offend any mother or father, I do understand that everyone makes their own choices for their own reasons. Some are lucky enough to be able to stay at home with their children, while some would prefer to go back to work and others have to go back to pay the bills.

When I am asked "When are you planning on going back to work", "Are you back to work yet" or "Where are you working now" it feels almost wrong for me to say I am a stay-at-home mom. As if staying at home and raising my daughter isn't considered work or it's taboo for me to stay at home while other mothers went back to their job.

Firstly, I would like to say that while I was on maternity leave, I was given a whopping $25/week to stay at home with my child during her first year! Yup, a whole $100/month! As a waitress, even though I paid taxes on my tips...that income was not considered for my maternity leave. Ya Canada...there are still cracks in your "new and improved" maternity benefits. So, my husband worked his butt off to make it possible for me to stay at home with our newborn daughter and not have to go back to work early, if at all.

We tried everything! Thankfully, I was able to find a "job" where I was able to bring Samantha to work with me, while he built his business. As the event planner for momstown KW, I was able to both socialize myself and Samantha, as well as get a few extra bucks in my wallet.

Now, Samantha is 15 months old and I am proud to stay that I am still at home with her!

Now, for those of you who ask "When do I plan on going back to work"...Raising my daughter is work! I am a chef. I am a nurse. I am a janitor. I am a CEO. I am a teacher. I am the one who wakes up at 2am...3am...4am and 5am to hold and rock our teething, sick or upset baby so that my husband can sleep, so I can stay at home another day.

Yes, there are days, many days, where I just want to escape and drown myself in a big glass bottle of wine. But I am a stay-at-home mom and that is work, that is my job and I plan on staying right here as long as I can! The memories that I have been able to witness and experience with Samantha are priceless and all the hard work I do on a daily basis make it everyday with her completely worth it.

...On a side note, according to calculations done by Salary.com I should be making 6 figures! Personally, I consider myself a millionaire everyday!