“Quarantine Mom” is not the same as “Stay at Home Mom”

I know it’s been a while since I’ve seen this little space of mine, but these last few weeks trapped in my house with my thoughts have really had me thinking, and I needed to get this message out there.

Since most states are on lock down, a lot of us have suddenly become stay at home parents. Out of a lot of my closest friends, I was the only one who chose to stay at home. Some chose to go back to work for their own sanity, while others needed the dual-income to make their financial responsibilities of adding another human to their household work. For us, it was something we discussed the moment we thought about having children. I didn’t necessarily want to be a stay at home mom, but I grew up with a Mom that needed to work to make the financial responsibilities of our family work. I know it was tough for her when she missed school plays, or couldn’t come for a random school lunch date. Now, I have much more appreciation for the sacrifices she made for our family’s well being than I did when I was young. For those reasons, I knew that when I had children I would want to be home as much as I could throughout their younger years. My husband shared my views as he also grew up with a working Mother. We knew going down to a single income family would be hard, but we were dedicated to making it work for the future of our children.

Now before you think, why the heck is she on this soap box, I promise I have a point. Hang tight. I’ll get to it.

While I knew this is what I wanted for my children, I didn’t really know what I was stepping into with this role. The first few years were crazy, and somewhere in there, we were dumb crazy enough to add another kid to the mix which really made things interesting. Now that I have about 6 years under my belt, we have slowly fallen into a routine. Some days still have their challenges and well that’s because parenting is hard no matter how you slice it.

And then, THE WORLD STOPPED.

It happened with no warning, to all of us. We all went to sleep one night and the next morning the majority of us woke up to learn we were now stay at home parents. Quite a few of my working mom friends have reached out during this time and have said, “I don’t know how you do this every day.” “This has shown me I can’t be a stay at home Mom.” “I couldn’t handle doing this all the time.”

Let me stop you right there.

I. NEED. YOU. TO. KNOW. THIS.

Quarantine Mom is not the same as Stay at Home Mom. This is not what we do or deal with all day. Stay at home Mom’s have routines. We have an immense amount of help. We have school and teachers who love and teach our kids when they are away from us. We have extracurriculars with coaches who inspire our kids to perfect their art. We have play dates, we have friends, we have random outings to Target because Mom needs a Starbucks and a Cake Pop for the Gremlin just to get 5 minutes of sanity into our day.

We have car rides to induce nap time, we have library trips, and Chick-Fil-A Play Places. We have things to DO, places to GO, people to SEE. These are our sanity keepers. They are critical to our “stay at home” title. We don’t do THIS all day. This is new territory for us too. I assure you we are struggling just as hard as you. I need you to know that our patience is thin too. That we are losing our minds. That we too are totally out of our element.

We don’t deserve the title of “saints” because you think this is our daily life, this is so far from what our daily life looks like.

So, in case you were feeling a little less than today, lift that chin up!

We are ALL Quarantine Moms right now! We are all equally questioning how the heck we thought we could even be Moms. We’re all washing down our Mom Guilt with double-fudge ice cream, maybe even a little a lot some wine. We’re all yelling, we’re all tired, we’re all riding the brink of insanity. We are ALL in this #stayathome hell TOGETHER.

And for every perfect Instagram story you see me post, just know I’ve lost my shit at least twice in between each post. #truestory

Hang in there, Mama. This too shall pass.