Maybe you’d enjoy starting your own business at some point? Then you get all the goals, growth, etc. without getting up early or working with annoying people.

I have also let go of the image of the “suburban mom”. Really, there are tons of women in that role, but they are not all the same. I no longer worry about becoming one of “them”. There are really cool women raising kids in the suburbs. There are some really obnoxious ones. And boring ones. And mean ones. And amazing ones. Just like you didn’t let your job define who you are – don’t let “stay-at-home-mom” define you either.

This is just what I came up with. I’m not saying everyone has that filter, and I’m not trying to speak for everyone.

I’d suggest making room (or demanding it, as the case may or may not be) for what makes you happy, what interests you.

What doesn’t feel like work to you?

For me, there’s a difference between hobbies and passions. That doesn’t mean that having the time and lack of a Small hanging off my bodily parts to knit doesn’t make me feel less bulldozed by the Mommy Thing. It does, and I recommend making sure to remember and incorporate whatever hobbies you enjoy.

But passions are different, and beyond that. I think those are what make us feel really fulfilled, as much as that is an attainable goal. So, an example of that for me would be literature. I freaking adored being an English Major. Literature classes get me buzzing. To discuss and argue and think about works of literature is bliss to me. Since getting my BA in May, I haven’t been in a Lit class. I miss it terribly, and I’ve been struggling a bit to get a a grip on what feels like an intellectual, creative, and even emotional hole in my day to day. I could take another class to help fill that. I could join a book club (provided I could find one where the reading selections didn’t make me turn a snobby nose up and the women might actually like me). I could get an MA and then a PhD like I once planned and teach it myself, for a living…which would be a job I’d have a hard time believing I get paid for…the kind of job maybe those commentors had in mind?

I don’t know what I’ll do. I kind of have to work to soon. If I didn’t have to, I’d probably devote myself to the novel writing I do in spurts.

Bottom line? There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to “work” or “get a job” beyond the fulltime Mom Thing you already do if you don’t need to. I think sometimes those old but still present Mommy Wars make women feel like they have to justify the desire..and the need!…to get away from their beloved children and have something just for them by couching it in terms of a job. We shouldn’t feel that. No one has any call to judge you for it one way or the other.

And I simply adore KT’s fomenting revolution. When I wrote my critical manifesto last spring my amazing, strong, feminist professor asked us what our training as English Majors had prepared us to do…and one of the things she suggested was starting a revolution! I’m all for it.