What Do You Do All Day?

Ever get that question? If you’re a stay-at-home mom (or “just” a housewife with no kids), you’ve either heard that exact question or some variant of it. Something like “Don’t you get bored?” or “Guess you get to watch Oprah every day?”

We all know what they’re really saying. “What a waste, sitting around the house all day doing nothing.” At least, that feels like what they’re saying!

Well, let me tell you what I do all day. It’s not the same for every family, and we homeschool, so our day may not be typical. I do know that SAHM’s who don’t homeschool have a bit more downtime than I do. But not as much as “working” folks seem to think. They keep busy, too, bringing comfort and quality to their homes in their own ways.

• 5 a.m. Get up. Yes. I said 5. Bet you thought a SAHM gets to sleep, didn’t you? Nope. I need to shower, take my meds, read my Bible, pray, and do my internet stuff before the kids get up. I could probably get up an hour earlier and still not have enough time, but this is the best I can do.
• 7 a.m. Kids are up! Bring on the day. Get everybody dressed, fed, and ready to face whatever the day throws at us. Check Twitter while eating breakfast. (You did want every little detail, right?)
• 8 a.m. Clean the bedrooms, make beds, start a load of laundry (Monday-Thursday, 2 loads/day). Remind the 2 year old to go to the bathroom.
• 9 a.m.-10:30 a.m. School work with the oldest. (Our subjects are the three r’s, history, geography, Bible, science, and character.) While we do that, the other two play–if I’m lucky. If not, I teach the 5 year-old his lessons with a toddler on my lap and a two-year old climbing on my back. I admit, this is most days. It’s not pretty, but we do OK. Get a load of laundry out and start another somewhere in between there.
• 10:30 a.m. Snack break! While the kids snack, I make whatever phone calls need to be made, straighten up the mess the little ones made, and answer emails. Remind the 2 year old to go to the bathroom.
• 11 a.m. Baby is usually down for a nap. Do some preschool stuff with the 2 year old, then finish up the morning’s lessons with the oldest. If I need to do some baking, now’s the time to start it.
• 12 p.m. Lunch! I cook it, feed it to them, and clean it up. The boys help as much as they can. Check Twitter and Facebook on my iPod. (I’m an addict. I’m sorry. I’ll try to do better. OK?) Remind the 2 year old to go to the bathroom.
• 1 p.m. Finish up with the day’s school work. This can take anywhere from a few minutes to an hour. Never very long. Drag out the art supplies if there is enough time. This doesn’t happen often enough.
• 1:30 p.m. Free time for the kiddos! Finish folding the laundry, put it away, clean up the school/dining room.
• 2:30 p.m. Remind the 2 year old to go to the bathroom. Straighten up the living area, put the two littles down for a nap, and do my “work” stuff. Check email, write, enter giveaways.Winning giveaways provides almost as much a part-time income would, so I treat it like a job. Don’t laugh. I haven’t paid for my own groceries this month. Or last. And the computer I’m writing on was free. So was my husband’s! I used to post my winnings on this blog, but some people started getting bitter and hatin’ on me for being so “lucky”. I’m not lucky. I am persistent. And blessed.
• 4:30 p.m. Jesse will be home soon. Put on some makeup so he doesn’t see my pasty self and wonder why he married this hideous person. Start dinner prep and make sure the house is in order. It never is, but I keep trying! Baby’s up from nap and cranky. Remind the 2 year old to go to the bathroom.
• Anytime I can fit it in: Keep up with the money, go shopping, take kids on field trips, doctor/dentist/midwife visits, call friends for a chat (I need that sooo much! Anybody wanna be friends? I’m already short one, and my sister’s moving away, so I’m gonna need at least 2 more of you!), mend things, make menus, clip coupons, make grocery lists, personal care for the kids, fix ouchies, watch babies reach milestones, teach the kids manners and life lessons, read the news and books–the long kind with big words, laugh and play as much as I can!

There’s a lot of flexibility built into our day, of course, but this is the schedule I try to stick to when I can. On days we need to go out, it’s not nearly as easy, so I try to keep that to only one weekday a week. I save as much outside-the-house stuff for the weekend as I can. I’m too busy to leave!

You’ll notice there are no television shows in there. We don’t even have t.v. in the usual sense. We download shows we really want to watch, but there’s no cable or even broadcast. I can’t imagine having time in the middle of the day to sit down and turn my brain off. Maybe when I’m old.

Now, I know none of that sounds very exciting, and I do struggle with boredom when I’m doing things like laundry and dishes (though vacuuming just got a whole lot more fun). I hate housework! Sometimes I wish I had a job so we weren’t home all day to make quite as many messes.

My point isn’t that I’m the most interesting person in the whole world, but that I’m not exactly sitting around drinking sweet tea, swinging in my hammock, and listening to Jimmy Buffet all day while my poor dear husband works his tail off to support me and his miserable spawn. OK. I do drink sweet tea all day, but the rest isn’t true. I don’t sit down much. It may not be the life our culture glorifies as ideal, but I’m very productive, and make/save as much at home as I could if I had a “real” job. Even more importantly, my family is happy just because I’m there. I can’t think of anything more fulfilling than that!

So, how about you other SAHM’s? What do you do all day? How about you working moms? I know you’ve got some serious busy-ness going on. I want to know about it! Leave me a comment or two! Does it drive you crazy when people whose lives aren’t like yours make snide comments? Or do you feel guilty for not making more money (or not being with your kids more, if you work)?