The Life of a Working Soccer Mom

Recently a new show premiered on TLC (The Learning Channel). The show is called The Secret Life of a Soccer Mom. I understand the idea...a stay at home mom is given the opportunity to spend a week perform the duties of a what they were trained to once do. Some moms have spent the week as a chef or police officer. After the week the moms are then given the opportunity to go back into the work force or continue to be a stay at home parent. One thing about the show that puzzles me is that they tell their husband and children that they are spending a week at a spa, they don't tell them they are training/working at doing what they once loved. Why lie to your family? What family wouldn't want someone so special in their life to take part in such a wonderful opportunity?

Another thing that has surprised me about the show is the negative response to it since the premier. Stay at home moms are very angry that some moms on the show are choosing to enter the work force again. They also have very strong feelings toward working moms. One woman on the message board went as far to say "If you want a full time career invest in birth control". Now they are not all like that on the message board, but I will just say that the board has been quite busy with activity and opinions of both stay home and working mothers.

Normally I would think twice about what all of these ladies are expressing. I can let remarks such as these roll off me without a second glance and go on with my life. Lately though some of the comments have stayed in the back of my mind. I've been having "mommy guilt". Things at work lately have been extremely busy with back to back meetings each day, new projects being thrown at me, and my regular daily work. I get home between 5-6pm each night and by the time I make dinner and clean up, it's around 7:30-8pm. That gives me only an hour or little more with the little man.

I think the mommy guilt hits me at night when I am tired, still preoccupied with work, and I feel that my little man is not getting the best of me. I'm not giving him 100% for the little over an hour I get to spend with him. Last night the guilt hit especially hard when after I put him to bed I heard him crying "mama, mama, mama" over and over again. It ripped my heart out, but I was strong and soon he was quiet and had fallen asleep for the night.

I have extremely grateful that my husband is a stay at home dad and can be with the little man during the day. It certainly makes leaving for work a little easier each morning and I can call home at any time and talk to him. My husband says he asks for me during the day and he say "mama home soon" and watch for me out the window. I see the time my husband spends with the little man throughout the day and how he thrives and learns so many new things and I know we are doing the right thing. I just wish other mothers wouldn't judge me for choosing a professional career and doing what is right for our family.