Please Never Say This Phrase

"Oh, I'm just a stay at home mom."

Ever. In any circumstance. Even if you're talking to a brain surgeon or a nuclear physicist.

I'd like to climb up on my soapbox today to talk about stay at home moms (or SAHMs, for short). I am a SAHM, and a lot of women I know are SAHMs, but I think that two things often happen: 1) The world does not give us much credit for or value what we do, and 2) We do not give ourselves much credit for or value what we do. I really wish this would change, and here's why:

Motherhood is an incredible, demanding, and difficult job. Granted, I have only experienced 3 1/2 months of motherhood, but already it is all three of these things. I can only imagine the job that a whole brood brings. To be a mother, you must be a "Jack of all trades". Not only does it require a lot of manual labor (cooking, cleaning, chasing, chauffering, etc., etc., etc.) but it also demands a lot of brain power (accounting, budgeting, scheduling, teaching...) And all of this must be done in a state of advanced sleep deprivation, especially if you have young children.

Not only is it hard, but it's not a 9-5 gig either. Moms are never off the clock. How many people - other than moms - can say that they work all day, all evening, and take on some hours in the middle of the night too? Every day of the year. At least with one baby, I can take breaks while she's napping or otherwise entertained, but even then my mind is running with all the things I should be doing instead. Right now, I know that instead of blogging, I should be cleaning the bathroom (a job I started two days ago and haven't finished), picking up the clutter, doing two loads of laundry, planning next week's dinners, reading my scriptures, and making the bed. Or at least getting dressed. I know moms who honestly feel like they never have even a minute to themselves. Even in the bathroom, kids are knocking on the door and asking questions. Does your boss do that?

I went to Brigham Young University and graduated with a degree in Home and Family Living. Basically it was a degree in being a SAHM, in the past it probably would have been called Home Economics. I always felt the need to defend my major to others. When I was asked the question, "What's your major?" and answered "Home and Family Living," I would get the look. Anyone who's majored in something similar has gotten this look many times. The Look conveys this message, or at least some part of it: "Wow, what a lame and pointless major. Why are you even going to college and paying good money for that? You must not be smart enough to major in a real subject."

First, it was certainly not lame or easy. Laugh if you will, but I'm willing to bet that my sewing class was harder than a lot of "real" classes other people took. I had a finance class where I learned about budgeting, banking, investing, home ownership and the like. I know how to calculate my taxes without forms and can figure out how much my mortgage payment would be without a fancy online mortgage calculator. I've learned about everything from home management and child development to public policy on the family, and there's still so much more to know. Moms have to know how to do a lot of things in order to run a successful household.

Second, it wasn't pointless at all. I could have majored in Biology or Engineering, but instead I chose to major in the field that I planned to work in. Isn't that what everyone in college at least tries to do? It also wasn't pointless for me to attend college in the first place. It's true that a college degree isn't required to have children, but it sure helps. Even if you aren't able to get that piece of paper, you can still learn and be well-educated. This leads me to one of my most cherished opinions: A well educated woman (whether degreed or otherwise) makes the best stay at home mother. And the best place for a well educated woman is in the home - usually.

This is a good place for me to say that I know that staying at home is not for every woman. My mom and dad both worked full time. My mother has told me that she would have gone crazy if she stayed home, and I respect that. She was still an amazing mother. And my dad did a lot of housework, bless his heart. Our family worked and my brother and I are not scarred for life because my mom wasn't June Cleaver. I actually have A LOT of respect for mothers who work a paying job, because they have to juggle home life and employment and try to make both work. Sometimes they work out of financial necessity (sometimes real and sometimes imagined) and other times because, like my mom, they would go insane at home all day. Or both.

What I'm talking about here is an ideal. Ideally, the best person to stay with the kids all day is their mother, and I don't think there are many people who would disagree with that.

And there's more. Besides the mental and physical work of running a household, there's also the job of teaching and protecting our children, which is no small task. Mothers have the immense task of trying to make sure their children learn right and wrong from their family, rather than the world. They have the job of teaching their children to be good brothers and sisters, good friends, good citizens and all around good people. They have to fight the battle of making the home a refuge from the storm of the world and the buffetings of Satan. A veritable wall must be built around the home, because there is a lot out there to protect against - hate, pornography, immodesty, greed, selfishness, vulgarity, meanness - just to name a few. A mom is charged with keeping her home free of all these things, trying to keep them from herself, her home, and her children, and make her home "a heaven on earth."

Now if that's not a full time job, I don't know what is.

Of course, we can't leave the dads out of this. They have a responsibilty to all these things too. "By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children." My brother in law Josh also has some good thoughts on the responsibilties of men to be "fighters" for the good on his blog.

If you are someone other than a stay at home mom - husband to a SAHM, working mother, single, married-without-children - please give us credit. No, we don't earn a paycheck. Yes, I'm still in my pajamas at noon some days. But this job, this work of being a wife and mother, is the most difficult, rewarding, and worthwhile job I have ever had or could ever have.

And if you are a stay at home mom, please give yourself credit too. You are doing a great and powerful work, one that requires physical strength, a keen mind, and deep moral courage. You are a hero, not only to your children, who, I promise, will thank you one day, but also to the world, even if they don't realize it. You are shaping and molding children who will become the finest generation the world has ever known, even when you're stooping to pick up Cheerios off the kitchen floor. Again.

So the next time you strike up a conversation with a nuclear physicist, you can say with pride, "Oh, that's nice and all. But I'm a stay at home mom."