I Hate Being a Stay at Home Mom

I hate being a stay-at-home-mom and I want to go back to work.

Not because I don’t love my one year old, but because I want to escape him. For the last six months I’ve worked part time in order to spend more time with my little tyrant but can’t manage to escape the yearning for release… To be free… Chained to a desk again. For eight hours a day, rather than intercepting near death experiences the little jerk attempts as he climbs vertical surfaces like Spiderman. Rather than obsess over the nutritional content on his high chair tray. Rather than watch the effing Wiggles for one more minute.

I can’t stand it. I hate being a stay at home mom.

Maybe that’s why I’m facing the possibility of single motherhood so bravely. Because I am unafraid of the office and the autonomy that it will provide me to the point where I can say screw you to my jerk of a husband and start calling my own shots again. When I’ll have the financial wherewithal to say “see you later, Big Boy” and mean it should he become too unruly for my tastes. Because I’m tired of hearing the mind-numbing sounds of sports announcers into the wee small hours of the morning. And I’m tired of finding roast beef and swiss cheese aromatically wafting in my refrigerator. And I’m tired of feeling the involuntary hurl every time he walks in the door only to be greeted by a pile of baby toys and my hair slicked to my forehead.

I’ve turned into a complete bitch over the course of two years and I know how it happened.

At least I suspect…

I took the radical part of me and let it be overrun with socially contrived ideas of love and sacrifice. I wanted to be my Italian grandmother who stayed at home to raise her children. I thought sacrificing my dreams would mean greater dividends in the end in terms of my relationships. However, I don’t need to sacrifice myself for the men in my life. My grandmother didn’t.

My grandmother made her dreams flexible enough to allow her passions back in. Her love for her children and her spouse was a constant while she continued to express herself in the ways her soul demanded.

My son will be just fine as I go back to work. He’s a social guy. Despite my feelings of squelch-dom by the institution of motherhood we’re well-bonded. We find each other amusing.

As for my husband, I don’t hate him all of time. We actually get on well together when there are no children involved. Hmm… Maybe that’s how we got into our current trouble in the first place. And surely, should we split someday, I’m sure he could do exactly the same thing his peers are doing post-divorce… Find a willing twenty year old to unlearn all of my vile idiosyncrasies with. How I like to eat Grape Nuts for breakfast daily, no matter what. How I prefer silence and a good Candace Bushnell to most human beings. How I am a control freak who manifests greatness in her writing but little of her actual living.

I’m no domestic goddess. I’m no perfect partner. Dammit.