Parenting is hard.

The photo above is Harper “helping” me with one of my many sewing projects. I have learned to not fight this and to just let her hand me the damn pins. Today, she told me to “be careful with the spiky part.”

Stay-at-home moms have it really hard.

They wake up day in and day out to the same monotonous schedule. Kids up at the crack of dawn. One has a poopy diaper. The other wet the bed. The third is eating cat food off the floor and wearing mommy’s dirty underwear on his head. Morning brings more diaper changes… “MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY can I watch a show? Can I have a cookie? MOMMY what’s this? MOMMY can we go to the zoo? WHAAAAAAAAAA MOMMY!!!”

The stay-at-home mom tries to go to the bathroom by herself, but she always has company. “MOMMY, PUSH HARD, MOMMY! MOMMY, YOU MAKING A POOP? MOMMY! YOU GOTTA WIPE MOMMY!” (Yes, thank you, I get it.) After pottying (and wiping, note), she catches a glimpse in the mirror and realizes she’s had on the same sweats for three days. Her hair is a mess. There’s spit-up on her shoulder. Oh and hey, yeah, that’s a nice big wet spot on her right boob.

She walks into the kitchen to make lunch, and hey, there’s a huge mystery puddle. Apparently potty training isn’t going so well. MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY I wanna banana! I want noodles! I want juice! More juuuuice, MOMMY!

And there’s lunch. She prepares her kids’ meals and pulls out some leftovers from god knows when for herself. Food is going all over the place because, hello, two-year-old. But that’s okay because NAPTIME is drawing near. NAPTIME is her sanity. NAPTIME is heaven.

<<OR HELL, depending on said two-year-old’s mood that day.>>

For a brief moment, she remembers what life was like before kids. Freshly dry-cleaned outfits. Nursery-rhyme-free Pandora playlists. Shoes with more than a 1/2″ heel. Brushed teeth. Shaved legs. The enjoyment of a caffeinated beverage without someone hijacking the straw. Lunch with friends. A full-night’s sleep.

She daydreams about going to work every day. Actually using her hard-earned education. Bringing home a paycheck. Having uninterrupted time to get things done. Feeling a sense of accomplishment. Having goals. Not having an infant latched to her breast.

But you know…

Working moms have it hard, too.

They get up multiple times a night to nurse their babies just like stay-at-home moms do. But they don’t have the luxury of wearing sweats the next day. Oh no. The working mom has to be up at the crack of dawn to take a shower before the baby wakes. She puts on her makeup while holding a screaming baby and fixing lunch for her first grader. Her husband asks if she can iron his shirt, and she reluctantly obliges. By now, it’s 7am, and she has to get one kid to daycare, another to preschool and yet another to his carpool drop-off. There’s a half-hour commute, to work, too.

She makes it to work 20 minutes late to find an upset boss and an exploding inbox. Her phone rings. It’s her youngest’s caretaker. Kid has a fever. Phone rings again. The oldest got hurt on the playground. Shit. She needs to pump her breasts before she gets too engorged. Done. She calls her husband, but he’s in a meeting and isn’t picking up. She grabs the proposal that’s due at 3pm and she’s out the door to pick up the kids. Once everybody’s home, she starts dinner. The kids are screaming. The oldest needs help with homework. The husband’s working late. The food is burning. And the baby needs to be nursed. And what the hell is that smell? Oh, right. The little one’s still in diapers. And the proposal that was due at 3pm? She hasn’t even touched it.

The next day, she does it all over again like always. But after she settles into her desk for a full day’s work, she cries. She’s dying of guilt for dropping her little one off at daycare and missing all the things her stay-at-home friends experience every day. She reads her SAHM friend’s blog and gets jealous seeing all the fun things she does with her kids. She thinks of how nice it would be to not have to go to work every day, and she even resents her husband a little for not making enough money for her to stay at home. But then again, she really loves her job. She wants to have it both ways, but she can’t. She feels like she’s being ripped in two opposite directions.

To make matters worse, she’s constantly berated for being a piece-of-shit mom for going back to work. There are comments at playgroup (which she rarely gets to attend), links posted on her Facebook wall, speeches from her mother-in-law…it’s never-ending. Most of the criticism is subtle, but it’s there. And it tears into her like a dull, rusty knife. “Well you know, maybe if you didn’t work so much…” “So-and-so made her three girls’ Easter dresses - hand-smocked and all! But she stays at home full-time.” “Your milk supply dried up at six months? I breastfed mine until they were two years old!”

My point?

BEING A MOM PARENT IS REALLY, really HARD.

Stay-at-home moms. Stay-at-home dads. Working moms. Working dads. Work-at-home moms. Work-at-home dads. Single moms. Single dads.

We’re growing people here, people…not fricking tomatoes. IT. IS. HARD. So let’s all stop arguing about who has it worse and enjoy these precious moments with our kids. Sure, there are challenging days. But for those, there’s alcohol. And, you know, chocolate. Or Star Trek reruns. Or therapy. Or whatever.

Just because a woman has the physical ability to conceive and give birth to a child does not mean she is cut out to be a stay-at-home mom (or a mom at all) any more than having an ass means she is cut out to be a Victoria’s Secret model. Some women like kids. Some women don’t. Some women are nurturing. Some women are not. Some women are disciplinarians. Some women are not. Some women love working. Some women do not.

We are all different. We all love our kids, but we are not all the same.