Remember when you were a kid and rolled your eyes every time your mom asked you to help fold laundry? I spent years thinking my mother had the easiest job in the world. She was home all day while Dad went to work. How hard could it be?
Now here I am, two kids deep into my own parenting journey, and I finally understand what she never said out loud: being a stay-at-home parent is like running a marathon that never ends, with no water stations, no cheering crowd, and definitely no medal at the finish line.
My mother made everything from scratch, kept our house running like clockwork, and somehow managed to raise three kids without completely losing her mind (though looking back, her anxiety makes a lot more sense now).
As the middle child, I watched her navigate between my older brother’s teenage rebellion and my younger sister’s endless energy, all while my father worked long hours and stayed emotionally distant when he was home.
It wasn’t until I became a mother myself that the invisible weight of her daily life became visible to me. Here are the things I never appreciated until I walked in her worn-out slippers.
1) The mental load never stops spinning
You know that browser with 47 tabs open that’s slowing down your computer? That’s a stay-at-home parent’s brain every second of every day.
When my 5-year-old is sorting her leaf collection and my 2-year-old is building his daily couch cushion fort, I’m simultaneously planning dinner, remembering we’re out of milk, calculating nap schedules, and wondering if those spots on the baby’s arm are bug bites or something worse.
My mother held all of this in her head without smartphones or shared calendars. She knew which kid hated crusts, who had a field trip next week, and exactly how many minutes before overtired meltdowns would begin. And she never got to clock out and leave that mental load at the office.
2) Sick days don’t exist
Last month I had the flu. Real, knock-you-flat, everything-hurts flu. Guess what? My toddler still needed breakfast. My daughter still needed help finding her favorite dress. The laundry still piled up, and dinner still had to happen.
I remember my mom making us soup when she could barely stand, reading bedtime stories with a scratchy voice, and never once calling in sick to motherhood. There’s no substitute teacher for parents. You show up because you have to, tissues stuffed in your pocket and all.
3) Every meal feels like a restaurant with the world’s pickiest critics
My mother made everything from scratch. Bread, pasta sauce, even yogurt. Three times a day, she’d present meals to us kids who’d take one look and declare we weren’t hungry or didn’t like “that green stuff.”
Now when my daughter announces she suddenly hates the pasta she loved yesterday, or my son throws his carefully prepared snack on the floor, I think about all those rejected meals my mother made.
The hours of planning, shopping, preparing, only to watch us eat two bites and ask for crackers instead.
4) The loneliness can be crushing
What nobody tells you about being home with kids is how lonely it gets. You’re never alone but always lonely. You can go days where your longest adult conversation is with the grocery store clerk.
I think about my mother now, how she must have craved real conversation while we prattled on about playground drama. My dad would come home exhausted, not much of a talker on his best days. She poured everything into us kids, but who was pouring into her?
5) Your identity becomes invisible
At school events, my mother was “Kevin’s mom” or “Sarah’s mom.” Never just herself. Her dreams, interests, and accomplishments got filed away behind our soccer schedules and homework help.
Now I catch myself forgetting who I was before “Mama” became my primary name. When someone asks what I do for fun, I blank. Fun? You mean like finding matching socks or successfully sneaking vegetables into smoothies?
6) The judgment comes from everywhere
Screen time, sugar intake, discipline methods, sleep schedules. Everyone has an opinion about how you’re raising your kids, and somehow you’re always doing it wrong according to someone.
My mother faced this without social media, but also without the support groups we have today. Church ladies tutted about her anxious nature. Relatives commented on our behavior. She absorbed it all and kept going, doubt probably eating at her the same way it eats at me now.
7) Housework is a hamster wheel of futility
Have you ever cleaned a room only to turn around and find it destroyed five minutes later? That’s every day when you’re home with kids. My mother kept our house presentable despite three kids determined to create chaos.
Now I understand why she sometimes just sat in her chair, staring at nothing. She wasn’t lazy or checked out. She was exhausted from doing the same tasks over and over, knowing they’d be undone before lunch.
8) You become the keeper of everyone’s emotions
When someone’s sad, mad, frustrated, or scared, guess who they run to? Mom. You absorb everyone’s big feelings while trying to manage your own.
My mother regulated three kids’ emotions plus her own anxiety, with zero training in child psychology. She was our safe space to fall apart, but where was hers?
9) Nobody sees the actual work
The midnight wake-ups, the constant negotiating, the educational activities disguised as play, the emotional labor of raising decent humans. It’s all invisible work that doesn’t show up on any performance review.
My dad would come home and see a messy house, cranky kids, and an exhausted wife. He didn’t see the meltdowns navigated, the conflicts resolved, the meals made and rejected, the stories read, the fears soothed. Neither did we kids.
The bottom line
These days, when both my kids are crying and dinner is burning and I haven’t showered in three days, I think about calling my mother to apologize. For every eye roll, every complaint about being bored, every time I didn’t appreciate the meal she made or the sacrifice she chose.
Being a stay-at-home parent means being everything to everyone while slowly disappearing yourself.
It means no promotions, no raises, no employee of the month awards. Just the hope that maybe, decades from now, your kids will understand what you gave up and what you gave them.
So to my mother, and all the stay-at-home parents who make it look easier than it is: I see you now. I see it all. And that job you did that nobody thanked you for? You did a good job today. Yesterday too. And all the days before that.
