I despised the term "Stay at Home Mom"... I was a Careerist... and Entrepreneur.... I can do it all...and I was going to show them i could do it all....until I couldn't any longer. It worked just fine until I couldn't stop coming home crying, and then my hair started to fall out, and my kids called my by the nanny's name...and I missed all the t-ball games, the teacher conferences etc. Balance? No Way! No Such thing. I was making a six figured salary (in my Multi-Million Dollar business) but it wasn't worth it...so I gave it all up, recently. How's that for balance? But I think the real question here isn't about balance, but what is most important? Priorities. Was it really worth me crying every day? no. Was it worth missing the TIME that I could be spending with the little people I loved? no. So for me, when it came down to what I really wanted, it wasn't money, it was time. (And if you look at it like this...you couldn't pay any one any amount of money to get back the last 30 seconds you just wasted reading my comment. Not $10, not $10,000, not $1Mil) Time is the most valuable currency. So I am in the process of redesigning my life (and career) so that I can get the most of what I want, and not what I think others want me to have. We'll see how it goes!! Makenzie www.adventurousmom.com

Every single day of my life is a battle between working and wanting to stay at home. When my daughter (now 2) was born I only stayed home for four weeks after her birth. I needed out of the house! I needed to do something more with my day than cry because breastfeeding was so painful. I am a better mom because I work. Now, however, my job demands a lot of my time and energy. There have been many 80 hour work weeks! When I am not working it takes everything I have to make sure there is food and clean clothes for my family. You can forget the rest of the house hold chores and organization! I would be a great mom if I had a personal assistant! Or, at least the energy that other mom's seem to have! If I could turn the stress of "oh my gosh there is so much to do, it's never going to get done" into actually "doing the stuff" I may not be so stressed. It's so hard to turn stress into action when you are drowning in your to do lists! I wish so much that finances would allow me to work from home or at least part time. Heck, I would settle for working 40 hours a week! At least then the house may a bit cleaner and we may not be living off of pasta. The laundry may even get folded now and then!

I work full time outside of the home in a typical 9-5 job. I really like my job and am currently on maternity leave (expecting my second any day now). I don't think I would be a great stay at home mom. I need the intellectual stimulation as one person on the episode said that my job gives me... and I cannot play "ball" with my 2.5 year old all day long. In a way, it's harder to do that than to meet deadlines and create reports at work for me... I think working outside the home's greatest challenge is that you are less flexible in your time... and you have to schedule time off and such when daycare/preschool is closed or when your kid gets sick... and if you are an exempt employee, you have to still make sure that your work gets done. I imagine, but could be totally wrong, that if you work from home, you are somewhat more flexible in your schedule and also you get to make your own schedule, which is great.

This momversation was very vague. I need to know that there are other women out there that want to bang their heads into the wall. They just need 2 more minutes to get something done and it never fails, there is a major meltdown. The house feels like it's never clean (it is) and I never have time for myself. How do you de-stress when things pile up?

Hi there. I have checked out these videos every-now-and then and appreciate the voice that is given to all the topics. I always try to keep in mind that these are really just blurbs of your opinions and have never felt personally attacked or a need to criticize. I still feel that way, even as I take a moment to say something to Maggie. One of your comments was about how you don't think you could be a SAHM because you could never just sit down and play with trucks for five hours a day. You went on to say that you need more intellectual stimulation than that. I get that. I am a SAHM, full-time. We are not wealthy. We're the typical lower middle-class, pinching pennies and struggling to learn how to save money kind of folks. I just wanted to let you know that I can't sit and play with my kids for five hours either. I have never known a woman who stays home with her children as they get older to do that. Are you kidding me, I'd rather count cells for five hours! Playing with kids for longer than one consecutive hour (and that is pushing it) is boring. I too need more intellectual stimulation than what conversing and playing with my children can offer. I have found it imperative to not put all my energy into playing with kids and cleaning the house. It's important to grow in more than one direction. Fortunately, a working environment is not the only place one can make this growth and intellectual pump grow. I read a lot, I'm a writer, I stay relatively informed and educated on social politics and I'm slowly working on a degree. I had to create situations to learn in and I have to be very proactive about my social life - 'cuz yes, without the mandatory face to face time with other adults that working outside the home provides, it is very easy to hole up in the house. I wanted to tell you this because its a false and negative stereotype that many women have of SAHM's - that we don't need or create intellectual stimulation in our lives and that we spend long hours entertaining our children. Or, in the way that you put it, that you wouldn't be able to find these things if you were a SAHM. You would still expand your intellect as a SAHM, because that is your internal drive. So what do my kids do since mommy doesn't sit and play with them all day? They play together, they are creative, they do art, make up games, run around like chickens with their heads cut off, and look at books (ages 4 and 2, so not reading yet), they are self directive about 65% of the time. They are also in preschool during the regular school year, so that I can tend to my own goals and quite time needs. I do want to work when they are older, but for what its worth, I have found a lot of value, personal motivation, inspiration, and direction in these years I have stayed home with my kids. It's not for everyone. I know that. I'm not advocating for it to be the norm. However, for me, I would not change what I am doing right now. Knowing what I know, gaining what I have gained, I would not choose differently if I were to go back in time to when my first was born. I'm not suggesting that you or anyone else is missing out, I can assure you I don't think this is the case. It's easier to do this when you chose to do it. I had a moderate say in the matter, as I may not have made this choice if I were physically capable of working. I have a chronic pain disorder that put me in the position to be a SAHM. We all do what we need and/or choose to do. I guess what I am suggesting is that since you have not been a SAHM for a good length of time - without working inside or outside the house - it would be kind to not assume what it is that a SAHM does with her time or what she desires for her intellectual world. KWIM? I understand that you didn't mean any harm, and really - no harm done here, :) - I just wanted to offer a different (my) perspective.

Maggie, you don't really believe that stay at home moms sit on the floor and "play trucks" all day, do you?

Lisa Belking, yay!!! Can you try to get Michelle Slatalla, too?

Well, Maggie has lost this reader! I would like to think that she was not intentionally so absolutely ignorant of what a stay at home mother does and hateful towards a large group of women. I know that we have all met mother's who stay in their jammies all day, or the ones who truly don't do anything but play all day. But, keep in mind that there is a very large number of us who are incredibly intelligent and take a great deal of pride in the job that we do. Did anyone else find her comments extremely offensive? I do not play trucks for 5 hours a day. I do not lack intellectual stimulation and I can assure you, Maggie, that I am of no less intelligence than a working mother. I am well educated and find a great deal of intellectual stimulation in the course of my day. Of course, I do have to go looking for it just a bit more than I would if I were still working in the fascinating field I once had a career in. I have 4 children and were I to ever have the time in the day to play for 5 hours, well that means one of the children has gone missing and everyone is hungry, and I probably haven't bathed that day. Maggie's comments were the same as my assumption that all working mother's are profoundly selfish. I have always felt that way and never understood a mother who works. But, if I said that I would be crucified by women like Maggie. And yet she found it absolutely fine to indicated that all I do all day is play? Wow. Sure, it won't accomplish diddly but I certainly will never visit her site again.

I am a working mom. (That's actually the first time I've ever said that and it feels weird. Yikes.) I love being a young mama. I don't love my work all the time. But I do LIKE being a working mom. (Is this sounding weird?) I thrive on adult interaction but I love nothing more than spending time with my little babe, too. Being a high school teacher gives me the best of both worlds. I teach resource science which gets stressful a lot of the time but I can give it my best and still have energy leftover for my little family when I get home. Some weeks are worse than others but I think all parents are ridin that train together. Balance isn't something that I actively try to achieve. I actually think when I try the hardest to get there, I land somewhere else entirely so I do my best to let structured balance go and let us find our own way.