I know because I tried it.

I love my job. LOVE my job. And I get easily caught up in travel and over committment. I can’t just do it half heartedly, and it is all too easy to forget those precious faces at home when my adrenaline gets pumping and my heart starts racing about some new book to write, some new client to train, some new class to teach or mountain to climb.

I had to wrestle myself down after the birth of our son and committ to a lesser agenda of writing at home… and get more creative. We’ve recently begun webcast training which I can do from my home office, which is WONDERFUL. But I had to keep looking, keep fighting and keeping searching for ways to keep my butt HERE in THIS chair instead of on the road or at client’s offices.

I read somewhere, I think it was The Female Brain, that the hormone that makes us able to put up with the noise and clutter of a home full of small children comes from hugs and skin to skin contact. The more you are away from that contact, the harder it gets to come home and take the tears with the smiles and the cute with the sticky. I must be someone who needs a steady rush of that hormone, because I know that I cannot be away all day every day and still feel connected to my family.

I do have childcare (though someday I will tell you the story about how i got through three days of webcasts using a portacrib and creative naptimes), but it is right down the street and my hours are flexible.

I don’t think that everyone who works full time out of the house and travels is a bad mom. I just know that I AM when I work that way.

Most importantly, my son is doing great. He is well cared for, extremely verbal, empathetic and can cope with a wide variety of people and situations. He is friendly and happy. My management skills which I have honed over my career help me to be a very good mother and run my household very well.

Thirteen years from now, these SAHM may need to have a difficult discussion with their children on why they can’t attend the college of their dreams or letting their children know how much debt they will graduate college with. My choice to work now will save me from that conversation, and give my son the absolute best start to his adult life that I can give.

My husband and I really struggled with the decision. We both saw the tremendous value of staying at home to raise children, but we also knew there was value in both parents providing for the family.

Since then I have found some working mommy friends who are able to balance mothering and careers (though not always gracefully; sometimes we arrive at meetings wearing white stuff on our shoulders) and have really leaned on them. And it has helped me deal with the judgement.

One working mommy is an HR professional and she sees mothers returning to the workplace after a 3-5 year absence that have out-of-date skills and have difficulty finding jobs. I remind myself that I am doing what is best for my family over the long term. And right now that means my career allows us the extra dollars to stick in our child’s college fund. It also means I am contributing to my 401k. It means that I am keeping my skills fresh and working towards advancing in my field. It’s showing my child that his mother is a confidant woman capable of managing both the home (with help from her husband) and a career.

And when my SAH friends make the occasional comment like, “I don’t know how you manage (which is usually said in a tone that suggests that don’t think I am managing it all that well)” I quickly answer, “Honey, I don’t know how you do it! Cause I get 8 hours a day, 5 days a week where I have the freedom to use the bathroom without a toddler clinging to my leg or pulling toliet paper from the roll.” That comment alone usually stops the other “well meaning” comments.

The coolest thing of all is that my girls are seeing that a man can cook, change diapers, and be there for them always. And that it’s okay to challenge traditional roles as long as it works for your whole family!

As a woman, neither my home life nor work defines me. It is a combination of both that brings me substance. It always has been! Pre-babies, I was a workaholic. but I’ve learned to acknowledge that my husband and kids come first, so I have slowed down at working. Yet I continue to strive to keep my career that I have worked so hard for.

With my ever excellent organizational skills, I somehow manage to master my househould. But I came to this point of my life, where I felt like I am rushing all the time — rushing to finish my paperworks so I can go home and take care of the kids so the hubby can have a shut-eye before his shift… rushing to put the kids to bed so I can clean the mess they’ve made so I can sleep and be ready for work the next day…

Sooo, I began to question myself. Am I being selfish by not wanting to just stay at home like other moms? Am I being stubborn by fitting my career to my busy family life? Is there such a thing as being able to juggle both? How do you achieve balance? How do you have the best of both worlds?

My husband and I were doing a great job juggling our careers and caring for our kids. That was until my husband’s work required him to travel last year. Since we didn’t send our kids to daycare or have a babysitter (I work long hours on my husband’s days off), I gave my two weeks notice. I have always been the primary caregiver to my kids, even when I was working 40-60 hours a week, and there wasn’t a single fiber in my being that compelled me to question myself if I was a good mom, I know I was a good mom!!!

Then I quit my job and was with them 24/7, this was the most domesticated I’ve ever been. The quality of our home life had changed from rushed and okay to a balanced routine. My kids were happier. My husband was happier. I was happier. Then my desire to rejoin the work force became nonesixtent.

I still see my co-workers, we have coffee and lunches every now and then. Their stories bring back memories of the nursing profession I so dearly hold close in my heart. But none entice me to give up what I do now. I sometimes miss our office hustle. I always think I could be doing a great job if I am there. But I never regret a day spent with my kids.

Never have I looked down on moms that opted to be stay-at-home, but I have always thought they were missing out on the rewards of what a career brings to a woman. Until I experienced it, then I realized it, motherhood is a career, a devotion on its own. And if a mommy could afford to stay at home with the kids, then by all means, she should savor it.

If a mother works, by choice or necessity, she is not a bad mother. Having been there and done that, I have high regards to those who are able to keep up with the tiring demands of working while being a mom.

It all bottoms down to what works for the family… working then worked for us, staying at home works for us now. We, and when I say we, we — women and moms should stop the comparison — of career woman and stay at home moms, it pales to what is really important, our kids!

As for me, my kids are only young for a while, I can give up my j-o-b for now, after all, I am confident that my career will still be there… long after my kids are grown, and I’m on my own again.

– angel, mommy of 2 toddlers, and i call it not “uncivilized” but “energetic and eager to explore the world”

Over the past 19 years, I’ve been a SAHM, a part time working mom and (for the past 8 years) a work at home mom. It seems no matter what I’ve been doing, there are always those who say “I couldn’t do that” as well as those who say “Good for you, I’m glad you’re doing what works for your family.”

I think the bottom line is we all, as mother’s, need to focus on what works for our family and not let someone else’s comments turn us into women who second guess our decisions or be placed in a position of defending them.