The Same Mom, On the Job or Off

1. Character traits don't disappear when you stop working. For example, if you are a nervous working mother, you'll be a nervous stay-at-home mother. I'm not. But I'm also not a patient mother. And I didn't become one after being home for three months.

I should work on that, for sure; but I can no longer blame my lack of patience on my working life. Goodbye convenient excuse. But at the same time, farewell sepia-tinted image of a stay-at-home me helping with math homework without losing it.

2. Along the same lines, the things that bug you when you work, bug you when you're home. Don't particularly like that your 11-year-old has begun rolling his eyes when you try to explain something? Think it's somehow less annoying because you're around more? Think again.

I also didn't enjoy my 6-year-old pitching balls in the house when I was home any more than I did when I worked. True, I had more time to discuss with him his pro baseball plans, as well as the negative consequences of playing ball indoors. But when the latter went unheeded (which it generally did), I didn't smile sympathetically.

I lectured my boys about the same things all summer that I had all last year -- and will all this year -- and sometimes I got really mad, and sometimes I didn't. Not much different from the mother I was pre-sabbatical.

3. You don't get a stress-free life because you're home full-time -- even if you're lucky enough to be home with help and your salary.

There will be frustrating, disappointing, harried or otherwise gray days. How you would handle that if you were home is pretty much the way you handle it when you work: Sometimes, despite having had the worst day ever, you stun yourself with your stellar mothering performance; other times, for no reason at all, you stink. That didn't change much when I was home.

There's no question that working full-time creates pretty constant stress, but my sense is that life fills up the vacuum you leave for it. And that most stress is relative. Thus, fewer balls in the air will each weigh more. I haven't met that many people who describe their lives as incredibly easy -- have you?

4. You still say "hurry up, hurry up" incessantly when you're home. I thought I could use my oases of time to have my kids start getting ready earlier -- that we'd all be calmer and arrive everywhere with plenty of time to spare.