In her essay, On the Defense, Cindy Strandvold mentioned “The Look” that people give her when she tells them she is a stay at home mom. I have given that look many times. It isn’t that I was looking down on people. Rather, it was purely a deer in the headlights reaction to a complete conversation stopper. I haven’t always been very successful at meeting new people or starting a conversation. I feel awkward and desperately grasp for more questions to ask in order to avoid that dreaded silence. As soon as the words, “I am a stay at home mom” leave someone’s mouth, I can’t think of what to say. I stand there willing my jaw to keep from going slack and hoping no one can tell that my sweat has broken the deodorant seal in my armpits. For whatever reason, I can’t think of what to ask next when someone tells me they are a stay at home mom. I stare at her and desperately try to think of what to say next… and nothing comes to me. Sure I ask about names and ages, but that is where it ends. I’ve got nothing.
Add onto that the fact that until recently I didn’t want to hear about other people’s kids, let alone be forced into an uncomfortable and impossible conversation about staying at home with kids. As much as these women may have felt I was judging them based on their choice to stay home, I felt they were looking right back at me wondering why the hell I didn’t have kids. I never viewed staying at home as a cop out or being free from the rigors of work. I was impressed that people could make that choice in a world where I had no choices. I couldn’t be a stay at home mom, because I couldn’t be a mom, period. And it killed me that some of the people I met thought that was a choice, because it wasn’t.
Finally, after several years, here I am a stay at home mom of four month old twins. There I said it, I am a stay at home mom! I’ve been telling people I am taking the year off. Maybe it will be longer and for now, my job is being a mom. It is hard to say though because I worry what is on the other side of that conversation. Will the other person feel awkward? And what if I still don’t know what to say?

