Wherever we stand as mothers and our working/child raising situation, we all have haters. People who assume things about what we do and why we do it, and who judge our situations even if they don’t intend to do so. These viewpoints are so outdated and divisive that I can’t even believe there are people who really think these things, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised anymore when it comes to people still believing ridiculous and archaic things.

Apparently there are still some people out there who think that at-home moms have it easy, and who will actually ask them in all seriousness: “What do you do all day?” REALLY? Come on, folks. Either you’ve never stayed at home with a tiny human for even one entire day, or you had a maid or a nanny or a grandmother or SOMEONE else besides just you and your partner to help the whole time, or maybe you’ve just completely forgotten about how all-consuming the early months of child-rearing are. (Funny how it’s so easy to forget the awful, hard stuff from the beginning. That’s how they trick you into wanting another one!). Maybe next time you meet someone who says she’s an at-home mom, respond with something like, “Wow, that’s amazing. You must be exhausted. But you look awesome. Let me buy you a drink and we can talk about whatever you want.”

On the flip side, there are STILL people who see working moms as someone who “wants to have it all.” Yep. We have it all, all right. We have the stress of performing well enough at a job to get paid enough to support our family. We have to clean spit-up and other bodily fluids off of our clothes to be presentable enough to go into the office. We have to deal with adults who might be less rational than our babies. We have the guilt that comes with having someone else raise our kids, and we have the sadness of potentially missing things like first steps and first words. We have alarms that go off at 6 a.m. regardless of how many times the baby woke up throughout the night. We definitely have it all. All of the guilt, all of the stress, all of the exhaustion, all of the pressure. So when you meet a mom, especially a new mom, who works outside of the home, don’t say something like, “Oh man, you really have it all!” Instead, try something like this: “Wow, that’s amazing. You must be exhausted. But you look awesome. Let me buy you a drink and we can talk about whatever you want.”