11 Struggles Every Stay-at-Home Mom Faces on the Daily

Updated on 3/19/2018 at 1:10 PM

Being a stay-at-home mom is a true gift — you get to be there for your child basically all the time and do a job in which you are a completely irreplaceable "employee." But as with any job, there are struggles and challenges you face on the regular, and for SAHMs, those range from having your deepest conversations on the topic of Doc McStuffins or figuring out how to be in seven places at once because everyone assumes that staying at home means you have — laugh with us — free time.

If you're a SAHM, read through for 11 struggles that you probably know all too well.

You are constantly responding to people asking, "What do you DO all day?"

As if taking care of a child isn’t a full-time job that has you running around like a chicken with no head all day.

Most of the words you say out loud per day are either to yourself or a human under the age of 5.

Your conversations with adults have likely suffered as a result.

There’s a moment in every day when everyone is napping and you think you can run out for an errand, then realize you're stuck.

It’s a catch-22 that gets you every time.

You microwave your coffee multiple times a morning, though you only manage to take about three sips total.

Then you find it freezing cold in the microwave the next morning as you go to nuke your fresh cup — the cycle continues.

The decision to get dressed is a daily internal struggle.

When the leggings you’ve been wearing for the last three days in a row are as comfy as they are, why shake things up?

You are always the first to catch whatever illnesses your kids bring home from school.

And then have to care for the rest of the family as they fall victim to the germs like human dominoes.

The only days you plan on being productive during naptimes are the days naptime lasts about 3 minutes.

Paying the bills is totally at the mercy of the baby’s nap — oh well.

You’re constantly told you're "so lucky that you can afford to stay home with your kids."

Meanwhile, the reality is likely that after child care and commuting fees, you’d bring home about $37 a week, so it’s not so much a choice as a responsible financial decision.

You always have something unidentifiable on your shirt and never notice until it’s too late and you’re in public.

On the plus side, you always have baby wipes in your purse.

Because you don’t work in a conventional sense, it's assumed you have time to volunteer for fundraisers and bake sales.

But just because your job isn’t in an office doesn’t mean you can bake 400 cupcakes for tomorrow's bake sale.

Every time someone asks, "So, what do you do?" you have to figure out how to make them understand your badass "job."

Well, I actually do it all — what do you do again?