Do you suffer from SAHG? Stay at home guilt syndrome

It seems that nowadays there is a mess for everything. Here’s one you may be suffering from without even knowing it: SAHGS (Stay-at-Home Mom Guilt Syndrome).

I have a pretty severe case of SAHGS. It broke out at 5:10 this morning when my three-year-old daughter gleefully came into my room. “Mommy, it’s not morning yet, but sometimes we get up in the dark and eat sweets…right?” “No, we don’t… Jenna.” It was too late. She had slipped out of bed and devoured at least half a dozen malted milk balls I’d left on the counter the night before after my own midnight binge.

He was flying high in a sugar frenzy and the sun hadn’t risen yet. By the time my husband and son woke up (three hours later), she had painted our walls, given the dog playdough, spilled dog food all over the laundry room, cracked an egg on the counter, and yet With no help, he destroyed his bedroom and playroom.

At the time when normal people were getting into a rush hour traffic jam, I was completely exhausted. I begged my husband, “can I come to work for you? Please, please, please…” He is a police officer and I have never, ever envied his work. However, today was one of those days where he would have been grateful to swap two hyperactive preschoolers for some armed criminals.

The river. “Hold on… I’ll give you a hand when I get home, I promise.” My horrible day continued. When my daughter collapsed from her sugar level, she cried hysterically (and for no apparent reason). “Mommy… I don’t like spiders, they’re so gross” she lamented. Mind you, there wasn’t a spider in sight. She was completely lost. My son (as always) followed follows. “Mommy…spiders…scary.” The Scream.

After about three dozen nonsensical hysterical outbursts later, I had one of my own. I called my husband at work. “I’m freaking out…I need chocolate, wine and cheetos…he stops by the store and gets all three…or else.”

When my husband got home from work, he would give me my vices and help me put the kids to bed. As soon as the house was quiet, he offered to put away the clothes and wash the dinner dishes. “No, I’ll take care of it… just go ahead and relax.”

“What is wrong with me?” He was asking me. As much as she was desperate for her help, she couldn’t (and didn’t want to) accept it. “I’m just a stay-at-home mom and he works 12-hour shifts.” He shouldn’t have to come home from work and clean up the train wreck of a home we’ve created, I thought.

I’m going crazy. I’m a firm believer that a stay-at-home mom’s “job” effort (so to speak) is equivalent to having two full-time careers. A few years ago I attended graduate school while working full time as a social worker. Frankly, being a SAHM was twice as difficult as trying to juggle both.

So why can’t I convince myself to accept help? Because I suffer from a disabling case of Stay at Home Guilt Syndrome. While I’m extremely proud of the effort I put into cleaning our house and taking care of the kids, I haven’t fully accepted the fact that I’m contributing as much as my husband and that sometimes I need to “sign in” too. .

“So where does the blame come from?” He was asking me. I discussed it with a friend of mine from SAHM who had the same concerns. “It’s all about the paycheck,” he replied sarcastically. “BINGO… that’s it,” I laughed.

Although I know how hard I work all day, I don’t have a salary to show for it. In fact, a CSI agent would be hard-pressed to find evidence that I even lifted a finger on a normal day. My house is pretty clean when my husband leaves for work in the morning, but twelve hours later it looks like the Tasmanian devil just got through it. (Okay, make it two Tasmanian devils.)

Lately, I’ve been so wracked with guilt that I find myself recounting it step by step the moment he walks in the door…

“I know I don’t seem like I got much done today…but I did the dishes twice, I cleaned the nail polish off the bathroom floor, I vacuumed the cereal, I got the peanut butter out of the dog’s hair, and I stuck my head out to all the dolls and Barbies. I pulled a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle out of the toilet and sprayed the sidewalk chalk off the mini-van.” “I know I didn’t finish dinner, dishes, or laundry, but I also managed to scrape dog poop off five pairs of sneakers.”

So what is the treatment for SAHG? In the paycheck. For every nose I clean, I make two dollars. For every argument I break up, I get three. For every nasty thing I have to clean, pick up, or scrape off the carpet… an automatic $10 bonus. Every time the kids have a sick day, I have one too. Every time my work starts before the sun comes up, I’ll pay myself for overtime: a latte, a massage, or just a really long hot bath. I’m going to pay myself fifteen dollars for each episode of Dora that I have to suffer and twenty for each episode of Wiggles (twenty-five when I sing). A potty training course is worth $500, and the first day of kindergarten is worth a thousand dollars. I pay myself two dollars for each bath and diaper change. I get ten bucks for every trip to the park, library, play date, and music class.

When all is said and done, I’m pretty sure they still won’t pay me what I’m worth. However, the next time my husband offers to help clean the house, do the dishes, or finish the laundry, I’ll proudly hand him my paycheck and say, “Sure!”