The Stay At Home Productivity Dilemma

As mentioned in my previous post, I've been swamped with my tenure as a "stay at home" dad. My mornings usually start with my daughter Sophia waking up way too early and crawling into bed with me and my wife (after a lousy night sleep constantly interrupted by our baby daughter). Failing to get her to lie peacefully between me and my wife as she kicks me awake, I take her and my son Daniel down to breakfast at which point the day becomes an unpredictable spin cycle of making meals, enforcing the eating of meals, cleaning, tasks, chauffeuring, disciplining, mediating, entertaining, teaching, aiding going to the bathroom (for Sophia), household chores, bathing and whatever else comes my way.

It's exhausting, which is why I find it perplexing yet completely understandable when stay-at-home moms struggle with feeling "unproductive". Let me give some context: our family has moved into a new place which is not surprisingly becoming a money pit. In addition to annoying things that have needed to be fixed (some painfully more expensive than others), there also is the random IKEA, Target or Bed, Bath and Beyond-type items which are purchased to organize or fill out the house. One of things that Sarah and I have challenged each other is being wise around not purchasing non-essentials.

A week ago, I raised the idea of buying a shelf to be adjacent to the television above our fireplace, to place various video peripherals, to which Sarah glared at me and said, "Wow, you really have 'housewife' syndrome." When I asked what she meant, she told me it was her theory, I suppose a somewhat self-confessed theory, that stay-at-home moms can be susceptible to buying things unnecessarily in order to feel productive. Another variation of this theory is the "rearranging of the furniture for no reason" in order to feel productive. Maybe she's right, but it strikes me as odd that a stay-at-home parent would ever struggle with "not feeling productive" given all the things that are done within the course of a day.

I think this phenomena exists because there's a dichotomy between "being busy" and "bring productive". The corporate equivalent of this is "being stuck in meetings all day" does not equal "getting work done". In the aforementioned laundry list of things I mentioned I've been doing with the kids, it can be difficult to measure progress, and there's certainly no validation or external recognition of progress being made. It's not like our kids sit stay-at-home moms down for a year-end evaluation and say, "As you know, we were able to increase my character by 22% and my eating habits are 16% better. In recognition for this, the partners and I will be given you a promotion to 'Level 2 Mom' and award you 500 restricted stock options. Thanks for your continued contributions." There's no check in the mail or defined metrics which can comprehensively capture how well a parent is parenting, and "progress" or "productivity" is hard to quantify or see.

Also, I feel like I've been treading water. Progress? I'm having enough challenges making sure that my kids don't kill each other or that I'm picking Daniel up from preschool in time while synchronizing with Sophia's nap. I'll be happy if I've been able to keep them reasonably healthy and unscarred by the time I go back to work.