Stay-At-Home Mom/Writer

In honor of Mother's Day, I thought I'd share what makes me feel like the worst mother in the entire world. Mom Guilt #478: The Stay-At-Home Mom/Writer.

I only have an average of two to three hours a day to write (and believe me, three hours is usually a stretch). As I write, I'm at home with my preschooler juggling snacks, reading books, redirecting, turning on a show, preparing more snacks, finishing paragraphs with a four-year-old on my lap, worrying about getting older kids to their after school sports, promising my daughter that "I'll be with you after I finish this sentence." Then, just as the four-year-old begins to entertain herself, I hit my stride on my manuscript, and then, the older two come home and all craziness breaks out to get them to their activities on time.

I'm not sure how other writers, who are at home with their children, do it. It's not like those of us who are writing manuscripts, querying literary agents, and hoping that a major publishing house buys our work are raking in enough money to employ a nanny. (By the way, I recently read that Brad and Angelina have a nanny for each of their children. If that is true, I'm wondering if they'd be willing to share while I finish this novel.)

Cue the guilt.
Here's a recent conversation I had with my husband after a particularly exhausting day.
"I feel like the worst mom ever," I cried. Yes. Cried.
"What are you talking about?" he asked, his eyes focused on his laptop.
"I mean," sobbing by now, "I spend all afternoon working on this manuscript, that I'm not sure will even sell, (cue the violins) and I'm completely neglecting our daughter as I do it."
"She's not neglected," he remained fixated on his spreadsheet. You see, my husband works a ten hour day and then comes home to work a three hour night. "She's one of the happiest kids I know."
"But still?"
"You're at home with her," he pointed out, "she has a million toys and she's perfectly capable of entertaining herself for a couple of hours while you work."
"I just have this really bad feeling that our kids are going to leave for college and the last image in their minds will be of me typing on my laptop," I sniffled.
He looked up. "And that's a bad thing?"
"You just don't understand." Cue 1 Corinthians.

If you have any ideas on how to balance it all, pass them on. I'm sure all stay-at-home mom/writers would love to hear them.

Happy Mother's Day!