Life as a young news reporter was exciting and downright insane in times. Pictured here interviewing Rev. Jesse Jackson.

I’m pretty sure I do not miss the stress and anxiety of being a young reporter, laying awake at night and wondering if I got a fact wrong that would be discovered in tomorrow’s newspaper.

And I don’t miss the commute to any job, the train delays or the traffic jams.

Five years ago, almost to the day, I went on paid leave from my job at a nonprofit because I got pregnant. It felt like the right time to transition my life into something slower, saner, and to mentally prepare for motherhood. So I jumped off the hamster wheel and out of the rat race (it’s the same thing really, hamsters and rats. I had a hamster once, and it’s really just a domesticated rat without the tail…)

Five years and two kids later, I’m still at home.

My life now revolves around my family; finding dairy, egg, and nut-free meals for my child with allergies, potty-training the two-year-old, finding the best libraries and storytimes nearby and keeping everyone, including myself, safe, healthy, and happy.

Sounds sweet, huh? Somedays, it really is, and I’m thankful. But in many cases, the work just never ends.

In a secular job, you can clock out, time out, punch out, sign off (all of this still happens, right?) But the life of a stay-at-home-mom never stops.

There’s something about the rhythm of work-life, the structure and deadlines, and the metrics that I miss. There’s usually clear indications of a job well done, or a job poorly done. In most cases, your responsibilities are spelled out. And if you have a good job, your employer takes notice and you’re rewarded accordingly.

Motherhood is a different story. Somedays it is story-time and butterfly crafts and hugs and kisses and teachable moments and all the feels. Other days, it’s the trail of poop trickling from the diaper of a kid who really should be using the potty and you don’t discover the trail until it’s tracked halfway across the house and the furniture and you spend the rest of the morning disinfecting your home, your kid, and yourself. THIS REALLY HAPPENED!

There are times in parenting when the chaos is the entire point of it all.

Nostalgia is always rosy though. So I’m sure I’m forgetting the butt-hole coworkers, the crazy she-Devil bosses, that one racist editor I had, and the sometimes insane work conditions that accompany life as a journalist.

Working as a stay-at-home-mom is insane many days. But the best part of it is probably the part I’ll see only in hindsight, when I think about my kids being toddlers again, curling up next to me for storytime, and asking the most adorable questions as they try to piece together snippets of life that make sense to them.

Because nostalgia is always rosy.