Stay-at-home parents are tired of being used

I'm a stay-at-home working mom. Stop treating me like a free babysitter for your child.

A mother and children.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Kharlamova/iStock, Yapanda/iStock, Alhontess/iStock)

I'm starting to dread the sound my phone makes when I get a text. Last week, no fewer than three neighborhood parents, none of whom I know particularly well, pinged me with the same request: Could I possibly watch their kids? School was out two days last week and one day this week in NYC, so the city's working moms and dads are, understandably, in a phenomenal flap. The thing is, I'm a working parent, too. I actually have two jobs — writing, and parenting my three- and six-year-old children — both of which I do from home. Yet, when I tell people this, all they seem to hear is: "stay-at-home-mom." And from this they infer that I spend my days flitting between nail salons and coffee shops, not with my best scrubbing hand shoved down a toilet bowl while the other furiously types up an article I promised to hand in two days ago.

Because of this assumption, when parents who work outside the home need extra, last-minute childcare, they quite often call me. This started in earnest when my daughter, now six, began pre-k. At first, I was flattered when other moms I barely knew emailed to say how much their kid loved mine and would she be down for a playdate. Sure, I said.

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Ruth Margolis
Ruth ​Margolis is a British ​journalist living in the U.S. Her work has appeared in ​The Guardian, ​The ​Daily Telegraph and BBCAmerica.com.