Is Being a Stay At Home Mom Good for Me?

Sometimes I wonder if being a stay at home mom is good for me because even though I interact with others and work part time, my life with my kids is relatively insular. I like it that way. More and more, interactions with the outside world fill me with disgust. I sometimes wonder if working full time would make me more tolerant of people I hate. Christian works with all kinds of horribles and deals with awkward, mean, crazy people every day. He's used to it. I wonder if I would get more used to it if I had a full-time job, or if having a full-time job would just make me sad and mad all the time.

One time we were staying overnight in Las Vegas on our way to California. I hate Las Vegas. In the morning Christian and I were deciding which one of us should go pick up some breakfast while the other one stayed in our room and got the kids ready. Sam (around age 10) said, "You go, Dad. Mom shouldn't have to go out into the cold, cruel world."

He was serious. (And he was right.) Some people will say that it is a gender thing, that women are delicate and sensitive and men are tough and can deal with things better. I don't believe that at all. I've known many cases where the opposite is true. And being cognizant of the failings of people has not much to do with my own toughness.  But sometimes stereo-typical personality traits do happen to fall along gender lines.  I think this is cultural, more than anything else.

People. They're the worst.

Please do look at this week's Babble posts:

Toon Books I'm hoping to blog more about this here with a coupon code for you guys.

Coolest Wolverine Prints I've been going way overboard on the Wolverine posts. I like it.

25 Mad Men-Era Ads Do you think my captions are funny?

10 Things You Never Knew About the Original VJS Some fun facts about Martha Quinn and the gang, including how much they got paid.

12 Gorgeous Picture Books for Kids "Gorgeous" is  strong word.

Brown Eyed People Are Smarter My teacher did this social experiment on me when I was a kid, too. Did yours?

Seth Meyers is Getting Married I tried to insult Jay Leno in this but it was not as pointed as I would have liked.

Rebecca Romijn Checks Her Vanity At the Door For Motherhood

Do You Parent Like Jor-El or Jonathan Kent? Seems like a valid question to me.