I used to be an office-based working mom. Currently I am a work at home mom (wahm), which unfortunately, many people don’t take seriously as work. But I am a working mom and my kids are at a childcare facility while I am typing this on my home computer.

It is with trepidation that I present the results of a study here that will surely illicit strong reactions from other working moms out there, reactions that may probably range from outrage, defensiveness, to guilt.

Kids of Working Moms Are Less Healthy

It’s true, according to a study reported by MSNBC. British researchers looked at 12,500 children aged 9 months to 5 years and analyzed their dietary habits and physical activity. The results showed that kids of working moms, regardless of their race, maternal education, job level or whether they are working full time or part-time, are less healthy. For example, they are more likely to eat junk food and spend more time in front of the TV or the computer. In addition, they are more likely to be driven to school and snack on chips and sweetened drinks. The researchers put the blame on the time constraints of working moms.

Now, before we overreact and blast the researchers for their bias against working women, let’s take a deep breath and look at ourselves and our family whether there is any truth to their findings. And if your first thought would be “I don’t have time for this,” then they’re right.¨

I suggest that we take the results of the study as a constructive criticism and an opportunity to check out our current lifestyle. There is a lot that we can do and here are my suggestions:

What’s in the Fridge?

If there’s no or very little produce in your fridge or in your pantry, then you have to rethink your family’s dietary habits. There are fresh produce that keeps long and this includes tomatoes, cucumber, bananas capsicum, and apples. Incorporate these into your shopping list and weekly menus.

What’s in Your Child’s Lunchbox?

If there are only potato chips, cookies or peanut butter sandwiches in there, then there’s something missing. An apple or a banana would be a health addition. Apples are especially great – they keep, they are sturdy, and can fit in a pocket. Choose the sweet varieties such as gala, pink lady or golden delicious.

Junk Food

Another British study reported that people who consume too much sweets as children have a tendency towards aggression in adulthood. So why do some of us keep buying junk food for our family against our better judgement? Some suggest it may be guilt, that those treats are our way of saying sorry for not spending enough time with our kids. Some people think if they don’t get it at home, they’ll get it somewhere else. In a previous post, I’ve listed some tips on children’s nutrition.

Communicate With Your Child.

How did his/her day go? If it’s just all about TV shows or video games, then it’s time to look for alternatives. What about a sports club? Soccer and tennis camps during the holidays? Active family outings on the weekends? Don’t wait until your child becomes overweight. The earlier they start the better.

Childcare

It is not easy to find the perfect childcare provider but we should make the effort to monitor what kind of care is being provided. My twin boys started at a daycare at 12 months, preschool-daycare at 3 years. Now at 1st grade, they attend after school childcare provided by our town. In other words, I’ve had experience about checking out childcare facilities. I, for one, wouldn’t go for a daycare with a TV set. I talk to the caregivers about the daily activities and compare their version with my child’s version. It’s not that I don’t trust them. I simply want to know whether I am getting my money’s worth. Yes, I pay for childcare and I make sure that as the customer, my child gets what he/she needs in terms of healthy food and physical exercise. The same goes if you have a nanny or a babysitter coming in. I am not saying you have to install a nanny cam at home but if we need crosschecks at work, there should also be some at home.

Some of us may not have the means to pay for childcare. A family member such as grandma or aunt might have to pitch in to help with the child care. Check their dietary and exercise habits. Talk to them about nutrition and health. A healthy child needs a healthy caregiver.

Look Within

Your diet and physical activity level reflects that of your family. What you eat at breakfast and at suppertime, your children eat. You are their role model and they learn your good and bad habits. A workout or a run is a great way to wind down. But how do you include your children into your adult exercise routine? Do cycling or inline skating together. I am not keen on both so my kids do either why I jog along side. It helps me keep up my pace. Check out Mrs.H’s list of habits of a healthy family.

I know that as working moms, we are juggling too many things at the same time: motherhood, job, marriage. It is difficult to be a career woman and the perfect mom at the same time. But hey, it’s not about being perfect that counts. It’s about being happy and healthy.

An old acquaintance of mine recently posted a question on her facebook page. It made me laugh. She wanted to know how a working mom could manage to keep the house clean, spend time with the children, spend time with the husband, and cook dinner. But that’s not all – she also insisted on having time to sleep, and to do something fun.

If you’ve been a working mom for more than a few weeks, you know that the woman who figures all of this out will become rich and famous. Most moms, whether you are employed inside, outside, or not at all, are exhausted, overwhelmed, and demanding of ourselves. Still, that didn’t stop many of her facebook ‘friends’ (myself included) from offering advice. But the truth is, I’d like to know the answer to the question myself. Here is what some people suggested, and why I still haven’t found the answer.

• The most common answer: you can’t do it all! Give it up. The problem with this is something in my personality that won’t let me give it up. I’d guess my friend can’t, either, or else she wouldn’t have asked the question.
• Hire a housekeeper. Problem: I’ve always felt that if I could afford a housekeeper, I’m working too much. Besides, I’m a little bit of a perfectionist, and don’t think I’d like the work someone else did.
• Go out to eat every other night. Problem: ditto with the housekeeper. It’s just too much money. Going out to eat three times a week, four weeks a month, equals a lot of hours of my life spent working. Besides, it doesn’t really save time.
• Cook convenience foods: mac and cheese, frozen dinners, chicken nuggets, apple slices. Problem: YUCK!
• Make your ‘chores’fun and do them together. This actually works to some extent with the older kids. But if you only have babies, it doesn’t work. You can only clean when the baby is asleep, and that’s no fun at all. I had a friend who taught her toddler to always walk around with a dust rag in her hand. She cleaned while she cruised! Hahaha. Genius.

So what do you do? How do you keep up? Even if you don’t have it all figured out, you might have figured out part of it. I’m dying to hear your wisdom, and I’d bet others are, too.

I have become kind of sensitive lately. You see, I am on a leave of absence from my other job;being a high school teacher. Since then, I have started hearing a lot of people say things like, ‘So you’re a full time mom now?’

That begs the question: what percent mom was I before?

Don’t get me wrong. I think staying home to raise children is the best plan for most families. But whether a woman is a stay home mom, or a working mom, doesn’t change the fact that she is a mom all day; no matter where she is.

Let me put it this way. Before my daughter was born, I had a son in elementary school and I worked 30 hours a week. Did that make me a – time mom? Or was it OK because my boy was in school?

I mean, I have a very good friend who is also a college professor. She is a wonderful person, an evangelical Christian, and yes, she chose to put her daughters in preschool. Since she is a full-time professor, is she a 0-time mom?

And another friend of mine works from home. And I don’t mean she sells make-up or craft supplies. She is a paralegal and works 50-60 hours a week. What percent mom is she? She gets the points for being home all day. But she isn’t exactly attending to her kids during that time. So, what is that?

It’s not just about priorities, either. I mean, I ‘and all of my friends’ would drop anything for the children when it comes down to it. But when does it all come down? When do we say we don’t have to give them 100% of our attention all day in order to be a full time mom? How do we decide when they ‘really’ need it? If a stay home mom ‘whose only job is to raise her children’ lets them watch a movie so she can make dinner, that’s probably OK. But is it OK if she lets them watch the movie so she can take a nap or read a book? Is she still giving her children her ‘Full Time’ attention? Nothing wrong with a nap or book – you gotta take care of yourself, they say -but that mom isn’t truly giving her kids all of her attention. If she did that a few times a week, is it any different than if she worked all day one day outside the home?

Maybe I am being too sensitive. Because even though I am not teaching, I actually do have a job at home (writing curriculum). I try to do it while my baby naps, but that doesn’t always work out. So I can’t say I m really a stay-home mom. I mean, I’m home, but I am still a working mom. And I am still a full-time mom.

I’ve started asking moms I meet, ‘Are you employed?’ because it’s all so confusing now. But the next time someone asks me if I am a full-time mom, I’m going to say, ‘Yes. And I am employed, too.’

Ever wonder how much a good mom is worth? Of course, the answer from husbands and children across the world should be ‘priceless,‘ but Salary.com has released some solid stats.

By valuating the time moms spend doing typical ‘mom’ jobs, from housekeeper to CEO, the Web site determined that a typical stay-at-home mom’s salary should be $116,805. A working mom’s ‘at-home‘ salary, not counting what she earns at her day job, would earn her $68,405.

Before working moms get all in-arms and claim they work every bit as hard (or harder) than stay-at-home moms do, be aware that the salary is based on hours spent performing specific job duties. Stay-at-home moms spend more time being moms (almost twice as much), because they are home more.

According to the Salary.com report, a stay-at-home mom works 94.4 hours, resulting in tons of overtime! Working moms spend 54.6 hours on ‘motherly duties’, in addition to an average of 40 hours a week at their job.

Some working moms aren’t happy with the assessment. A blogger at the Time Magazine Web site just can‘t see how working moms could net less pay than stay-at-home moms. Her assertion is that working moms (and dads) perform the same duties as stay-at-home moms, albeit in less time (more efficiently.)

There’s one growing group, however, left out of Salary.com‘s study entirely: work-at-home moms. WAHMs often multi-task child-rearing, housework, household management, plus similar duties that working moms perform outside the home – all in the same place, often at the same time. How much exactly is that worth?

You can get your own customized report, based on your number of children, the time you spend doing various household and motherly tasks, and even average salaries in your region, through the Mom Salary Wizard at Salary.com. Then you can print out a paycheck for yourself or that special someone.

I‘d advise caution, however. If the IRS finds out about this, they may just try to determine mom’s “salary” as ‘taxable income.‘

Before I started working from home I was a full-fledged stay-at-home mom with nothing more on my plate than caring for my babies and the house (as if that wasn’t enough, right?). I was the first to admit to anyone who would listen that staying home with babies was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Believe me…I went through military basic training, and that was a cake walk compared to some days I have with these kids.

Now that I have an income and am considered gainfully employed, I have the unique opportunity to fit into both spectrums of moms: The Working Mother and the Stay-at-Home Mother. I’ve heard interesting comments from both sides, but the consensus seems to be this: SAHMs are mystified that some moms can leave their kids in daycare or with a nanny all day, and working moms often wonder what in the world it is that SAHMs do all day. I actually had a friend of mine who is a working mother ask me in a truly perplexed voice, “What do stay-at-home moms do all day?” She honestly didn’t know.

So here are the answers as I can best reply, based on my experience and the experience of other moms I have talked to:

“How can moms leave their babies at daycare all day?” Some moms just have to, and some moms don’t have a problem with it because they get a kick out of their careers and they know their babies are in a stimulating environment. A lot of moms have a terrible time with dropping their babies off initially, but for many moms this just becomes a routine.

“What do SAHMs do all day?” Cook, clean, change poopy diapers, play with the baby, go grocery shopping, change more poopy diapers, run errands for the working spouse, and anything else that needs to be done. The next day, repeat it all over again.

The moral of the story is that neither working moms or SAHMs have it all figure out. Regardless of what route you choose – whether it’s staying at home or going back to work – make sure it’s the right decision for you.

Every morning, I kiss my kids and my husband and say “I’ve got to go to work, see you at 12!” Then I stumble down the hallway in my pajamas to my office where I bang away at the keyboard for several hours.

I’m blessed. I’m a freelance writer and I get to work from home. I thought it would be less stressful, but not really. If I worked outside the home I would be far less tempted to stop what I’m doing and run to give someone zerberts on their tummy. If I worked outside the home I’d be able to concentrate on work and not focus on how much I hate Barney – who is singing non-stop downstairs.

But, I remind myself, if I wasn’t here I couldn’t take a lunch break and get my daughter ready for afternoon preschool, ensuring she doesn’t look a hot mess like she would if her dad had dressed her and combed her hair. He’s a wonderful father and husband, but he can’t braid worth a darn.

I wouldn’t be able to rearrange my schedule so the girls could go to playgroups with my moms group. I couldn’t volunteer at Liv’s school during the day and there would certainly be no stolen moments of mid-morning patty cake with Bri. If I wasn’t here, I wouldn’t be able to hear them playing, laughing and living throughout the day. That’s way better than listening to muzak float from the elevator into your office!