Thanks to a judgmental and patriarchal society, women are somewhat (sadly) used to having damn near everyone - from friends to relatives to perfect strangers - comment on their life choices. If you choose not to have children, someone will be quick to point out your inevitable future regret. If you do choose to have children, someone will tell you how you should have kids and when you should have kids and what you should do with your kids. If you choose to work after you have a kid, chances are someone will have plenty to say about that life decision, too. Which is why, sadly, there are things every working mom would love to never hear again.
Honestly, the differences between a mother who works and a mother who chooses to stay at home aren't all that significant or noteworthy, but our society seems hell-bent on dividing its citizens by any means necessary which, it turns out, includes speaking to working mothers differently.Whether it's a sincere inquisition about how a working mother balances her schedule, or it's a condescending comment about how much time a working mother spends with (or away from) her kids; people appear to be entitled to expressing their opinion of another's life decisions, ad nauseam and with little-to-no-regard of the potential consequences. Seriously, motherhood is hard enough and, I'd argue, it only gets significantly harder when you have to spend your time justifying your choices. How a woman decides to mold parenthood to fit, sustain and enhance her and her family's life, is entirely up to her. Sometimes, that looks like staying at home. Other times, it looks like working. Regardless, it's really no one's business.
So, with that in mind, here are 12 things people say to working mothers that we'd all love to never, ever, hear again. At the end of the day, we all have the same goal: being the best parents we can possibly be for our kids. The difference? How that look varies from person to person.