Kate Olson is a mother of 2 toddlers and lives in rural Wisconsin. She balances motherhood & working from home in a semi-functional fashion - you can read more about Kate on our contributors page. She blogs about education and lots of business/tech stuff at Kate Says . Want more? Read all of Kate’s posts!

Excuse the rant……..

Yup, I said it. Parenting is NOT a profession. We can’t say we’re professional moms when we quit our jobs to stay at home with our kids, we just can’t. So many of us have worked for years before having kids and cling to the thought of being professionals - professional ANYTHINGS. We want to turn parenting into a job and organize and strategize and delegate and CREATE. Trust me, the 2 years I stayed at home full-time with my kids began with my attempt to earn my PhD in parenting - I learned quickly that it’s all a myth.

That’s not how parenting works. There are no parenting advanced degrees, there’s no salary, there are no paid vacations and there is no human resources department. There’s no one to go to to complain about the injustices, no union to protect us. There is also no governing agency to regulate who earns the title of parent in this society, however horrible that fact is.

As a parent and professional at many other things, this goes against everything I want to believe. I want to think that by giving mommyhood my all, I’ll get rewarded and promoted and RECOGNIZED. I have to let it go. I have to realize that the fact that my kids smile at me every day is the only payment I’ll ever get and that I truly don’t have control over the creatures I created.

The boy and girl running circles around me are not my projects.

I’m not a professional when I’m with my kids.

I’m a mom. And to be a good parent, that has to be enough.

And if you think that you’re a professional parent - I say you’re wrong. Or at least tell me where you got your degree, I want one.