You only did it for 2 weeks! To use your analogy, every once in awhile a transcontinental plane flight is kind of interesting, but imagine taking that flight every day for several years.

You didn't have to deal with the drudgery, or petty office conflicts, or any real expectations on your work or your ability to make your company profitable. These are the things that make work hard.

Then again, if people really don't roll into Slate until after 10:00 in the morning and they take frequent coffee/wine breaks, maybe it is that easy?

Really, what a ridiculous comparison..two weeks in the office..no responsibility, no personal backstabbings going on, power plays, getting confronted with your lack of power or boredom..please..It is SO much easier to be a mom and have someone else worry about making money...no comparison..I'd like to see a mom prepare construction plans, and then have ten people from project management plus the client review it, with a deadline..please..give me a poopy diaper any day..

Oy - THANK YOU! I made this prediction at the outset of the series. It is so goddamned insulting to people who work - seriously. She played dress-up for two weeks. She addressed, in large part, what others wore, where they went for lunch, etc. She loved the trappings of work but, as evidenced by her near-decade absence from the formal work force, isn't so interested in actually assuming the *stakes* of having a job.

One more point: can you imagine if Mike made the reverse argument - that staying at home was easier? If he said "Shit, honey - why is this apartment a disaster when I come home at night? Seriously, get it together." The SAH parents would be out in full force.

It would be funny if Mike's post was just as you describe as in, "It really wasn't that hard. I don't know what my wife is complaining about all the time, especially since the sitter watches the kids for 1/2 the day." You are right though, he would be hung in effigy for it.

TBC, I'm not saying that a stay at home parent has it easy. My wife was a SAH for several years and was great at it, and I'm eternally grateful for it. But you can't conclude anything after doing a job for two weeks.

The wife's statement at the end was so conclusive and final. "Yep, you've got it easy honey, my job at home is much harder." I guarentee that, once she goes back to work full time she'll continue to think she has the hardest job in the family.

Oops. Here I was making a new post and thinking I was all wise and original about the harsh realities of long-term work. Great series (don't want to diminish it) but do it for a year or two.

I think the real stressor of work is not in the working itself (though there are many days where I would disagree with that), it's the burden of financial responsibility toward a family. It's the heaviness of knowing that your work performance affects the livlihoods of others, it's the knowlege that one big mistake can undo many years of successes. It's the clawing your way up, knowing that the higher you climb the harder you'll fall and that the higher you climb the more people there are that WANT to see you fail or will try to make it happen.

None of this kicks in at two-weeks. Two weeks is play-time.