As a mother, you know there’s a special kind of rage that bubbles up when someone (usually a man with seriously selective vision) says stay-at-home moms (SAHM) “don’t do anything all day.”
Oh really, GREG? Tell that to the giant pile of laundry that hasn’t folded itself in years. Or the breakfast that magically appeared for his children that morning while he was still in bed, snoring with his mouth open.
It’s enough to drive a SAHM crazy.
Take Heather Arnzen (@heatherarnzen), for example. This Missouri mom-of-2 finally had enough of the whole “you’re so lucky you don’t have to work” narrative.
So, she did what any modern mom with a Wi-Fi connection and a mild caffeine dependency would do … she filmed it and posted it to TikTok. Every meal, every load of laundry folded, and every carpool moment of the day. All of it.
SPOILER ALERT: it was not a day of mimosas, Pilates, and binge-watching Netflix.
The video starts at 7:58 a.m., otherwise known as the beginning of her daily 12-hour shift. Heather lets the cats out because we all know that moms are in charge of every living creature in the home.
After that, Heather gets her 4-year-old up and moving, which, if you’ve ever tried it, feels a lot more like a hostage negotiation than parenting. Then breakfast is served, hair is brushed, clothes go on, a gentle pre-school pep talk is given, and by 9:08, she’s already dropped her daughter off.
Sounds simple so far, right? Sure it is! If you ignore the 37 steps in between.
IYKYK, getting a small child out the door on time should qualify as an Olympic event. And if that child has opinions about socks? May the Lord watch over you during that difficult time.
By 9:47, she’s home… and not to rest. No, Heather begins washing couch cushion covers and vacuuming her living room like a woman haunted by the ghost of Goldfish crackers past.
Next comes Satan’s sidekicks – laundry and dishes – and then a moment to eat her own breakfast at 10:45, where she nervously jokes, “Hope that’s okay.” (It is. We checked.)
At 11:05, it’s time to change the laundry. And here’s where things get really spicy: her husband, had pulled ONLY HIS clothes from the dryer… and left hers in there like some sort of passive-aggressive death wish directly solely at his wife.
A round of applause for the bare-minimum brigade and a moment of silence for all the moms who’ve been there.
Next, it’s rinse and repeat when Heather revisits the dishes and that laundry.
Then mama hops back in the car for her afternoon chauffeuring shift. She even makes two separate trips for two separate daughters, each time returning home just in time to get started on her third shift of that day. DINNER.
By 3:22 p.m., she wraps up filming. Not because the day is done—but because there’s a meal to cook (you know, that “nothing” she apparently makes every night), more cleaning to do (that “nothing” she spends hours on), and more child-wrangling ahead, including the much-dreaded bath and bedtime routine.
It’s funny in a “screaming into a pillow” way how quickly some folks assume a SAHM is lounging around like she’s on a beach vacation. In reality, it’s more like running a small, very loud butt-wiping company… without pay, benefits, or legally mandated breaks.
So here’s a little PSA… if you think a stay-at-home mom does “nothing all day,” we invite you to switch places for 48 hours. Yes, you’ll need to do the cooking, the laundry, the cleaning, the chauffeuring, the emotional labor, and the crumb removal. You may also be asked to cut the crusts off four different sandwiches in a single day. Consider this your formal invitation.
Then and only then, can you come back and tell us just how “easy” it is.
Until then, moms like Heather will keep doing everything while being told it looks like nothing.
But hey, at least we get to yell into the void (social media) about it. And sometimes, for an exhausted mom, that’s just enough.
