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"&amp;quot;Why would I take your kids to work?&amp;quot; Oh, here we go. &amp;quot;Why shouldn&amp;#039;t you watch my kids while I&amp;#039;m at work?&amp;quot; a mom recently asked. Clearly, she didn&amp;#039;t get it. She didn&amp;#039;t understand that &amp;quot;Please Take My Children to Work Day&amp;quot; is a tongue-in-cheek name for a holiday for full- and part-time at-home moms that I created years ago after attending a parenting seminar, where one mother had raised her hand to ask: &amp;quot;How can I get time off from being home with the kids all day? My husband thinks this is my time off.&amp;quot; A seminar on temper tantrums is &amp;quot;me time&amp;quot;? What&amp;#039;s a vacation day? Sitting in the waiting room at the pediatrician&amp;#039;s office while your feverish child dozes off? &amp;quot;Tell him this is a work-related seminar,&amp;quot; I told her. &amp;quot;And that you deserve a day off.&amp;quot; But at-home mothers don&amp;#039;t get much time off, especially if they have small children. They&amp;#039;re on the job upwards of 100 hours a week and on call 24/7. When you&amp;#039;re a stay-at-home mom, a sick day is doing the same thing you do all the other days, only you feel worse than usual. Only, nowadays, at-home motherhood is considered a privilege. I know that when I stayed home with my two toddlers, I thought I&amp;#039;d better fill every waking hour with teachable moments and quality bonding time. In fact, I felt guilty for folding the laundry, because it was taking precious time away from my kids -- 20 minutes out of a hundred hours a week. And then I got over it. On June 30th, my web site, MommaSaid.net, will sponsor the sixth annual &amp;quot;Please Take My Children to Work Day.&amp;quot; While your husband might not think you deserve a day off, your governor just might. In recent years, about a dozen states have officially declared the holiday for at-home moms, and this year&amp;#039;s proclamations are starting to roll in. If Hubby can&amp;#039;t take the kids to work (how&amp;#039;d he get anything done?), ask your parents, your in-laws or a babysitter to watch your kids for you. Or, take your neighbor&amp;#039;s kids in the morning and then swap with her so you at least get part of the day off. Whatever you do, don&amp;#039;t spend it making returns at Baby Gap or filling out applications for travel soccer. Go see a movie that&amp;#039;s not animated with talking animals. Visit a restaurant that doesn&amp;#039;t hand out crayons. Get a massage or wander aimlessly around the bookstore. Do something for yourself, because you deserve it. Really. Some folks might feel like this holiday somehow &amp;quot;disses&amp;quot; working moms. Not at all. All moms indeed deserve time off, but I wanted to give stay-at-home moms the day off they can&amp;#039;t otherwise get -- or won&amp;#039;t take. Besides, Father&amp;#039;s Day isn&amp;#039;t a slap in the face of mothers, so why would a holiday for at-home moms threaten working moms? Now that I work from home around my kids&amp;#039; schedules, I&amp;#039;m a working mom and an at-home mom. And though I don&amp;#039;t have toddlers anymore, I can still understand why at-home moms would need a holiday. So, take your day off. Monday, June 30th is &amp;quot;Please Take My Children to Work Day.&amp;quot; Whether your state&amp;#039;s governor official declares it a holiday or not, enjoy some time off because you deserve it. And no, I&amp;#039;m not watching your kids for you. I need a day off, too! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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