What do you do?

The typical questions are often asked of me when meeting someone for the first time: birth location, marital status and current employment status.

"I'm a stay at home mom."

"Good for you!"

I never really know what people mean when they tell me this.  Are they really that impressed that I change dirty diapers and clean toilets?

I'll be honest, I wanted to be a stay at home mom for my son's first year.  I didn't have a job anyway, and there was no maternity leave to worry about.

My son is 20 months now, and it looks like I'll be a stay at home mom (SAHM) for a bit longer.  Probably indefinitely at this point since the number of employment opportunities is somewhere between slim to none.  Much closer to none than to slim.

I know part of me should be entirely grateful to be home with my son, and I am.  Another part of me feels like I wasted almost 7 years of my life in university.  I worked very hard to get my B.Sc and my M.Sc.

I feel I have yet to have an actual career because I've never worked at any job for more than a few years.  It isn't like I switched companies to do the same job.  I have worked in high tech, fitness training, environmental consulting, drug prevention and one actual chemistry research job.  Each for a few years at a time.

I'd be happy to create myself a job, I just don't know which direction to aim.  Maybe I should just work on being a better SAHM.