Easy.

Twice in the last few months, I've had stay-at-home moms tell me that it's easier to be a working mom than a stay-at-home mom. The reason they always give? "At least you get to go to the bathroom by yourself."

The peeing-with-an-audience situation also came up in a Babble article posted by another friend, entitled "Stay-At-Home vs. Working Parents: Questions to help spouses bridge the communication gap." It's meant to be a humorous explanation of the different stresses that stay-at-home parents face, as compared to their working spouses.

Even working moms sometimes echo the sentiment that they have it easier, such as in a recent post by NPR Baby Project blogger Christy Lilley, as she prepares to return to work after the birth of her second baby:

I often think being a stay-at-home mom is harder than being a working mom.

After a particularly exhausting weekend with James [her toddler], going back to work feels like a break. Even though I'm working, I find little moments of time throughout the day to myself. Whether it's catching up with a friend on the phone during my commute or listening to whatever I want on the radio instead of Raffi nursery rhymes, working out at the company gym during my lunch hour, or reading the news online in between meetings, I savor these moments.

When I'm home, I have no time to myself. It's all kids, all the time.

Let me be clear: I agree that being a stay-at-home mom is hard. But I don't think it's inherently harder -- or easier -- than being a working mom.

In fact, after stating that being a stay-at-home mom is harder than being a working mom, Lilley goes on to discuss the many challenges that she faces as a working mom. The constant guilt. Working with people who are either single or have a stay-at-home spouse and therefore don't have to drop everything at 5 PM to get the kids from daycare. Being pulled in a million different directions, and feeling like you're doing neither of your full-time jobs (the one that's paid in money, and the one that's paid in toddler-hugs and baby-kisses) very well.

But she also talks about how much she enjoys her job. I enjoy my job, too. And so that is why for me, being a working mom is easier than being a stay-at-home mom, despite the challenges. If it were harder --if the enjoyment I got out of the job wasn't worth the challenges I faced in it -- then I would stay at home.

I have no personal experience aside from maternity leave, but presumably, it's the same for stay-at-home moms, no? A commenter on the Babble article stated:

I've been both a SAHM [stay-at-home mom] and a WOHM [work-outside-the-home mom] at different points in my life, and I have to admit that for me personally there is less stress as a SAHM because despite all my children's craziness, I madly, deeply and passionately love them and no matter how mad I get, my love for them covers all. Can't say the same for colleagues and bosses!

Exactly.

So, can we please quit with the whole "who has it harder" discussion? Forget stay-at-home vs. working moms. Being an adult is hard. Period.

I can envy my husband, who never seems to struggle with guilt because he works, and say that working dads have it easier than working moms. But I know he feels an inherent drive to be the primary financial provider for our family, even though he doesn't have to be. I don't feel that same drive.

He might envy his co-workers with stay-at-home wives, for whom going on a business trip simply entails a quick phone call home to say, "Hey, I need to travel next week," rather than the complicated coordination of travel schedules and daycare pickups and freezer meals that we have to go through whenever either of us has to go out of town. But surely he doesn't carry the same pressure that they do of knowing that they're just one silly mistake away from losing their family's entire income.

And while parents will often roll their eyes or smile knowingly to themselves when a childless person complains about how difficult his/her life is, the truth is, childless people have their own challenges. About five years ago, I went to a big meeting for my entire team at work. We were being asked to travel more and more, and some people who had joined the team when it was a low-travel job were not happy about it. One of them stood up and said, "I have three small kids, so it's hard for me to travel on short notice. I think that people who don't have family commitments like that should take on more of the travel burden." Another co-worker, a brilliant single woman with a lot more guts than me, replied angrily, "How dare you? I might not have kids, but I do have other things in my life that are just as important to me as your kids are to you. I don't want travel to take me away from those things, any more than you do."

(As an aside, that woman has been promoted multiple times over the last few years. The dad no longer works at the company.)

Yes, these days, I'm often up late at night blogging or exercising or sewing or pursuing other hobbies, because that's the only time I get to myself. Whereas before kids, I could fill my evenings and weekends with coaching/refereeing high school lacrosse and captaining my local Team in Training triathlon team and training for an Ironman triathlon myself and playing ice hockey and soccer, all on top of a job that required extensive travel, and still get to bed at a reasonable hour (or sleep in if I didn't). But I had to do all that to feel fulfilled, to feel like I was doing something with my life. Now I feel like I'm doing something with my life when Noob wakes up at 6 AM and I snuggle in bed with him and fall back asleep while he nurses. Or when Littles gets home from school and we go up to the playroom and dance like fools to kids' music before dinner.

So who has it harder? Who cares. Why can't we just celebrate the joys and vent about the stresses of our jobs -- inside or outside the home -- without comparing to the joys or stresses of other people's jobs?