Momservation: “I told my husband I can either be good in the kitchen or good in the bedroom. We eat out a lot.” Cathy, mom of three, expert delegator.

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It is time once again to piss and moan about not getting the respect I deserve as WAHM (work-at-home-mom). This time though I’m in good company.

Yesterday, California First Lady Maria Shriver released The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything igniting a national conversation on women’s expanding multifaceted roles altering the American landscape.

Ladies, that’s you, me and all the other women at Target hiding the Inquirer and king size pack of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups under cleaning supplies in our carts.

So what exactly did this year-long study conclude? Basically, what we already knew – we women get no respect.

We are expected to be happy that we are now working in record numbers despite still averaging 23 cents less on the dollar in equal pay for equal work. That we are 2/3 of the primary and co-breadwinners but we are still primarily responsible for childcare and eldercare.

Nobody seems to think it’s a relevant problem that working women are still expected as mothers to keep children out of daycare as much as possible while they race home to cook, clean, and care for children and home. And even though fathers want to be involved in ways they didn’t know to be decades ago, men are not looked down upon with equal disdain for advancing their career over time with their families.

When I heard Shriver report on Monday’s “Today” show how women “say they feel increasingly isolated, invisible, stressed and misunderstood,” I immediately recognized my voice.

As a WAHM, this is just a small sample of quandary questions that makes me feel isolated, invisible, stressed and misunderstood:

• Before I get to work should I go work out or do I answer the emails over-flowing my inbox?
• Should I take care of the dishes in the sink left by my kids getting ready for school or start the article I didn’t get to yesterday because everyone was out of socks and underwear?
• Do I stop to eat something and read the headlines in the paper for a freelance idea or do I use those few minutes to run to the store to get something for dinner?
• Do I have time to take a shower before I get the kids from school or should I try to make that deadline because once the kids get home there’s no opportunity to work?
• I know today is Marketing Monday and I really need to work on expanding my readership, but they really need me to drive on the school field trip because all the other “working moms” are unavailable.

Depending on how I answer these questions I can have a productive day as a freelance writer or as a SAHM. But rarely is it ever both.  

To further illustrate why this tough balance is still underappreciated we now go to Matt Lauer from “Today” who asked Shriver, “Why (are women feeling isolated, invisible, stressed and misunderstood)? Because they are more and more outside the home…being valued for their contribution.”

And in perfect response to why he still just didn’t get it, Shriver pointedly said, “A lot of women feel they AREN’T being valued for their contributions.”

To which Lauer responded STILL not getting it, “I’m not talking financially.”

Neither am I. To the outside world I am a mother straddling working and being at home. Is she really working? Is she really taking care of the kids and home? If she’s at home, why isn’t the house spotless, cupboards stocked, meals homemade? Why isn’t she on PTA, the team mom, the soccer chauffer or organizing fundraisers?

If she’s working why does she have time to volunteer in the classroom, drive on field trips, go to the gym? What is she doing when she’s home all day? Why does it bother her to receive social phone calls and chain emails if she’s at the computer anyway? What does she have to show for it? Is she making enough to support a family?

What I love about The Shriver Report is that it’s a spotlight illuminating that I am a woman stretched at all ends and that I deserve respect for my effort. I am trying to have a successful career while trying to be a good wife and mother. And I just want the respect for juggling and balancing this Herculean task that I deserve.

So when the PTA moms don’t understand why I don’t have time to chair a committee and my husband is frustrated that the house is a mess and there’s no dinner planned, I say, “Read The Shriver Report and get back to me.”

And to Matt Lauer I say, “Who put those clean sheets on your bed that you woke up in this morning, picked up your suit from the cleaners you wore to work and who got your kids ready for school while you were interviewing Maria Shriver? Did you value that contribution to your day today?”

Get back to me Matt after you read The Shriver Report cover to cover.