Is this normal for Mommy Judgements?

LONG story short when I had my first child I swapped my 80-hour a week, high-travel “big name” management consulting employer to stay at home. A major geographic move, another child later we found ourselves in a mid-sized city where a lot of the transplants seem to be on the run from pretty serious problems and or not playing with a full deck.When it was time for me to go back to work, I took long-term “consulting” gigs (6-18 months) through staffing agencies. Usually I’m working very closely with VPs & above to implement some high-viability project, then once I get that initiative stable, the job is done. Im not fired but that how these projects are structured. There isn’t enough work for it to make sense for a company to keep me on staff permanently.In addition, I have intellectual property that I develop on my own time, which is beginning to get some teeth. I also have a blog that brings in $ (I keep all of that to myself... you’ll see why below) but I’m working to get to a place where that can be my sole focus.With the exception of when I had to step away for almost a year to address a very serious health issue, my longest “break” from these projects has been about 4 weeks. And that I usually need that time to recuperate, because the end of the projects tend to be crazy hours for a week or 2.So Wednesday was my last day at my old gig, and I left work early and picked my kids up at school.I was approached three different times in 30 minutes at that school, by moms he wanted to know why I wasn’t at work, what had happened with X, Y, Z old clients, why didn’t they keep me on staff permanently, why can’t I keep a job? Did I know a restaurant was hiring wait staff?To note: you can see where I’ve worked & what I’ve done on LinkedIn.On top of everything else I do, I sit on a nonprofit board that I’m very proud of, as well as in 2 1/2 days of “not working”, I interviewed with seven prospective clients for new projects.The school is VERY income-diverse. So it’s not that.TLDR: I work as a consultant, which a lot of other moms at the school don’t seem to understand, and they’re judging my family and me very harshly for that. I’m concerned it could impact the way my children are treated.How do I set the story straight and minimize the impact these judgements have on my kids? I don’t even feel that I owe These people an explanation, because my husband and I take care of our kids without assistance from others. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2ZQEvIO