Is This Working?

I'm a stay-at-home mom and have been for the past decade. Periodically, though, my husband and I (mainly me) reassess this set-up. I was never one of those girls growing up who dreamed of someday being a SAHM, cooking and housekeeping and playing with toddlers. This wasn't the plan. And when I first became a mom thirteen years ago, I was happily working at a job I loved and had no intention of leaving. I saw myself growing in my field and balancing my career and motherhood. Back then, that worked. I had a reasonable boss and a great support team that included reliable childcare (my dad).

But life changes. Nothing lasts forever. My husband decided to move the family back to Ukraine, so I had to leave my job. When we moved back to America, going back to that same work just wasn't an option. Things had changed too much. The group I had worked for had rearranged itself, was no longer run by the same person, and there was only room for me to work with them sporadically. So I went back to work somewhere else, with a different supervisor and different childcare.

But life changes. Nothing lasts forever. I got sick, so I had to leave my job. Basically, in a nutshell, I used up all my sick leave and was told after another three day hospital stay I could resign or be fired. And that's how I became a stay-at-home mom.

Since then, at least once a year, I wonder if this is what I should be doing with my life. There are things I miss about working. There is a certain feeling of worth that comes from earning a paycheck and being seen as a professional by others. As much as I tell myself I shouldn't care what other people think of me, I'm human and I do like when people think well of me. I liked the respect I had earned in the past and valued the reputation I had been building up. I also missed the camaraderie of coworkers. While I am definitely not a group project kind of girl, I do like having friends. Again, I'm human. One of the hardest things about being a SAHM is the solitude (just Google SAHM and you will find a gagillion articles and blogs about being lonely). I also honestly miss the work. I liked what I used to do. It was fun for me. It was what I went to college to do. It was a meaningful use of my time and skills.

So here we are ten years later and I am again looking at my life now, my family right now, and wondering if being a SAHM is still the best thing for the five of us. As much as I love sharing nap time with my toddler, I wonder if I should be back out there being a professional again . . . and if there is even room for me out there still. Have I been gone too long? Experience tells me going back would be hard, but I also know hard is not impossible. Where there's a will there's a way. But is that what I should do? Going beyond the can, is there a must? Does my family need the income? Do I need all the other benefits of working?

A large part of my days now.

And can my family afford to have me working? The reality is work costs. It means getting childcare set up and figuring out solutions for days off school, both the planned and unplanned ones. It means added transportation and wardrobe costs. And it means someone else is spending time with my kids. I know when I was a working mom, I was still The Mom and still had quality time with my daughters, but it was not the same as what I have gotten to experience as a SAHM being the one to get them ready in the morning, greet them when they come home from school, drive them everywhere, sit on the couch with them when they are sick, play board games with them on snow days, etc. Is that something I can give up now? How much do my kids need specifically me and is it ego answering or reality? Am I just taking the easy way out, equating hard with impossible, or am I really thinking about what is best for all five of us?

For now, the answer is I should continue to be a SAHM. There are pros and cons, challenges and rewards either way, but when everything is added up, my kids need me more than I need to work. I'm not in anyway suggesting working moms aren't serving their kids. Just to be clear, I fully believe that working moms are moms just as equally as SAHMs. They love their kids and provide for them in a plethora of ways. They do what is best for their specific families. This post is about my decision for my family alone, and when I look back at the past couple months, I know I would have been called away from any job I had enough times to risk losing it. I know I would have had to choose between taking care of my kids when they needed extra help and putting my all into a job (as Ron Swanson would say, I would be half-assing two things instead of whole-assing one). In one day alone I had medical issues for all three girls requiring three different doctors. The morning chats have become increasingly serious and the afternoons have become increasingly busy. Adding up my continued health issues which on their own limit what I can do in a given day plus my daughters' physical and mental health requirements, I cannot say that going back to work would be best for us. My bank account may disagree, the well-meaning people who keep telling me their ideas for me going back to work may disagree, and the people who view my lifestyle as less-than may disagree, but at the end of the day the priority is my family's health and well being. So, for now, I will keep things as they are. I will continue to volunteer knowing that I can get my experience doing what I used to get paid for but with the option of canceling if my kids need me or my health turns bad. It may not be as much as other moms or may seem on the surface like I do very little, but the core of my work will just have to be hidden a little while longer.

My bosses ... for now.

Maybe next year will be different. After all, life changes. Nothing lasts forever.

"Wow! Our bathroom looks great! Who cleaned it?"

The fairies. Ugh. I wish. I did!!! And why are they acting so shocked? It isn't as if I never clean bathrooms. To be fair, I do clean bathrooms. Regularly. In this case, the shock was because the girls had trashed their bathroom so badly it needed emergency services while they were at school. Lotion on the floor and mirrors, toothpaste all over the sink, nothing where it should be, etc.

Messy desks, but creative kids.

Messes like that are why our home is never 100% in order. And we have messes like that because - ready for a shock? - we have kids! Not only do we have kids, but we have kids who play. I remember explaining this to my husband one day when he was getting cranky about their desks being all kinds of crazy looking and super cluttered. He loves having creative kids who come up with all sorts of original games and projects on their own. The side effect of that is mess. I leave them alone to play and they make messes. Cause and effect.

But I'm a stay-at-home-mom, right? I should be cleaning all day while they are at work and school, right? Yeah . . . no. I mean, I do, but I don't. Here's the reality of being a human today: I have long to-do lists. And I have limits, so one mess gets dealt with while another gets ignored.

Here's a secret - this is true for pretty much ALL moms. Really. I used to feel bad about my cluttered house and how bad it could get on its worst days. Then I talked to my friends. We all have messy house days. We all frantically tidy up before people come over. Even when my best friend is coming over, the one I know won't judge me for my mess, I still hide the bras drying on the door knobs. Do I know she has stacks of laundry waiting to be put away hidden in her house, too? Yup. But we all do it. Every single one of my mom friends has at least one room in her house she considers off limits to guests because that is the "dump everything and close the door" room. Every one has a secret stash of junk stuffed in a drawer or under a couch or chair just hoping no guest finds it. No matter how polished and perfect things look the day you show up, know that every mom is human and therefore spent the last fifteen minutes running around like a chicken with her head cut off frantically stuffing, dusting, vacuuming, and hiding junk.

We all do it because we all have kids making messes and demanding our time and attention. We all have kids who want us to watch them jump off the couch, help them with their homework, feed them, hug them, remind them to brush their teeth (twenty times), tuck them in (thirty times), find their socks, pack their lunches, snuggle on the couch, listen to how their day was, drive them to school, repair their ripped sock alien's antennae (again), etc. So relax. No one is Donna Reed in real life these days and only people who have housekeepers and nannies have homes that are always tidy. Embrace the clutter and know you are not alone.

“Should I feel bad about that?”

Every now and then people tell me to not feel guilty about something or “there’s no shame in that,” and I can’t help looking at them like they’re a bit off because, honestly, I never thought of feeling guilty or ashamed of that part of my life. Trust me, there is plenty I don’t like about myself. I am my harshest critic. But there is also plenty I really don’t worry about, and I wonder why other people do. Here are a few things I don’t think I should feel bad about, and I don’t think any other person should, whether they are happy walrus moms or happy walruses without children or just happy whatevers:

1. Not being the size of a walrus. I am skinny. Undoubtedly.  My BMI is right above underweight. There is no denying I am un-walruslike when it comes to blubber. I simply have none. That’s why I wear multiple sweaters and shiver a lot. That is also why random strangers call me “skinny bitch” which I think is really rude. If anyone should be ashamed, it is them. Rude behavior is bad. Being skinny is not. I used to work with a woman who literally pinched me on a regular basis and would ask me if I had eaten. I was always tempted to pinch her back, but I didn’t BECAUSE THAT IS RUDE. If she is obsessed with my weight, that is her issue, not mine. I don’t feel guilty about being thinner than her.
   
2. Living in an apartment. We own a house, so this one is weird. When we moved, we didn’t have a ton of time and didn’t know how permanent our move would be. Renting is the best option. And I really don’t see a problem with it for us or other families like ours, yet, for some reason, people have said to me when I tell them we live in an apartment, “ohhhh, there’s no shame in that.” Huh? Who feels shame? I like our apartment. It is a heck of a lot easier to maintain than a house. I don’t have to do yard work for one thing, but the girls get a sweet playground and tons of kids to play with. And it fits our budget. Why would I feel ashamed that we made the best decision for our family considering our current circumstances? A couple years ago, buying a house seemed like the best choice. Now renting an apartment does. No shame. People are weird.
   
3. Having two kids. It seems like no matter what number of children a person has, there will always be someone who thinks a different number would be better. For people who know our family and know the challenges we have faced over the last few years, this has never been a question. However, there are still people who do ask me about it and ask why I didn’t welcome more lives into our family. This is a personal issue and really people should back off. Do I feel bad that I didn’t have more? No. I know why we have two and that is all that matters.
   
4. Sewing and cooking and being a stay-at-home-mom. Really, people? You want me to feel guilty about cooking dinner now? Blarg. I was raised by a couple of feminists, so the thought of being anything other than a feminist is just super foreign to me. When people tell me I am anti-feminist and ask me if I feel bad about setting a bad example for my daughters by being "a little wifey", I don’t feel bad for me, but I do feel bad for them. And I kind of want to punch them. But I don’t. Because that would be rude. If you have never watched the series Makers on PBS, I recommend it. It shows the history of the feminist movement in an interesting way including the choices women now face between full time work and being a stay-at-home-mom. Being a stay-at-home-mom is a choice.  It doesn’t mean rejecting female education, opportunity, employment, or any other form of equality. I sew because I enjoy it. I cook because it is the most cost effective way to get food into my children. I am a stay-at-home-mom because I am raising my children and for our family having me home is the best way to get that job done. And I like it. My daughters know and understand all that. So to the people who look at me with their judgey eyes,  I look right back with my confident eyes. I know all the reasons I am here, and I stand firmly behind my choice and do not feel bad. Plus I have awesome kids who eat salads. So pht. (OK, so that last part was a little rude.)
   

The sad truth is that no matter what kinds of walruses we are, there will always be someone who thinks we should be a seagull. What I try to teach my girls is to be confident in their decisions. No one else will know all the details that go into their decision making processes. People just see the end results. The girls need to stand by their choices and not feel they have to explain them to others or be ashamed of who they are, where they live, how many kids they do or do not have, or how they spend their time (as long as they aren’t breaking any laws or being rude going around pinching skinny people). They will much happier if they can stand up and say, “this is me and I’m ok with that.” As the saying goes, “the best accessory is confidence.”

“Are you having fun, Mom? Are the people being nice?”

I love when the tables turn and my girls pat my hand and ask me how my day was. They are so fascinated that I have a life sometimes. Since we moved states, that table turning has been spinning so much we have equalized a bit which is nice. It gives me some credibility when I tell them to get out there and make friends if they see that I have to do the same. For them, getting out there means school and sports. For me, it means chatting with the other parents at their schools and sports. And volunteering.

I was raised to see volunteering as something we just do. Like eating or sleeping or brushing our teeth. If I can help, I should simply because that is the decent human thing to do. All of the grown-ups I knew, whether they were working full-time jobs or not, whether they got recognition for their service or not, simply volunteered when they could. It was never a big deal, never about pressure or for show. As a mom, though, I see that not everyone else views it that way. And it is a bit of a crazy world.

When I was a working mom, I felt a TON of pressure to volunteer more. I felt I had to prove I was still an involved parent. Who I thought I had to prove this to, I’m not sure. Maybe the random haters who would talk loudly at the other tables in the lunch room about “the trouble with parents these days is that they work too much and leave their kids to be raised by strangers” (even though it was my father who was doing the bulk of the daycare, so I really should have shrugged that off)? Maybe it was the other parents at the preschool who would brag about knowing all the teachers on a first name basis (even though my mom was a teacher there so technically I knew them all, too, and should have shrugged that one off as well)? Who knows. But I felt like I had to be doing more. Which was dumb. All I had to be doing was loving my kids and taking care of them. Screw what the other parents thought about me.

As a SAHM, I know I could feel pressure to out perform the other SAHMs, but I’m not going to. I’ve grown-up a bit. Sure, I still care what people think of me. I just don’t let it totally rule me (and never totally did . . . I did say no to a lot of volunteering even as a working mom – I just felt bad about it then and don’t feel bad about it now). I am meeting new groups of moms these days and keep getting the same advice: don’t over-volunteer. Great advice. But my mom already gave me that advice many years ago which is why even when I did feel pressured to do so, I didn’t give in. My mom said pick one or two areas to volunteer in and stick to those. Being helpful means not being exhausted or resentful. It means not burning the candle at both ends. 

my mom's advice, but in Ron Swanson's words (from here)

And when I feel I have too much on my plate or my health is bad or my back hurts too much, IT IS OK TO SAY NO. Taking care of my health and my family comes first. If I don’t do that, then someone else would have to. I smile at the moms who tell me not to over-volunteer, then listen to them tell me how over-involved they are. I know they are talking more to themselves than to me. They don’t know me, so they don’t know that I will certainly NOT be leading a garden club ever nor will I ever take over as treasurer of anything simply because I feel like I ought to. I don’t think I owe it to the working mothers to “pick up their slack” by volunteering twice as much (that just insults working mothers who I really don’t think need extra insults). I don’t think I need to have something scheduled for every day. I don’t think it is my duty to put in community service hours because I am not bringing in a paycheck. Nope.

my NO face....it gets used plenty

I volunteer when an opportunity comes up that I think fits me. Something I think I can do well. Like teaching catechism classes. Or working at the book fair. Or being a hall monitor. And recently I have been volunteering to meet new people and make new friends here in our new state.  If they are going to use my volunteerism as a yardstick, however, for my goodness as a mom, I’ll pass. I think we should all be old enough now to stop judging each other like that and just be moms together, regardless of how many volunteer hours we’re logging. Can’t we just focus on what really matters? Who’s bringing the coffee to the next meeting?!?!?!

"What DO you do?"

Another weekend, another conversation with a friend about “so what DO you do?” I know the internet is flooded with blogs about moms and dads defining what they do all day to people who think we just watch soap operas, but some how I still get asked that. A lot.  I usually just grin. I know people aren’t trying to be mean or judge my choices. They are just curious. Usually the people asking aren’t parents. Usually they are my husband’s young female coworkers (who are all really sweet, by the way). I wonder what THEY do all day, too. I pester my husband with questions about his day all the time, so it is only fair that people ask me about mine. Plus, I’ve been on both sides of the fence. I have been a working mom and a stay-at-home mom. I know both lifestyles have pros and cons. What works for our family right now is not right for everyone else, and that’s fine with me. That being said, here, for the record, is my day (with a little help from C3PO):

I wake up when Mr. Me gets up to get ready for work. I don’t get up, too, though. Ha. I stopped getting up and making him coffee and breakfast and seeing him off to work years ago. He leaves too stinking early. I just open one eye then stretch out to enjoy getting the whole bed to myself unless the kids are already there until my alarm goes off. Then the real work starts. I get the lunches packed and the girls dressed and listen to endless stories from one and endless anxiety-talk-me-down-pleas from the other for an hour all while being so glad I don’t have to get myself showered and made-up any more. How did I do this when I had to get myself to work, too? Oh, yeah. I was a frazzled mess then, too. Moms just seem to get stuff done. We’re awesome, aren’t we? Then I drive them to school and come home to face the litter box.

And laundry. And vacuuming. And all the other housework. When I worked outside my home, I had fewer cats, the laundry got done in the middle of the night, and the house simply was less messy because no one was home to mess it up. Because the girls and I are home instead of at work or daycare, we make more messes therefore there is more housework for me. See how that works?

Also, I sew. Domestic, right? I chat with my friends. I rest when my headaches are really bad or when my back is really bad. I keep track of the family finances. I text my husband. I watch the news.

Then when school is over, I pick up the girls and do all the things a nanny would get paid to do (one of the things that used to annoy me about judgey people asking me what I do). I feed them, help them with their homework, take them to hockey, gymnastics, or whatever else it is they have going on. We go to the playground. We play Monopoly. We do science experiments. We talk about life, psychology, current events, philosophy, literary criticism, politics (ok, not so much politics, but some day). We cook dinner together, and I try to convince the younger one to eat something other than noodles and ketchup (rarely succeeding). Then baths, stories, and bedtime. Then I sit back, watch tv or read, or just chat with my husband until we fall asleep.

It all seems totally normal and not extraordinary to me, but I understand how to someone else it is a different sort of life. One of my husband’s friends asked me how I make friends if I am always with the girls which just proves how foreign my normal life can be to someone. Through all that, I am interacting with other moms and nannies and babysitters and dads and adults. We are all hanging out in the same places on a regular basis and get to know each other and friendships form. We aren’t hanging out in bars sipping martinis after work, but we do have standing dates at the ice house sipping hot cocoa each week.

It might not sound like fun to everyone, but it works for me and my family. As long as people don’t follow up the “what do you do” question with some annoying statement such as, “you know, it isn’t healthy to have the girls be your whole world,” or, “don’t you think that sets a bad example for your daughters, you know, by you not being ambitious,” or some other ignorant, judgmental quip about me wasting my potential or being anti-feminist, I’m fine with the question. Ask away.